WC Preview Part 3 - Three more world finalists! A nine dart legend! The future of the sport?

Gary Anderson (1/16) v Jeff Smith or Luke Humphries (10/1, Smith 4/7, Humphries 13/8 to advance)

Anderson holds set on throw - 88.40%
Smith holds set on throw - 19.84% (no data on Humphries)

If you had said to me at the start of the year that Gary Anderson would only make one major quarter final, I'd probably have thought for a split second "well, he's not playing the European Tour, so that's one less chance" before laughing uncontrollably. But that's exactly what has happened, and while the Grand Prix withdrawal was out of his control, you'd still think he could have done better than that. A shock loss to Paul Hogan did for him in the UK Open, while Daryl Gurney's upsurge in form was to be his undoing in the Matchplay. If anything, Mickey Mansell knocking him out of the first round of the Players Championship Finals was more of a surprise than the loss to Hogan, I think most people would agree that if Hogan was to have switched a couple of years ago he'd have been more productive than Mansell's been. He did reach the semi finals of the Grand Slam, losing by the odd leg in 31 to Peter Wright, and his floor form has generally been pretty solid, claiming three titles and reaching three more finals before switching off the floor circuit completely as the World Series exbo tour kicked off. He might be a little rusty, but should have a couple of rounds to dust things off, you'd think.

That said, the preliminary qualifier he'll play won't be the easiest. Looking at Jeff Smith first, everyone should know who he is from his BDO exploits, as the Silencer makes his PDC worlds debut. The Lakeside finalist in 2016 (losing to Waites) and semi finalist from the year before (losing to Mitchell) has played some PDC before, obviously most recently in the 2016 Grand Slam where he got out of his group by edging Simon Whitlock in the final game and taking five legs off Phil Taylor in the first knockout round, but he did also have a brief punt in 2012, winning through Q-School but not really being able to commit to the tour properly, limiting himself to a small number of floor events and playing in the World Cup with John Part. This season in the BDO he didn't qualify for Lakeside and didn't have an exemption either, so the PDC snapped him up, but he did take the recent World Cup and was able to make the last 16 of the World Trophy.

Luke Humphries we know less about, but he's a very highly rated youth player who has managed to win five of the twenty Development Tour events to win that order of merit quite comfortably, which has given him entry to the worlds and, for next year, a tour card to play the senior circuit properly. He's also been playing the Challenge Tour, where he managed to win the twelfth event, beating amongst others, former world youth champion James Hubbard and multi-time major player Andy Smith in the final. He was close to getting what could have been critical stage experience in the world youth himself, but the number 2 seed lost out to Dimitri van den Bergh in a deciding leg where reports say he had a dart to win it.

The prelim is your typical youth versus experience matchup. Humphries has gained a bunch of match experience this season and done very well in it, but this is a whole different setup to what he will have been used to, while Smith has been playing at a solid level for quite some time and will be used to the big stage environment. I doubt Humphries will be intimidated, none of the kids these days seem to be, but it may take him a short while to get acclimatised, by which stage he could already be a set down and in a race to two, that could already be too much ground to make up. I'm not sure either can really challenge Anderson, but this isn't an auto-win by any stretch of the imagination and either qualifier taking a set wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Anderson has a slow start.

Mark Webster (2/5) v Paul Lim or Kai Fan Leung (29/10, Lim 1/2, Leung 2/1 to advance)

No data available for set winning chances

It seems quite some time ago that Mark Webster has truly been in form, but he always seems to turn up to this event as he looks to make a third straight last sixteen appearance. He kicked off the season pretty well, cashing five of the six UK Open qualifiers, and in the main event was able to successfully navigate an awful round before the money draw in Stephen Bunting, before seeing off Ross Twell in a match that went the distance, before losing comprehensively to Daryl Gurney in the last 32. He'd follow that up less than a month later with his only quarter final of the season, mainly due to a favourable draw I think as he got whitewashed by Chisnall once he got there, and the following month he had his only notable run in Europe, edging out James Wade to make the Sunday before a heavy defeat to Jelle Klaasen. Only two more European runs would follow, both first round defeats to James Richardson and Max Hopp, his floor form was nothing to write home about, but he did at least help Gerwyn Price get Wales to the World Cup final, which got him into the Grand Slam, falling at the group stage, and was able to play Dublin as an alternate, but on very short notice he lost to Richard North in the opening round. His only other major appearance saw him lose in the opening round of the Players Championship Finals to Justin Pipe, so his form isn't great and with him defending a few quid he needs this win to help stay around the top 32.

Lim needs no introduction, with this appearance taking him to double figures in world championship appearances on each side of the divide, and he's here having won the south/west Asia qualifier. Still playing high quality soft tip, winning an event in France this year, he's also keeping his eye in on steel tip, being part of the World Cup team that knocked out Peter Wright and Gary Anderson in the opening round, then whitewashing Alcinas in round two, and it needed a 120+ average (over five legs) from Kim Huybrechts to stop him taking them further. He missed last year's event, and the previous year failed to come through a preliminary, losing a deciding set to Alexsander Oreshkin.

Leung is an interesting one - his dartsdatabase record is very limited, with nothing prior to this season's Q-School, where he didn't do much except on the final day, reaching the last 32, losing 5-0 to Jimmy Hendriks but beating former BDO world youth winner Colin Roelofs to get there. He did stick around for the UK Open qualifiers, and did OK - he qualified at least with three cashes, one reaching the last 32, and in those qualifiers he beat some names you may know - Royden Lam, Jamie Lewis, Ronnie Baxter, Madars Razma, Ronny Huybrechts (6-0), while in the event proper he lost 6-1 to Jermaine Wattimena in the opening round. He won the opposite Asian qualifier to Lim, and has been on stage previously this year teaming with Royden Lam in the World Cup as Hong Kong lost to Russia in the first round.

This prelim's tough to call but you've got to fancy Lim just based on experience if nothing else - while it seems like Leung is new to the scene, he's actually as old as I am and I can remember seeing Lim's nine darter. It's possible Leung may be overawed by the occasion and you have to think there's a non-zero chance that he sees Lim as someone he respects, maybe too much. Webster's form is quite concerning, but I think he should just scrape through this one, although him going out wouldn't be a surprise if his opponent can score enough to limit the amount of shots at double he has.

WC Preview Part 2 - Snakes biting ferrets

Peter Wright (1/20) v Diogo Portela (22/1)

Wright holds set on throw - 62.71%
Portela holds set on throw - 57.86%

Before I talk about Wright, let me set off a huge sample size klaxon - Portela's stats are off seven legs in Hildesheim where he's played quite well. If you smash that Portela line based on the previous paragraph, you're insane.

What a season for Peter Wright. Finally getting the major title he's been after, he should have added a second shortly after, only to miss a bunch of match darts in the Premier League final. Since that point I don't think he's been quite the same, but has still managed to grind out an excellent season - two other major finals, not really being able to stay close to Taylor at all in Blackpool, but being within touching distance of van Gerwen for long spells, getting as far as 10-10 before the Dutchman pulled away, after a great 16-15 win over Gary Anderson earlier in the day. On the floor he's managed to win nine events including five on the European Tour, making him one of the few players to have reached double figures in tournament victories for a calendar year, the only real disappointments being not sneaking past Mensur Suljovic in Dublin where the draw had opened up beautifully, playing well against Gurney in the European Tour quarters but not getting the rub needed, and a shocking loss against Steve Hine in the first round of the Players Championship.

Portela's a Brazilian thrower based in London, who won the South American qualifier, which amounted to a Brazilian qualifier for all intents and purposes, and makes it into round one based on Order of Merit earnings. He tried to win a tour card at the start of the year, and while he didn't do so, a last sixteen run on the final day put him up enough in the rankings to allow him to try to qualify for European Tour events and play a few of the Pro Tour events. His win in Hildesheim was over Martin Schindler so potentially hostile crowds won't worry him too much, and he's also played in the World Cup where his side edged past two unknown Swiss players before Brazil got smashed by Germany, Portela winning his side's only leg over Max Hopp. His best run on the Pro Tour is his last event, where he beat Jelle Klaasen, Aden Kirk and Vincent van der Voort before going out to an in-form Ron Meulenkamp, so he is at least trending in the right direction.

The huge question is the gallstones issue for Wright. The line for him winning the title has not moved, so one has to assume that he will be playing, and if he does, he'd really need to be in horrible condition not to come through this one. This is a huge step up in quality for someone with eleven first round exits this season at Pro Tour level. While some of those are bad draws, he's also losing to the likes of Mickey Mansell, Jon Worsley, Terry Roach, Stuart Kellett and Wayne Jones. That's not good and isn't going to hack it against Wright in any sort of condition to step up on the oche, and probably won't hack it against a virtually retired Terry Jenkins, who I believe would be the first alternate. Jamie Caven as a second alternate however...

Jonny Clayton (11/17) v Kenny Neyens or Jamie Lewis (13/8 - Neyens 23/10, Lewis 4/11 to advance)

Clayton holds set on throw - 77.68% v Neyens, 68.54% v Lewis
Neyens holds set on throw - 40.11% v Lewis, 41.55% v Clayton
Lewis holds set on throw - 76.34% v Neyens, 58.90% v Clayton

It's been quite the season for the Ferret, who's improved a ton from one of the last players in on the Pro Tour rankings last year, where he shocked Gerwyn Price before losing to Ian White. Clayton had an unimpressive start to the year, only making the UK Open on the last day, but he came through to the money rounds before losing to Jelle Klaasen, but picked things up in the next couple of months - going on a great run of deep excursions on the Pro Tour and qualifying for multiple European events, which gave him a platform to work on. He'd need to wait until after the summer break to start doing real damage though - from nowhere, he won the final Pro Tour event, beating James Wilson in the final and denying Gerwyn Price a revenge win in Göttingen, a result that got him to Hasselt where he got a favourable draw in Dimitri van den Bergh, and was able to stay close with Peter Wright until right at the death. Clearly confident, in the Players Championship Finals he'd take the next step, beating de Graaf, Price (again), Bunting, Beaton and Cross before running out of steam against van Gerwen in the final. Still, forty grand richer and with enough money to be seeded for this, he's got a chance to follow up last year's round of 32 appearance.

Neyens is a name that seems to have been around for a while, but while he first appeared on people's radars three years ago when losing to Wattimena in the final of the qualifier he won to be here, he's still young enough to show up in the World Youth Championship, where he ended Max Hopp's chances of making it here before being crushed by Josh Payne. It was the Central European qualifier he won, beating Davy van Baelen (he of Lakeside last year) and Davyd Venken amongst others. He's won a Development Tour event this year and hit a nine as well, and did qualify for one European Tour event where he lost to Stephen Bunting.

Lewis was seeded last year and is looking to make it to face Peter Wright in round two for the second year running, hopefully with better results as that was quite a steamrollering. Lewis needed to get through the PDPA qualifier after a very ordinary season, his best results coming early on with a good UK Open qualifier run putting him one round off the money to start, but he drew Paul Hogan and probably isn't even in the top three of most notable names that Hogan beat in that tournament. Since then he's not done enough to make any major events, the closest he probably came was in Europe, where four qualifications was OK, and he got through day 1 fine on each occasion, but lost to Suljovic, Cullen, Cross and Smith - two of them deciding legs. Elsewhere on the floor he's gone out first round on fourteen out of twenty-two occasions, which really isn't good enough for a player of his calibre.

We lack a great deal of information on Neyens, and I think Lewis' experience should see him through this one, albeit maybe not with a bit of a struggle, I can easily see this going three sets. Clayton on current form shouldn't have too much of an issue with either qualifier, but he's not a big favourite. His stats in comparison to Lewis are remarkably similar, albeit Clayton has done his over a much larger sample size, and if I filtered down to the last three months rather than the whole season, there'd probably be more of a gap. It'd also probably be more of a pressure game for Lewis, who's going to need to kick off next season well in order to retain a ranking anywhere near the top 32 he'd like to be at.

WC Preview Part 1 - A world champion! A world master! And then we've got the seeds!

A quick word on the format of these - I'll post up an image detailing each player's season to date. This will have, roughly in order:

- the player's seeding, name and country
- how they've qualified, the current FRH ranking (at the time I pulled them, which was about a week ago, since then there may have been minor changes, particularly among lower ranked players who have probably risen a few spots), their previous appearances (the bracketed number indicates Lakeside appearances) and the best available odds at the time I looked. You'll then have a bunch of results - DNP encompasses a bunch of things, either they didn't enter, didn't qualify, or didn't cash. The coloured bar indicates speed of winning legs as a 100% stacked bar chart - more blue/red = good, more orange/green = not so good. This data comes from all ranked stage standard 501 games this season, from Lakeside onwards. BDO stats are used where available, which includes Lakeside and the World Trophy, PDC is everything after the last worlds. We then have what they did in the worlds last year, the number of legs won/lost in my database and some per turn (note - not per dart multiplied by 3) averages. If it's a qualifier and says DIV/0! then it's because there's no data and I've been lazy and not incorporated error checking.

The writeups will have the best odds available at the time of writing for the match in question, and then a projection of how often a player should hold a set on throw.

I've tried to ensure the information listed is accurate, but make no guarantees - if you're using this for anything serious please check somewhere else to be safe!

Michael van Gerwen (1/41) v Christian Kist (35/1)

van Gerwen holds set on throw - 85.91%
Kist holds set on throw - 23.90%

Our opening game for analysis features two players each of whom have had a season of two halves. Michael van Gerwen, who came into this season as world champion, had a pretty slow start - after qualifying for the UK Open really comfortably, then had to withdraw due to injury, missed a bunch of time for the birth of his kid, was quite ordinary at the Matchplay and got soundly beaten by Phil Taylor, then was on the receiving end of a round one upset in Dublin to John Henderson, which nobody saw coming or thought could happen, not even in the Henderson household. Since then however, he's been more or less untouchable. Winning the last three ranking majors without being seriously troubled at any point outside of Kyle Anderson playing out of his skin in the European Championship semi final and Rob Cross hanging around for a while. He's not played much of the Pro Tour for reasons mentioned above, but has been consistent in Europe, claiming half the titles available for an incredibly impressive season on that circuit. Add in being gifted the Premier League, claiming the World Series of Darts and the Masters, it's been another successful season for Michael, but one where he'll probably think he could have done better.

Kist on the other hand has gone the other way around. Doing well enough on the UK Open qualifier circuit to make the money automatically before losing to Dirk van Duijvenbode, he's rounded up enough money from the various circuits to finally start to get the PDC, making the Matchplay and looking very good in a tight defeat to Gary Anderson in the opening round, possibly the best he's played since moving to the PDC, and also the Grand Prix, where he missed a match dart against eventual finalist Simon Whitlock. Since then however he's had issues with gout, making him for all intents and purposes unable to play - averaging in the sixties against Dekker in the European Championship, a real shame given his impressive performance in that tour, qualifying for ten out of twelve events, and he wasn't much better in the Players Championship Finals, at least managing to win some legs but still finishing under eighty against Simon Whitlock. It seems that every Dutch player has some sort of injury that crops up every year, for Kist it's come at the business end of the season.

Those holding set percentages are based on legs won. Kist has not won many legs since his injury, so that stat is relatively unaffected. As the figures reckon he's around 20/1 shot to be able to hold both of the sets he would have thrown in the first four without injury, it goes without saying that he's drawing more or less dead.

James Wilson (evs) v Krzysztof Ratajski (10/11)

Wilson wins set on throw - 55.04%
Ratajski wins set on throw - 58.46%

Our other match in the first section is one that's a lot more intriguing to analyse. Wilson's just managed to climb into the top 32 at the end of this season, to improve from the previous year where he was the #1 ranked non-seed in the Pro Tour rankings, landing him in a game against Kim Huybrechts where he had little chance. This year he's consolidated well, having a slow start where he only just made the UK Open and, after beating a pub qualifier, lost a decider to Vincent van der Voort to not make the money. On the floor he's done OK in the latter stages of the season, making the last final only to lose out to Jonny Clayton, and getting to another couple of semi finals, as well as making the final session of Gibraltar, getting wins over Kim Huybrechts and Ian White before falling to Daryl Gurney. He made the Matchplay and hung around well with Peter Wright before trailing off to lose 10-8, but didn't make either of the next two, couldn't escape a fairly solid Grand Slam group having won the wildcard qualifier, and then lost a decider to Willie O'Connor in the first round of the Players Championship. The newly titled Lethal Biscuit, if Twitter is to be believed, will be looking for a win here in what is effectively a final, to solidify a top 32 berth.

Ratajski has had quite the season. Only just losing against fellow eastern euro Darius Labanauskas at Lakeside, he opted to play the European Tour. His qualifiers are tough, with only one advancing, but he managed to win it 11 out of 12 times for one of the best attendance records on the European Tour. He's not managed to do a huge amount outside of a great run in Maastricht, where he thrashed Steve Lennon before overcoming two home favourites in Jelle Klaasen and Christian Kist before losing to Peter Wright, but has managed to accumulate a lot of stage experience, which he put to great use in the World Masters. The BDO, in their infinite wisdom, only barred players who have played the main PDC Pro Tour - those who have only played the Challenge and European Tours were eligible, i.e. Ratajski. So he entered and won it, beating Richard Veenstra, Alan Soutar, Glen Durrant, Cameron Menzies and Mark McGeeney - a very good run, which is not reflected in these stats as the BDO won't allow anyone in the UK to watch replays of it to get the relevant information. Oh well.

The figures all look quite close, the eyetests saying that Ratajski is a little bit more solid while Wilson has a bit more explosiveness to fire in the twelve darter if needed. It's hard to say how much the stats will differ if we had World Masters data, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be by that much to really influence things and make Ratajski a solid favourite. The bookies have it evens, and it's hard to look past a fifth set in this one on opening night.

World Championship previews update schedule

Long time no speak - the draw is out, and here's what I intend to do prior to the event starting:

- Fantasy league player costs and scoring will be up some time early next week, will post on Twitter, 2+2 etc once they're finalised, you can enter for free either by posting/PMing on 2+2, reply/DM on Twitter or in the comments here. If anyone has any random tat that they want to ship as prizes then you might be able to win something, but I doubt it, would offer to ship something from ad revenue if I have a big influx of readers from the previews, but as Google haven't approved an adsense account that'd amount to zero.
- Will get one eighth of the draw up per day, likely starting from Tuesday and running through to the next Tuesday, this is conditional on being able to get Google Sheets to do what I want it to do, I've nearly done inputting the relevant data, I just need to format it. If that takes longer than expected then I may do a couple a day to begin with.
- Bets will be up the Wednesday before the event.
- Once we're under way, I'll preview second round matches and onwards as and when they become available to comment on. It may be a bit of a tight turnaround for the third round as I actually have to work on the 27th, but I at least have a bunch of time to get that day ready before looking at the games on the 28th. Bets for the second round onwards will go up as and when the previews do assuming I'm not doing them straight after and there's lines available.

As for the draw itself, which since the last time I talked saw Ted Evetts go straight into round 1 to give himself a chance of retaining his tour card (in relation to that, that's one hell of a price hike by the PDC to enter Q-School), while Brendan Dolan and Jamie Lewis fill up the preliminary rounds, a bit of a change from last year where you got some complete randoms making it through.

The most interesting section by far is the Gurney quarter in that there's no clear favourite - any one of Gurney, Cross or Suljovic has got to fancy it, with Suljovic possibly having the best chance in that Gurney and Cross are in the same half of that quarter, while Klaasen and Smith are big hitters that can match any of these on their day, and there's plenty of wildcards that could play a spoiler role such as Thornton, Ronny Huybrechts, Dekker, Bunting or van den Bergh.

The van Gerwen quarter I think plays itself, I can't see Price or White putting up resistance over a four set match, who van Gerwen would play in a quarter final is somewhat open, with Chisnall and van Barneveld probably being fairly even and Kyle Anderson poking around for good mention, Chisnall not having an easy draw to get up to that stage with Vincent van der Voort being one of the toughest outs in round one and Beaton or O'Connor to follow.

The Wright quarter, assuming the worrying news that came out yesterday isn't of a serious enough nature to prevent him from playing (his odds for the title haven't shifted much, but there's a hell of a lot of variation with some places offering 12's compared to 7's elsewhere), should be there for the taking, there's lots of players who on their day could run him close, but over a longer format probably won't - Lewis is the biggest seed but is under pressure given the enormous amount of money, and his pod features a lot of players such as Reyes, Darren Webster, Whitlock and even the likes of Alcinas or Oreshkin, that might cause him issues. Wright's potential second round opponent is Jonny Clayton which won't be a pushover in the slightest, while a third round against Norris or Huybrechts, assuming Viljanen or Richardson don't upset them which seems perfectly possible, isn't trivial either if they play their best, which is something they don't do anywhere near often enough.

The Anderson quarter seems like a two horse race between him and Taylor. Anderson's first round match isn't the easiest, both Jeff Smith and Luke Humphries have the potential to be dangerous, but Mark Webster in round two seems comfortable enough, and then you'd face whoever comes out of a wide open section involving Cullen, van de Pas, West and Wattimena, all of who seem not unreasonable names to reach the last sixteen but shouldn't have enough to trouble Gary over best of seven sets. Taylor's got Dobey round one, which if Dobey finds his form again, of which there have been some signs, might not be that easy, but should beat Pipe easily enough despite Pipe also getting back towards his best, and then he'd face one of Wade, Brown, King or Lerchbacher, none of which seem like they'd cause him any trouble at all.

Back to dartsdatabase and the spreadsheets we go!

Season done! New season begins!

At least in terms of betting, as I run that starting from the PDC worlds, mainly due to that was when I started tracking things properly so I'll run from there. Have I learned anything this year? Not really, I just got a huge kick in the bollocks in the UK Open which has historically been my best tournament, and with everything else being close to break even, outside of a fairly bad European Championships, I was mostly reliant on a very good European Tour season where I was able to claim over 7 units from around a 33 unit outlay. If I just break even on the UK Open it turns what's a minorly bad year down around 1.5% on ROI to being about 3% up.

So the last tournament is in the books and we now know 69 of the 72 world championship participants, on account of Dimitri van den Bergh claiming the world youth title and not allowing Josh Payne in (as I was saying on Twitter earlier, I wonder if Marko Kantele tried to hedge, but he's now into round 1 outright so I'm guessing that as he didn't, it's fine), and now that Jonny Clayton's got a surprising but well deserved career defining win to get through to the final, and also get seeded in the worlds (albeit running into Peter Wright in round 2), we can start to look forward to tomorrow's draw. Huge congrats to the Ferret, this has unlocked a bunch of things, he's seeded and avoids a possible nightmare draw in round 1, should be in the Slam next year, and has a fair chunk of standard OOM money that he can possibly use to work towards the last 16 for those majors that need that for automatic qualification. Vincent van der Voort is probably fuming at being bumped down to the non-seeds (would be ironic if he drew Clayton), but what can you do.

I'm going to post the FRH rankings down to the top 64 (only saying up/downs for the top 20), so that those who are interested in players lower down get an idea prior to the worlds - when I post my WC previews, I'll be including the relevant mincashes in the writeups, so if you want an idea as to where the differences are, look here - I will highlight in italics players that are not currently qualified for the worlds, whether they can actually qualify is something I'm not fussed about indicating right now other than having a sadface for the Bull:

1 Michael van Gerwen
2 Peter Wright
3 Daryl Gurney
4 Gary Anderson
5 Mensur Suljovic
6 Phil Taylor
7 Simon Whitlock
8 Dave Chisnall
9 Rob Cross (UP 1)
10 Michael Smith (DOWN 1)
11 James Wade (UP 2)
12 Alan Norris (DOWN 1)
13 Raymond van Barneveld (DOWN 1)
14 Gerwyn Price
15 Ian White (UP 2)
16 Benito van de Pas (DOWN 1)
17 Kim Huybrechts (DOWN 1)
18 Jelle Klaasen
19 Joe Cullen
20 Adrian Lewis
21 Darren Webster
22 Stephen Bunting
23 Mervyn King
24 Kyle Anderson
25 Steve Beaton
26 Jonny Clayton
27 Cristo Reyes
28 John Henderson
29 Justin Pipe
30 Robert Thornton
31 Steve West
32 James Wilson
33 Christian Kist
34 Vincent van der Voort
35 Mark Webster
36 Chris Dobey
37 Brendan Dolan
38 Ronny Huybrechts
39 Jermaine Wattimena
40 Robbie Green
41 Jan Dekker
42 Dimitri van den Bergh
43 Richard North
44 Jamie Caven
45 Terry Jenkins
46 Kevin Painter
47 Ron Meulenkamp
48 James Richardson
49 Max Hopp
50 Jamie Lewis
51 Steve Lennon
52 Joe Murnan
53 Zoran Lerchbacher
54 Jeffrey de Graaf
55 Josh Payne
56 Andrew Gilding
57 Willie O'Connor
58 Keegan Brown
59 Devon Petersen
60 Rowby John Rodriguez
61 Peter Jacques
62 Mick McGowan
63 Martin Schindler
64 John Michael

I probably won't have immediate reaction to the draw on here (although keep an eye out on Twitter for short meaningless spurts of nothingness), but definitely keep an eye out for the previews in the next couple of weeks, they rarely disappoint.

Players Championship - Final Session

Happy enough with the Beaton bet. Having the darts and a break 11 legs into a 19 leg match is a position where you'll normally win, but that 12th leg was absolutely key - if your opponent offers you eighteen darts to break you need to take it at this level, at 8-4 and throwing the game is done. This, of course, is what Clayton did to get the critical break. Oh well. Pipe winning was a big shock, neither played great but Pipe held it together at the end. Cross winning over Wade was pretty standard, Cross not being at his steamrolling best, but getting enough legs cleaned up in fifteen which Wade doesn't really have the scoring to break. Dekker put up a fair bit more resistance than was expected, and should fill him with confidence ahead of tomorrow's World Championship draw.

Rob Cross against Jonny Clayton in a best of 21 should be a Cross win, I've got it at 78% Cross to win before a decider compared to 10% for Clayton, with Cross being priced up at 1/6 then I think there might be small value still on Cross, but it's not really enough to go chasing. Michael van Gerwen has just finished and there's no odds yet, but I'm getting Pipe at just over 2% to win - given van Gerwen was 1/25 or there abouts against Dekker, I can't see that there's any sort of value here.

So that leaves a probable final of Cross against van Gerwen. On the stats I have from the start of the year, I have it 67% to van Gerwen before a decider compared to 18% for Cross, so a final line based on that should be around 1/4 van Gerwen and 7/2 Cross (van Gerwen is 1/4 to win the whole event, and lines of 1/25 on van Gerwen to beat Pipe have just come up, so this seems like it should be quite accurate), but if we look at comparisons just on this event, it's a lot, lot closer. Both have obviously won the same amount of legs (32), both of them have the same number of twelve dart legs (9), and the remaining legs won are very similar, with van Gerwen getting 13 legs in five visits and 10 legs in six visits, Cross with one less in each of those two categories where he took more than six visits to kill. Both have lost the same number of legs (16), with just a 30 point difference in the total points scored - while Cross has scored more points, he's had an extra three visits to do so, so his average in losing legs of 94.01 is just beaten out by van Gerwen's 97.51. Based on just this event, it could be a lot closer than the line suggests. I'm not going to suggest to bet on Cross to win, but if you can get a decent price on something like +3.5 legs or perhaps +5.5 legs (thinking that van Gerwen should win the throw, +3.5 covers the situation where he gets just the one break and wins 11-8, taking +4.5 seems horribly pointless) then go for it.

Players Championship final day

A bunch more seeds and name players have dropped out now, having lost Anderson, Wright and Cullen from the top 8 on day one, Suljovic and Chisnall went out yesterday, leaving us with just Cross, Gurney and van Gerwen who the seedings would say should reach this stage. A few surprising names left in, I wouldn't have picked Wade to reach this far, Beaton and Clayton are believable enough I guess but it's still a bit noteworthy to see them get through three games already, Dekker's come through two FRH top 10 players, while Pipe's managed to grind out two last leg wins. Looking at the prices today, we've got one stupidly long odds on match (van Gerwen/Dekker), two where we have a solid favourite (Cross/Wade, Gurney/Pipe), then Beaton against Clayton, which appears somewhat evenly matched. I think there's a bet on here - 0.5u Beaton 11/8. I've put all of the first round into my database now and am working on rounds 2/3 as we speak, but the long and short of it is that neither player is doing that much better than their historical stats speak. Beaton's historical stats are a lot better than Clayton's are - the key difference being that Beaton slots in twelve dart legs a lot more often than Clayton does. Beaton's also a bit better in overall legs in fifteen and eighteen darts or less than Clayton does, their scoring when losing legs is basically identical, running the figures through the sheet I had up for calculating round one would put Beaton as a 2/1 favourite, and that is over a best of 11 legs - over a longer distance, the better player should come through even more frequently. Factor in intangibles (Beaton's played a lot more high pressure games, he's a world champion for one, whereas Clayton lacks some experience in longer matches and this is for the biggest payday of his career) and this is a really confusing line to me.