WC Preview Part 9 - Barney army repeat ad infinitum

Raymond van Barneveld (1/6) v Richard North (11/2)

van Barneveld holds set on throw - 84.20%
North holds set on throw - 24.77%

So around this time last season, Barney said he was going to play the tour properly, and a lot of us were thinking "yeah, of course", but to be fair, he was, at least for a while - playing every UK Open qualifier with very consistent results, although he could have taken some further given he went out to Dolan, Kist and Painter in three of them, made the quarters of the main event, losing out in a tight game to eventual champion Peter Wright, then played the first eight Pro Tour events and some of the European qualifiers, reaching four quarter finals. Then April arrived and he just finished off the Premier League and went on the exbo series around the world instead, not playing another ranked event all year except for the majors and two warm up Pro Tour events prior to the Grand Prix. Oh well, at least you tried. Seeded in the same segment of the Matchplay as Taylor meant he couldn't get far, and didn't have it all his own way against Cullen, he would go one round further in Dublin, but with the draw having opened up he surprisingly fell at the quarter final stage to John Henderson. He obviously didn't qualify for Hasselt, but won his Grand Slam group landing him the runner up in the Michael van Gerwen/Rob Cross group and that was that. His early Pro Tour work got him to Minehead, but his low seeding gave him Ian White in the first round, a winnable game but he couldn't nick the deciding leg missing two match darts with White waiting on double. His figures are very good from what data we do have, so he clearly still has it.

North's a surprise package who won his tour card this January at the fourth attempt, getting it outright on day 2 beating Hine, Alcinas and Bain to claim it, and had a flying start, claiming three grand in the UK Open qualifiers including a last 16 run, which wasn't quite enough to make round 3 (and the money) outright and he lost to Ronnie Baxter in round 2. He would grow on people's radars more in April with two quarter finals on the Pro Tour in one weekend, he'd also tack on a few European qualifications, playing four in total, two just before the Matchplay and a couple in September while not really impressing in any of them, but having added on a few more board finals and a couple of board wins on the floor, he'd make a big break through in August, reaching the final of the 18th Pro Tour event, nearly nicking it outright but losing a deciding leg in the final to Dave Chisnall, but it was possibly a bit fortunate - the highest ranked player he faced prior to that was Joe Cullen, but you can only beat what's in front of you I guess. This gave him enough to qualify for the Grand Prix despite not quite having a full year of tour records, and was due to play Gary Anderson, but after he withdrew he was able to get past Mark Webster on short notice, before not getting a set against Whitlock in round two. North's last run out was brief, in Minehead he got past Pete Hudson but then fell to Adrian Lewis.

Barney should have way too much here. North's still getting used to the stage, sure, but he'll need to improve a lot to come close and translate his floor game much better. Over 30 won legs is a decent enough sample and he's not managed a twelve darter yet, and more than half of those took more than five visits to win. Barney won't allow that often enough.

Kyle Anderson (1/4) v Peter Jacques (4/1)

Anderson holds set on throw - 79.27%
Jacques holds set on throw - 32.76%

A big break through year for Kyle Anderson after last season finished in awful circumstances, with visa problems ruling him out of both the worlds and the Players Championship finals. Able to sort it out, he's had three big highlights - he's had his first ranking win in August, claiming it with wins over Tony Newell, Nathan Aspinall, Ryan Meikle, Ronny Huybrechts, Stephen Bunting, Michael Smith and Kevin Painter, hitting a nine dart finish along the way. He also claimed a TV title winning the unranked Auckland Masters a week later, beating Corey Cadby in a deciding leg, and he then came very close to a first proper major final, reaching the semis of the European Championship. He should have gone further - against van Gerwen in a deciding leg, he needed 80 for the match and pinned treble 20 first dart, but couldn't convert either of the next two and Michael stepped in and cleaned 76 out in two darts. What else for him? Making the UK Open was comfortable, but he'll be disappointed to go out to Jermaine Wattimena, had three further first round exits in TV events to Whitlock, van Barneveld and Meulenkamp, but the floor game was solid, making four Sundays in Europe, peaking at a quarter final in Jena including a big win over Mensur Suljovic, and outside of the aforementioned floor win, he won his board on five occasions, pushing on to a quarter and a semi once a piece.

Jacques is a complete wildcard - he played the first three days of Q-School, looking in a good position to get a card having made the last 128, last 16 and last 64 to accumulate good countback points, but the story goes he didn't play day 4 as he had a county game that clashed with it. Oh well. Said points did allow him to get in as a PDPA alternate in quite a few Pro Tour events, and he goes and reaches the final of the first one. OK then. Nicholson, Payne, O'Connor, Gary Anderson, Michael Smith and Wade would fall before Norris had far too much in the final, but this gave him an opportunity to build on the tour. He wouldn't reach those heights again, only winning a board twice more, but it gave him enough in the bank to play every event, and kept chipping away, 500 quid here, a grand there, and along with making the European Tour four times, with a best result in Riesa of the last 16, losing to Jelle Klaasen where he had some chances (at least if I remember rightly, I was drinking a lot at the event) to go further, he's able to claim a Pro Tour ranking spot for here to make a worlds debut which I don't think he'd have seen coming twelve months ago. He did make one major, the Pro Tour solidity getting him to Minehead last month, where he gained some useful stage experience and held his nerve well with last leg wins over Cristo Reyes and Steve Hine (who'd just eliminated Peter Wright) before Jan Dekker had a bit too much class in the last sixteen.

This should be a similar story to the other game in this section, Anderson should have too much. He just finishes legs in too orderly a fashion for Jacques to be able to generate too many break chances. He's going to have to rely on Kyle to take a leg or two off at critical times and stay very tidy on his own throw - unlike North he has at least hit some twelve darters in my sample, so I guess if he can find one of those on the Anderson throw and maybe nick a set, the upset could at least come into the equation.

WC Preview Part 8 - Two beatable seeds against two decent qualifiers, get the popcorn

Dave Chisnall (2/5) v Vincent van der Voort (12/5)

Chisnall holds set on throw - 68.99%
van der Voort holds set on throw - 44.27%

After finally breaking out of the 8/9 spot where he'd always face Michael van Gerwen, he's now slipped back there, somewhat due to Gurney coming through and Taylor hitting some big cash, but it's where Dave is and he's got a real awkward draw before he'd even get to the defending champion. If we ignore that Chisnall has failed to get to a major quarter final since last season's World Championship loss to Gary Anderson, Chisnall's done OK - he's not had any first round losses, in Europe he's not had any real hiccups, apart from in Mannheim where he lost to Nathan Aspinall, he's kept things ticking over solidly on the floor, he's got another ranking title, albeit one where the toughest opponent he faced was Jelle Klaasen, and he's maintained his top 8 status in the world and shown that he can threaten the rest - see in particular the second half of the Premier League, where he would go undefeated after Judgement Night and nearly sneak a top 4 place. But let's look at the major defeats - Peter Wright in the UK Open, fine. Alan Norris in overtime at Blackpool? Probably should win that one. Thornton at the Grand Prix should have been cleaned up. Rob Cross in Hasselt, fine, Glen Durrant at the Grand Slam, yeah, understandable, Willie O'Connor at Minehead, really? None of those seem unwinnable, and they're the sorts of games that Chisnall needs to win in order to push out of the 7-10 bracket, and he's not going to get that elusive major like that - you lose enough when you run into Michael van Gerwen all the time, you can't throw away title equity by dropping chances before you even get to that stage.

Vincent seems to be somewhat free of the back issues that have plagues his career over the past few seasons, and he's playing notably better. Denied a seeding due to Jonny Clayton's last gasp run at Minehead, he comes in second on the Pro Tour rankings and gets a fairly awkward draw as a result. His best major result came early - he did reach the last sixteen of the UK Open, needing to come through a decider against James Wilson to make the money, and from there he had a routine win over Ronny Huybrechts before a tense deciding leg win against Jelle Klaasen. Daryl Gurney would be too much however. From then in the run up to the Matchplay he couldn't hit much form, a string of thirteen Pro Tour events where he only reached the board final twice would see him too far behind to reach either the Matchplay or the Grand Prix. He was able to qualify fairly consistently for European events, and has taken out a few seeds - albeit Benito van de Pas, Mervyn King and Ian White are towards the back of the list of seeds you want on your scalp list. The back end of his Pro Tour season was better, with three quarter finals (including beating van Gerwen in one, snapping a twelve game losing streak against him), but in the TV stakes he had a hat trick of disappointments, losing to Benito van de Pas in the opening game in Hasselt where he had two match darts, losing by the same score to Robbie Green in the opening game at Minehead where he couldn't generate more than 1 match dart given six darts to finish 117, and lost to the same player in the final qualifying round for the Grand Slam.

This is going to come down to a few things - first, consistency. If Dave can hit doubles with any sort of consistency, he wins. If Dave can have fairly few legs of the type where he starts 60-100-59 or something like that, he wins. If not, and if Vincent can be in a state where he's healthy and able to keep up with the scoring as he can, he stands a chance. It'll need a few things to click together correctly, but it's perfectly possible.

Steve Beaton (4/7) v Willie O'Connor (13/8)

Beaton holds set on throw - 64.44%
O'Connor holds set on throw - 49.22%

Your 1996 World Champion (1996! There's players here that weren't even born then!) needs no introduction, but let's look at his season. And it's really quite good. The UK Open qualifiers were great to him, with three quarter finals and a last sixteen run, beating van Gerwen in one and needing Wright (twice) and Chisnall (in a decider) to stop him in those quarters. The main event would see him surprisingly lose to Dave Pallett, but continued good form on the floor would see him safely qualify for the Matchplay - the peak of which was a Pro Tour win in June, beating Chisnall, Gurney and Anderson with some sensational throwing. The Matchplay himself would see him run into Adrian Lewis with both playing well in a good game, and before the next major he'd have a European final run - facing van Gerwen in the Netherlands is never going to end well, but he came through both Wright and Suljovic in earlier rounds, banking ten grand that should see him pretty safe for at least next season's Matchplay. He got a tough draw in Dublin in Rob Cross, but Cross wasn't playing well for about the only time this year and Beaton got the win before getting handily beaten by Barney in round two. Drawing Daryl Gurney in Hasselt was also unfortunate, but it did come together in Minehead recently, beating Ronny Huybrechts, Jelle Klaasen and a decider against Jermaine Wattimena to reach the quarter finals, before blowing a 7-4 lead in a race to 10 against Jonny Clayton.

Willie O'Connor is a name that's been around on the pro circuit for quite some time now, and while he's been on our screens since 2010 in the UK Open and Grand Prix, he's making his world championship debut at the age of 31, so still has plenty of time on his side to really establish himself. He's qualified here through winning the Tom Kirby memorial event, basically Ireland's national championship, beating Jason Cullen in the final to go one better than he did in 2009. This event has brought us Daryl Gurney, Mick McGowan and Connie Finnan in the past, amongst others. O'Connor's been a tour card holder since 2011 and was straight out of the blocks with a quarter final in the first UK Open qualifier, beating Ritchie Edhouse straight after Edhouse had beaten van Gerwen. That result and a couple of other cashes would see him make the round before the money, where he beat Steve Lennon in a local derby, then get decent draws against Mick Todd and Ronnie Baxter to reach the last 16, losing 10-7 to Simon Whitlock. He played a full tour season, not doing enough to threaten any majors other than the Players Championship Finals, solidifying his place there with a quarter final and semi final in the last five events and then once there, he made the last 16, beating James Wilson and Dave Chisnall before losing a decider to Justin Pipe, missing one dart to take it. He only made one European event, which is a bit surprising, but did at least win through to the Saturday in Riesa before being handed a tough draw in Mensur Suljovic.

Beaton's playing as well as he has done in years and is rightly considered the favourite, but O'Connor is a very dangerous opponent and not playing badly himself, and looking at the stats he is not too far behind. This genuinely could go either way, I'd tip things towards Beaton based on slightly better numbers, a wealth of stage experience and a relative lack for O'Connor (at least in a world championship setting).

WC Preview Part 7 - Just defending half your order of merit money, no pressure Adie

Adrian Lewis (1/16) v Alexsandr Oreshkin or Kevin Münch (9/1, Oreshkin 5/6, Münch 11/10 to advance)

No data available for set winning chances

It's not quite half his Order of Merit money, but it's close to it - 150 grand of his current near 350 grand total comes from the final Lewis lost to Gary Anderson two years ago, which explains his very low FRH ranking at number 20, and it's only just number 20 with Darren Webster now barely a grand behind on that metric. Lewis had an alright start to the year, with deep runs to start and end his UK Open qualification, but he would be another big name to fall to Paul Hogan once at the event proper. His next outing would be his only ranking title of the year, which looked like it was going to get him into the Grand Slam until Rob Cross stole his place, with good wins over Michael van Gerwen and Dave Chisnall, but he'd then need to scale things down a bit after back surgery, returning for the Matchplay where he was playing some excellent darts in turning over Steve Beaton, Rob Cross and Alan Norris, before reverting to what he did with incredible consistency in his earlier career, namely jobbing to Phil Taylor. That ended up being close to it for the season - he was in the Grand Prix but lost to Daryl Gurney in the opening round, didn't qualify for the Grand Slam or play enough European events, he did play the last few Pro Tour events, making the final in the last weekend where Rob Cross got his fourth win, and is apparently using a new setup from the Players Championships, where he defeated Mike de Decker and Richard North before losing to Rob Cross. It's the same as ever - when he's playing well his game is incredible, but it's consistency - a nine point difference on the averages when he's winning and losing is too big a gap.

His opponent will be one of two players we've seen before - I'll deal with Oreshkin first, who returns after a year's break to make his second appearance. In 2016, Oreshkin won a deciding leg against Paul Lim before giving Mervyn King a big scare, winning the first two sets before running out of steam, the strength of his game being decent outshots and good doubling rather than any real power scoring. He's been part of the Russian World Cup team for the past two seasons, both times with Boris Koltsov who played here last year, and this season they reached the quarter finals, seeing off the Royden Lam/Kai Fan Leung team in round one before eliminating Australia in the doubles, with Oreshkin getting the key singles win over Kyle Anderson. They would get outplayed in the quarter finals by Wales, with Oreshkin winning the only leg against Gerwyn Price, but it's still a very good run out.

Münch perhaps surprisingly won the German qualifier from their Superleague, as he appears to have dropped a bit off the radar and isn't even playing the European Tour qualifiers, last appearing on that main stage in 2016 where he lost to Jamie Caven in round one, and was whitewashed by Jonny Clayton in his only appearance in 2015. The Superleague, minus Martin Schindler who didn't play the finals as he'd already automatically qualified, and minus Max Hopp, who doesn't play it for reasons unknown, saw the top 8 players from five round robin events play in group stages then knockouts, Münch won through as the second place finisher in his group behind Rene Berndt, but would defeat former Ally Pally legend Rene Eidams in the semi final, and last year's qualifier Dragutin Horvat in the final. It's hard to say what his form is like, he did lose 4-3 in a couple of BDO events in Germany last April to decent players (Hughes, Mandigers) and he only finished fourth in the actual Superleague itself, and you'd think if he was playing OK he'd be playing the European Tour qualifiers.

The bookies have the prelim close to evens and I won't touch it as we don't have any real info on Münch outside of domestic play, gun to my head I'd say Oreshkin advances, but it could be close and scrappy. Lewis should have far, far too much quality for either of these, the last time he lost a set in the opening round was when he was defending his second title, and he's not dropped a set in the first two rounds either of the last two years.

Cristo Reyes (2/7) v Antonio Alcinas (3/1)

Reyes holds set on throw - 88.31%
Alcinas holds set on throw - 19.38%

This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time two Spanish players have met in the world championships, at least on the PDC side. Let's look at Reyes first - he's not had a bad season following his great game this time last year against Michael van Gerwen, but in some ways he's not pushed on to the next level as many thought he might, I certainly thought he could have been top 20 by now. But let's see - his UK Open qualification was solid enough, a good quarter final run being enough to get him straight to the money, where he was the beneficiary of van Gerwen's withdrawal, but he then lost to Joe Cullen in the next round. His start on the Pro Tour was solid, winning his board on four out of the first six occasions, but his floor form would peak with that first event where he made the quarters, and hasn't won his board since then. He had done enough to get seeded to quite a few of the European events, and has had a good conversion rate in turning that into actual cash, with his best runs being a spurt of back to back semi finals in June, beating names including Wright, Bunting, Whitlock and Gurney, before going out to Suljovic and van Gerwen. On TV, he was able to win against a poor Robert Thornton in Blackpool, but that would be his only win - he'd go out to Peter Wright in the next round, lose in Dublin to Benito van de Pas, lose easily in Hasselt to Dave Chisnall, and be edged out by Peter Jacques in Minehead. He didn't get close to either the World Series or Grand Slam, losing very early in qualifiers to Ricky Evans and Jermaine Wattimena, and this downturn in form is troublesome.

On the other hand, Alcinas is coming into form at the right time. We remember him from earlier in the decade where he looked useful in back to back World Championships, taking eventual finalist Andy Hamilton to a deciding set in his second shot after losing to James Wade on debut. He's looked to return to the PDC stage properly this season, winning a tour card outright on the final day (he was looking very safe regardless), and has played close to a full season. He sneaked into the UK Open on the final day, notably beating Dave Chisnall, but he'd lose 6-4 to James Richardson in the opening round. His strikerate in making European events is pretty poor, only getting into the one in June where he lost to fellow qualifier Marko Kantele, and some of the losses in qualification were surprising - to a Greek that's not John Michael, to a Vincent van der that isn't Voort, twice to Yordi Meeuwisse, although in fairness he's run into Kist twice and van den Bergh. He is at least trending upwards though, two deep runs in the Pro Tour right at the back end of the season got him to Minehead, where Darren Webster would be a step too far. Odd, as on his semi final run he beat the same Webster 6-1.

There's two players on opposite form trajectories here. Alcinas has been here before but still needs to get a win, but is seemingly playing better. Reyes has been on a slump for about six months and is without a win on TV since Blackpool, so this could be a bit twitchy if Alcinas can keep it to 1-1. Could be closer than the bookies call and worth an outside punt.

WC Preview Part 6 - It's a little souvenir, of a terrible year

Phil Taylor (1/6) v Chris Dobey (5/1)

Taylor holds set on throw - 87.92%
Dobey holds set on throw - 22.35%

And so we reach the end of the Phil Taylor Retirement Tour, well I say tour - at least in terms of ranking events, he's barely played. We knew he wasn't going to play any of the floor events, which de facto bars him from the UK Open, European Championship and the Players Championship Finals, but withdrawing from the Grand Prix was one that most observers didn't see coming, which leaves him with two events on the books - the first being the Matchplay, which even the biggest of Taylor haters, myself included, must have been pleased to see happen. He did it in quite some style as well, only Gerwyn Price really pushing him close in the opening round to hold on at the second break before Taylor pulled away, but Barney couldn't win more than three legs, van Gerwen imploded, Lewis was doing OK but couldn't keep up, and Wright fell behind and couldn't begin to make any sort of comeback. A remarkable win over a tough field that a lot of people didn't think he still had in him. The other ranking event he played was the Grand Slam, where he reached the semi final, although if Robbie Green didn't choke away a group stage game, Taylor may not have even got out of the group (but probably turns it on against Wade, a second straight awful final group stage match from the Power). A comfortable win over Darren Webster was followed by a one-sided pummelling over Daryl Gurney, where again Taylor couldn't get it quietly as he couldn't against van Gerwen in the Matchplay, and it'd be the Dutchman who eliminated him in the semi final. On the exbo circuit, he finished third in the Premier League but lost a deciding leg to Peter Wright in the semi finals, won a very tough Champions League group but then got turned over by Gary Anderson in the semi finals, the same result that was seen in the Masters. He can still do it, and the format where he's got plenty of time to rest should help. It's not a bad draw either, the first tough draw realistically is Anderson, but if seedings go to plan he'll have to go through the world number 3, 2 and 1 in order to claim the title.

This time last year, Chris Dobey was the much talked about next big thing - an impressive run in the Grand Slam, he'd made his first Tour final, and had a solid win over Justin Pipe at the worlds and kept things tight with Dave Chisnall for four sets in the second round. It looked like he would keep things going in 2017 early on - two good qualifying runs got him straight to the money in the UK Open, but there after beating Kevin Painter he'd have an odd loss to surprise package Martin Lukeman. Things went downhill from there - the four board finals he started the Pro Tour circuit with would be the best he'd do all year until the final event, and while he did make three of the first six European events, he'd lose in the first round each time, to Jamie Bain and Peter Jacques in deciders, and Steve West fairly comfortably. This bad form, possibly as a result of becoming a dad around the time, saw him narrowly miss out on qualifying for the Matchplay, and while in Vienna he'd pick up wins over Dave Pallett and Stephen Bunting for the loss of one leg to regain some form, he couldn't get enough money in the bank to make Dublin, or qualify for any more events in Europe to make Hasselt. He wasn't even certain to make it here, needing to claim a first round win in Göttingen and a board win in the last Pro Tour event to be safe. That run made him safe for Minehead where he did at least get some sort of form going, beating Kim Huybrechts and Robert Thornton before going out to Daryl Gurney.

Can't look past Taylor. The Dobey of last year might have made this more interesting, but look at that stat bar - sixty legs won, and not one of them was in twelve darts. That hints to a huge absence of scoring power, which is what he's going to need to challenge the Taylor throw. I think it'll just be a case of Chris enjoying the experience, throwing the best he can and then looking towards next year, unfortunately.

Justin Pipe (1/7) v Zong Xiao Chen or Bernie Smith (6/1, Zong 9/2, Smith 1/5 to advance)

No data available for set winning chances

It's quietly been a solid year for the Force, who's hanging around in the top 32 where after last year's first round exit, it looked like he might have dropped out of that elite group and need to rebuild back upwards. He was unconvincing in UK Open qualification, needing a win over Ryan Meikle to make the money, that he did 6-0 but would then draw eventual finalist Gerwyn Price in the last 64 and lose 10-5. His early Pro Tour form was a bit hit and miss, but he did reach a few board finals, put together a very solid streak of European qualification (although only winning one match in seven attempts once on the European stage must be bitterly disappointing, being whitewashed by Dan Larsson, losing a decider to Clayton, managing to beat Ratajski before losing to Cullen, back to back weekend defeats to Eidams and Wade, then in September going out to Kyle Anderson and Kist), before having his best result of the season in the run up to the Matchplay with a semi final result, beating the German pair of Schindler and Hopp before running through Cullen and Searle for the loss of three legs, nicking a decider against Henderson before losing to Daryl Gurney. At the Matchplay itself, he'd get a winnable game against Jelle Klaasen, and he took the chance, but Suljovic would be too good in round two. He might have done better in Dublin, losing a deciding set to Alan Norris in a section of the draw that opened up when van Gerwen lost, did qualify for the World Series finals and get a good win over Dave Chisnall, but it's the last event that was the highlight with a first major semi final in quite some time at the Players Championship Finals. An opening round win over Mark Webster was routine, but then needed three deciding legs to defeat Ron Meulenkamp, Willie O'Connor and Daryl Gurney, before running into Michael van Gerwen. That must give him a lot of confidence coming into Ally Pally.

Next we have a couple of international qualifiers that I really don't know much about. Taking the big favourite first - Smith is a New Zealander who's been around for quite some time on the domestic circuit with a dartsdatabase record that dates back to 2003, who qualified by winning the Oceanic Masters, not beating anyone outside of David Platt in the quarter finals that I know, but the event in the past has seen the likes of Platt, both Anderson brothers and Simon Whitlock emerge victorious. He initially tried to qualify for here through the New Zealand qualifier, losing in the semi final to Warren Parry, who was then solidly defeated by Cody Harris in the final - Harris played a couple of the World Series events, getting three legs off Taylor and four off Whitlock, so I've got to guess that Smith's level is a bit off that, although in 2016 he did play the Auckland Masters and get two legs from Gary Anderson, although he only averaged 83 when Anderson was doing everything he could to help inflate it by averaging 106 himself.

Zong played the Chinese qualifier last year and lost in the semi final to the player that lost to Sun Qiang, he who averaged under 70 in a loss to Corey Cadby at this stage last year. This year Zong won the event, winning the last two matches in deciding sets. The Chinese standard hasn't been great historically, so we need to look to see if Zong may be any different to what's been served in the past. He's still very young, the qualifier writeup indicating he's still a teenager, he did play the world youth last season and reach the second round, and he also played in the Shanghai Masters, where he didn't take a leg off a James Wade averaging barely 80, while Zong averaged just 66. If you want a big red flag then that's it.

Really can't see how Smith doesn't win the prelim and then lose the first round match. Both will probably be a bit nervous, but Smith seems clearly the better player on the stats and has enough experience, at least on smaller stages, to come through any issues that arise from that. Pipe's upturn in form in the last few months should see him play at a level whereby he advances comfortably. He does have some potential unmeasurable factors working against him - it's been four years since he won a match on this stage, and qualifiers from the southern hemisphere have course and distance over him, with Loz Ryder having knocked Pipe out at this stage in 2015.

World Championship Fantasy Darts

It's finally here, the competition everyone has been waiting for, it's the first annual firerodharrington.com PDC World Championship Fantasy Darts Competition!

The rules are simple - you have a budget of 180 points, from which you need to pick a minimum of 3 players and a maximum of 12 players. Your players will score points dependent on what they do during the world championship as follows:

Serious categories:
Win a set - 5 points
Lose a set but win legs in it - 1 point for each leg won
180 - 2 points
121-160 out - 2 points
161+ out - 3 points
Nine dart finish - 9 players

Comedy categories:
Signs the board - 2 points
Refuses to sign the board when asked - 5 points
Swears in a post match interview - 2-5 points, scoring judged by the FRH dubious language panel based on artistic impression and technical merit
Punches the dartboard Colin Lloyd style - 5 points, with a bonus 5 points if it causes them to withdraw through injury
Cries on stage - -3 points
Following the elimination of Phil Taylor, changes walk-on music to Arcade Fire's 2005 hit single (well, number 26) Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) - 100 points

To enter, select your elite squad of darting geniuses and either:
- Post your entry in the comments below
- Either reply to the announcement post on Twitter or DM me @jtuk
- If reading from 2+2, post your entry in the random darts thread or PM me

You can change your lineup at any time until the closing date - if one of your players withdraws after the closing date then you will get points for his replacement.

All comedy category scoring needs evidence - if I see it I'll score it but I won't be watching every minute of the event, I'm not going to pay out if someone says that Schindler used a naughty German word on sport1 without at least seeing it on Youtube.

You have until 5pm UK time on kickoff day which is the 14th, so you have basically a week to enter.

Your runners and prices are as follows:

WC Preview Part 5 - The section which comes with a government health warning

Mensur Suljovic (1/5) v Kevin Painter (23/5)

Suljovic holds set on throw - 80.63%
Painter holds set on throw - 32.03%

This section is so called as it may not be pretty to watch. We could have slow play. We could have deliberate pauses on doubles. We could have gamesmanship. We could have bouts of missed doubles and general poor play. But if anyone is going to solve that, it's Mensur Suljovic, your 2017 Champions League winner. The now hugely popular Austrian has claimed a TV title and it's not before time, the key wins being over Gary Anderson (twice), including in the final which wasn't of a great standard but he kept doing enough. In the ranking events, he wasn't able to make any finals, but had a solid record apart from not playing any of the UK Open for personal reasons, and coming undone in Minehead to an uptrending Stephen Bunting last month. Between then, he did more or less what could be expected - a quarter final in Blackpool, which he might have been able to turn into a semi final but Gurney was just that little bit better on the day, the same in the Grand Slam where he lost a close game to Gary Anderson, the same in the European Championship where he was another to fall victim to an in-form Kyle Anderson, and peaked in the Grand Prix, where he lost a deciding set in the semi final to Simon Whitlock at a stage where anyone who was left could realistically have won. On the floor he's been his usual great self, putting together a very solid European season with two finals, and after cutting down the Pro Tour later in the season, warmed up in Ireland by taking a Pro Tour win, including a win over van Gerwen in the quarter finals.

Painter is here, just, yet again, being the final qualifier in the Pro Tour rankings, although this time on merit rather than due to Kyle Anderson having visa troubles. His best work was arguably early in the season, comfortably qualifying for the UK Open, primarily on the back of a semi final run in event four, knocking out, amongst others, Gurney, Jenkins, Barney and Smith before finding Michael van Gerwen a step to far, as most do. The event itself gave him a winnable match against Chris Dobey, but Chris was good enough to nick it 10-8. That was the only major he'd play until Minehead last month, where a moderately low seed gave him James Wade, not the toughest opponent he could get, but one that was good enough to beat him. Nowhere near Hasselt having qualified for just two events, the first and the last, the first was at least good to him with a run to Sunday following a deciding leg win over Stephen Burton and a solid victory over Simon Whitlock, whereas the other wasn't great, losing in round one to Andy Boulton. This left the Pro Tour, where he did at least reach one final in August, not needing to beat anyone better than Gerwyn Price to get there, but aside from that run it was a string of early exits, not winning his board once and only reaching three board finals.

Can't help but feel that Painter may be in his last appearance here, he's only just made the last two years and he doesn't seem capable of stringing together enough consistent runs. He's also got probably the worst possible draw - if there's one player that isn't going to be affected by Painter's (perfectly legitimate) occasional tricks, it's Suljovic. Painter's not going to be able to clean up enough legs quickly enough to stand much of a chance in this one, if he has a purple patch maybe he can grab a set, but I think that's about as much as he can do.

Robert Thornton (8/13) v Brendan Dolan or Alan Ljubic (5/4, Dolan 4/17, Ljubic 4/1 to advance)

Thornton holds set on throw - 72.41%
Dolan holds set on throw - 37.87% (no data on Ljubic)

A tenth appearance here for the multiple major winner, although this is with his worst seeding since 2012, where he was one spot ahead of Mark Dudbridge. With the Grand Prix win now a long time ago, we just need to look at the present - and he's not had too bad a record on the floor, reaching the last sixteen on nine occasions, the bulk of them being in a good run between the UK Open, where he crushed a poor pub qualifier but won just two legs against Joe Cullen, and the Matchplay, where he was comprehensively outplayed by Cristo Reyes. That floor run included one final, but he only played two players who are at Ally Pally - Steve Lennon in the first round, and Michael van Gerwen in the last. The highlight of his season was the Grand Prix - he shouldn't have even been there, but Taylor withdrew to let him in, and to be fair he made the most of it, getting through Kim Huybrechts and Dave Chisnall before not doing quite enough against Daryl Gurney. Last time out in the Players Championship Finals, he just got through James Richardson, surviving a match dart despite being on a nine darter in the leg, and then lost to Chris Dobey.

Dolan's another player whose career seems to be on the same trajectory, except without the same peaks (although they do both have a double in nine darter, of course) - making a tenth appearance here, although he didn't do enough this year to either maintain his position in the seeds or to make it through the Pro Tour rankings. He wasn't far off either, but needed the PDPA qualifier to make it, getting past Jamie Lewis in a deciding leg in the critical game, but not getting close to Ted Evetts in the final to reach the first round proper. His season started well - two quarter final runs in the UK Open qualifiers saw him reach the money automatically, and he followed up with a board win on the first Pro Tour event in the run up to it, but lost a tight game 10-9 to John Michael to not make it any further. He'd then have a disastrous run through to July, losing out in a bunch of European Tour qualifiers and losing 6-1 to Pete Hudson in the one he did make, but a spurt of two out of three Pro Tour events with a quarter final run would at least get him to Minehead later in the season, sandwiching in a second European Tour qualification, in which he whitewashed Andy Hamilton but then lost to Jelle Klaasen. He did show some hints that he may be getting a bit of form going, only just losing out to Mervyn King in Minehead, then obviously doing enough to qualify.

Ljubic, like many in his area, is a tweener switching between steel and soft tip, who had a couple of goes at European Tour qualification, but lost to Ratajski on both occasions. Relatively unknown, he entered the Eastern European qualifier which was widely dubbed the Krzysztof Ratajski qualifier, and at the semi final stage it was looking that way, but then Ratajski surprisingly lost to his namesake Kciuk, a Pole who'd previously played the PDC worlds in 2010, which opened the door to Ljubic, who stepped through and comfortably beat Kciuk 6-2 in the final, having beaten little known Slovenian Ben Pratnemer in the semi finals and "Cheeky" Nandor Bezzeg in the quarters.

I've just watched a video of Ljubic playing soft tip against Boris Krcmar and his standard doesn't seem too bad, but in the steel tip game against a veteran like Dolan this may be a bit too much of an ask to be able to hit enough consistent trebles and stay close. Thornton should have enough to get through either qualifier, his form's somewhat better than it was this time last season, but he's going to have to produce it, Dolan's got to be somewhat confident having come through the qualifier and the bookies are listing it, accounting for the relevant chances of winning through the prelim, at around 60/40, which I think could be a little unfair on the Scot, but as stated, he'll have to turn up.

WC Preview Part 4 - Another semi final for Gurney?

Daryl Gurney (2/13) v Ronny Huybrechts (11/2)

Gurney holds set on throw - 63.71%
Huybrechts holds set on throw - 51.36%

What a season for Gurney. Jesus christ. He's gone from a solid top 32 player who had a good run last season to a Premier League certainty, major winner and top 5 player in the world in the space of twelve months. When I do my end of year awards, it's only a question of whether I give him best player or most improved player, a lot will depend on what he does here. His UK Open qualification wasn't fantastic, needing a win in the main event just to make the money, but from there he had no worries making the quarter finals, where he edged Simon Whitlock before losing to eventual champion Peter Wright. Claiming his first title the month after, the first of what would be four floor finals in the run up to the Matchplay, the question then became could he convert this over longer format matchups - this was answered by holding his nerve in overtime against Benito van de Pas, sneaking past Gary Anderson in a high quality matchup, before seeing off Mensur Suljovic in a race to 16 to make the semi final. He held his own against Wright to just lose by the one break, 17-15, but after some nice World Series exploits it would be Dublin where he really made his name. A somewhat weakened field with no Taylor, no Anderson and then, thanks to John Henderson, no van Gerwen, it was open and Gurney took his chance - coming through a tough opener against Adrian Lewis, he held off a comeback attempt from Joe Cullen in the next round, then at the quarter final stage needed to show resilience to win a deciding set against a resurgent Robert Thornton. With Wright and Barneveld losing at this stage, it was looking like he had a chance - he took out surprise semi finalist John Henderson before overcoming Simon Whitlock in an epic final to claim a first ranking major. Since then he's not let up - he avenged the loss to Wright in Hasselt but was thoroughly outplayed by Cross in the semi final, dominated his Grand Slam group, annihilated Wade then got demolished by Taylor in the quarter final, and had a solid run at Minehead recently before a surprise defeat to Justin Pipe. He's arrived now, and is the hunted, not the hunter.

Ronny Huybrechts hasn't had a bad season at all, with the highlight coming early in the season in the UK Open qualifiers where he reached the final of event 5 - hitting a nine in a run that saw him beat Gary Anderson, Terry Jenkins, Ian White, Darren Webster and Michael Smith (four of those five being in deciding legs) before losing to Simon Whitlock. In the main event he'd probably be a bit disappointed to lose 10-4 to Vincent van der Voort, not a harsh draw and one he should have kept closer. He couldn't quite make the Matchplay, but a couple of good European runs in the run up to the Grand Prix got him both to Dublin and Hasselt, where he lost 2-0 to King and 6-5 to Price, the latter being very disappointing as he led 5-3 with the darts. He'd nearly make the Grand Slam but lost in the final round of qualifying, and also lost in the first round at Minehead to Steve Beaton, rounding off a season where, while he'll be happy to have made plenty of the major tournaments, he may wonder whether he couldn't have done more once he got there.

Gurney's stats don't appear that fantastic given the amount of work he's done this year, which is a touch surprising and I'm not entirely sure why. His percentage of legs won in five visits or less is under 60%, and there's lots who are well above that who don't have quite the same results - Gerwyn Price, Darren Webster, Ian White, Joe Cullen, John Henderson, Stephen Bunting to name just a few. His 12 darter percentage is at least in double figures, but only just, and while his averaging in losing legs is pretty consistent compared to those he wins, indicating he's applying a fair bit of pressure, I'm not sure it's enough to explain everything away. Huybrechts is not that far behind, but is clearly behind, and to have any sort of chance he'll need to eliminate those legs where he starts something like 59-100-60 and the like. It's a very tough ask and I can't see past Superchin getting it done here.

John Henderson (2/7) v Marko Kantele (3/1)

Henderson holds set on throw - 95.95%
Kantele holds set on throw - 8.02%

Again, a warning about sample size. Kantele's won twelve legs in the database.

There's one enormous highlight in John Henderson's season, and that's the outstanding performance in the Grand Prix, where he reached the semi final. Along the way, he of course knocked out Michael van Gerwen, Alan Norris and Raymond van Barneveld, a very respectable hat-trick of scalps, before running out of steam against Daryl Gurney, and here he looks to set up a possible revenge match in round two. The rest of the season has also been decent as he's consolidated a top 32 position - he did more than enough to get straight to the money in the UK Open, but drew Michael Smith and didn't get close, lost by the same score to Mensur Suljovic in the Matchplay (10-4), and had a great European season where he qualified for more than half of the events, making two final sessions, which got him to Hasselt, but got blitzed by Kyle Anderson. He's been solid on the floor, ramping things up towards the end of the season, doing enough to get a winnable first round game against Darren Johnson, but couldn't pin a 117 out against Ian White in the deciding leg in round two. Still, all the form has been towards the back end of the season, which is a good sign for the big popular Scot.

Kantele finished second in the SDC rankings, a distant second behind a dominant Kim Viljanen, but comfortably ahead of familiar names Dennis Nilsson, Magnus Caris and Daniel Larsson, mainly through winning a couple of the events. He's in the first round through money earned in the Order of Merit, albeit only just, with him managing to get through the touch Nordic/Baltic qualifiers on two occasions to reach Saarbrücken and Hamburg. The first one was a possible surprising loss to Warrick Scheffer but I recall he was playing OK at the time, while in the second he beat Alcinas in a deciding leg and was able to claim three legs off Alan Norris on the Saturday. He's been here before, but not since Co Stompe was a quarter finalist, so going back a while - last time here he beat Lourence Ilagan in a preliminary game, and took a set off Ronnie Baxter in the first round proper. Even further ago than that he played Lakeside in 2005, and was able to knock out Tony O'Shea before losing in the last sixteen to Simon Whitlock. It was long enough ago that it was the last one that Barney won.

I think Henderson's in strong enough form that Kantele doesn't stand a realistic chance - when Kantele's played in Europe, he's mostly won legs because his opponent has let him, rather than because he's taken them, only averaging 80 when losing, which beats his average when winning. That said, Henderson's action is incredibly rhythm based and if it's not clicking it's very hard to put right quickly, although in this one he should be able to get away with holding his throw together using string, gaffer tape and MacGyver's book "How to win Darts Matches averaging 81".