Brief BDO thoughts so far

I've not watched a single dart, what with not having Eurosport and spending yesterday afternoon on higher priorities like buying shoes and this afternoon on higher priorities like watching us lose at home to Barnet, so any thoughts are based purely on the stats. It really hasn't kicked off yet, has it? We've had, with the Warren game yet to come through the teleprinter, nearly 200 legs, of which well over 40 have taken more than eighteen darts to win. That's not a good standard. Sure, Durrant's not played, neither's Williams, Unterbuchner or Mitchell, but that's not a good standard. If anything, the standard in the ladies event is better and it's a more interesting event to look at. Suzuki's at least blown that right open, and once some of the deadwood has been cleaned out of that one, it should be pretty exciting.

Meanwhile in the PDC, Labanauskas has claimed the last tour card (after Christian Bunse got one on Saturday), which is long overdue, and much to the relief of autocomplete functions everywhere, kept Vincent van der Meer out - except he'll almost certainly get one on countback. Razma's there, Kantele and Meeuwisse have the same points, so it's then a case of how they divide up the 18 spots on countback. If there's twice the entrants in the UK event, then it'd be John Michael (whatever happened to him the last couple of years?) and then one of de Sousa and Kuivenhoven, if there's not so much of a late run of entrants and they give not seven, but eight spots to the Euro event, then they've got a six way clusterfuck to sort out involving Rasztovits, Sedlacek, Gödl, Steyer, Jirkal and Koltsov. Still, at least if they don't get in they should get into the UK Open qualifiers... oh.

I think if they get up to 400 entries, which they should do, then it'll be a max of seven spots. I really hope that de Sousa manages to get one, I don't know how they'll sort out ties, but he's shown more than enough over the last month to show that he belongs on tour.

Some random BDO punts I like

These are mostly stabs in the dark, so use with caution:

0.25u Whitehead evs vs Phillips - his numbers from what I've got don't seem bad, at least compared to Martin's

0.25u Hogan 8/13 vs Newton - unless Wes has improved his game a lot from earlier in the year, which in fairness is perfectly possible, I don't see how he can live with someone like Paul

0.25u Warren 2/5 vs Layton - Wayne's been great all year and it's got a hint of just glad to be here for Mark.

0.1u Suzuki 7/2 vs Ashton - this is purely because Burton's hyping Mikuru up and not based on anything concrete at all.

0.1u Pogdorska 7/5 vs Gulliver - I'm not convinced that Trina's been useful in years and if her darts are as good as her commentary she's done.

Mike van Duivenbode won the second tour card today, a second Dutch youngster who just turned 20 today. Nice for him, he's not done a great deal on the senior circuit but has won on the Development Tour, the Dutch invasion continues.

Final quick comment - can anyone think of a single good reason why someone, if they have PDC ranking money into the end of 2018, but has no tour card, shouldn't be allowed to retain it if they win one in Q-School? By the time everyone else at the relevant year's Q-School is at the spot where they've used their two years it won't count anyway, surely this is fairest to those who for all intents and purposes have kept a card continuously, and will potentially help to turf out those players drakking around just above the cutoff?

2019 Second/Third Division Darts results page

FINAL RESULTS:

Division 2:

Ian White 12.89
Krzysztof Ratajski 11.66
Jonny Clayton 9.42
Simon Whitlock 8.87
Adrian Lewis 8.58
Joe Cullen 8.50
Steve West 8.33
Jeffrey de Zwaan 8.05
Dave Chisnall 8.03
Darren Webster 5.68

Division 3:

Nathan Aspinall 10.77
Dimitri van den Bergh 10.64
Keegan Brown 10.54
Max Hopp 10.37
Danny Noppert 9.68
Luke Humphries 9.54
Steve Lennon 7.80
Martin Schindler 7.63

Chris Dobey 7.21

Josh Payne 5.83

Results:

PC1 - Jonny Clayton 6-4 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2), Steve Lennon 6-5 Nathan Aspinall (3)
PC2 - Dave Chisnall 7-5 Jonny Clayton (2), Joe Cullen 6-4 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2)
PC3 - Ian White 6-4 Darren Webster (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 6-4 Martin Schindler (3)
PC4 - Dimitri van den Bergh 6-2 Chris Dobey (3), Keegan Brown 6-3 Martin Schindler (3)
PC5 - no games
PC6 - Nathan Aspinall 6-5 Chris Dobey (3), Nathan Aspinall 6-3 Steve Lennon (3)
UK Open - Krzysztof Ratajski 10-7 Jonny Clayton (2), Nathan Aspinall 10-8 Steve Lennon (3)
PC7 - Nathan Aspinall 6-1 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)
PC8 - Adrian Lewis 7-1 Jonny Clayton (2), Jonny Clayton 6-3 Ian White (2)
ET1 - no games
ET2 - Adrian Lewis 6-2 Joe Cullen (2)
PC9 - Danny Noppert 6-5 Chris Dobey (3)
PC10 - Jonny Clayton 7-2 Ian White (2), Keegan Brown 6-3 Luke Humphries (3)
PC11 - Steve West 6-1 Darren Webster (2), Max Hopp 6-2 Chris Dobey (3)
PC12 - Jonny Clayton 6-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (2), Ian White 6-3 Simon Whitlock (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 6-3 Chris Dobey (3)
ET3 - Simon Whitlock 6-1 Joe Cullen (2), Max Hopp 6-3 Keegan Brown (3)
ET4 - Ian White 6-5 Adrian Lewis (2), Ian White 6-3 Jeffrey de Zwaan (3), Ian White 6-2 Darren Webster (2)
PC13 - Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-3 Darren Webster (2), Nathan Aspinall 6-4 Keegan Brown (3), Danny Noppert 6-2 Max Hopp (3)
PC14 - Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-4 Dave Chisnall (2), Joe Cullen 6-4 Simon Whitlock (2), Max Hopp 6-5 Luke Humphries (3)
ET5 - Keegan Brown 6-4 Max Hopp (3)
ET6 - Ian White 6-1 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2), Nathan Aspinall 6-3 Max Hopp (3)
PC15 - Ian White 6-3 Krzysztof Ratajski (2), Danny Noppert 6-0 Steve Lennon (3)
PC16 - Krzysztof Ratajski 6-2 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2), Max Hopp 6-3 Danny Noppert (3)
ET7 - Max Hopp 6-5 Nathan Aspinall (3)
ET8 - Simon Whitlock 6-3 Adrian Lewis (2), Dave Chisnall 6-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (2), Dave Chisnall 7-6 Jonny Clayton (2), Jonny Clayton 6-1 Simon Whitlock (2)
PC17 - Nathan Aspinall 6-3 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)
PC18 - no games
ET9 - Keegan Brown 6-4 Danny Noppert (3)
PC19 - no games
PC20 - Joe Cullen 7-2 Adrian Lewis (2), Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-2 Jonny Clayton (2), Luke Humphries 6-2 Keegan Brown (3), Nathan Aspinall 6-5 Steve Lennon (3)
Matchplay - Krzysztof Ratajski 10-5 Darren Webster (2), Ian White 10-0 Joe Cullen (2)
PC21 - Danny Noppert 6-4 Steve Lennon (3), Luke Humphries 6-1 Josh Payne (3)
PC22 - Joe Cullen 6-2 Steve West (2)
ET10 - Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-4 Darren Webster (2), Keegan Brown 6-4 Nathan Aspinall (3)
ET11 - Krzysztof Ratajski 6-5 Adrian Lewis (2), Jonny Clayton 6-5 Ian White (2)
PC23 - no games
PC24 - Keegan Brown 6-0 Josh Payne (3)
ET12 - Adrian Lewis 6-2 Jonny Clayton (2)
PC25 - Ian White 6-0 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2), Max Hopp 6-5 Luke Humphries (3)
PC26 - Ian White 7-2 Steve West (2), Martin Schindler 6-4 Nathan Aspinall (3)
ET13 - Dave Chisnall 6-5 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2), Krzysztof Ratajski 8-2 Dave Chisnall (2), Krzysztof Ratajski 6-3 Ian White (2), Jeffrey de Zwaan 6-3 Steve West (2), Krzysztof Ratajski 6-3 Joe Cullen (2), Danny Noppert 6-5 Keegan Brown (3)
PC27 - Steve West 6-2 Dave Chisnall (2), Nathan Aspinall 6-5 Martin Schindler (3)
PC28 - no games
Grand Prix - Ian White 6-5 Joe Cullen (2), Nathan Aspinall 12-7 Danny Noppert (3)
PC29 - Ian White 6-1 Joe Cullen (2)
PC30 - Jonny Clayton 6-4 Darren Webster (2), Chris Dobey 6-4 Luke Humphries (3), Max Hopp 6-4 Josh Payne (3)
European Championship - Simon Whitlock 6-1 Adrian Lewis (2), Dave Chisnall 10-4 Jonny Clayton (2)
Grand Slam - Nathan Aspinall 5-0 Martin Schindler (3)
Players Championship Finals - Simon Whitlock 6-5 Jeffrey de Zwaan (2)
Worlds - Adrian Lewis 18-17 Darren Webster (2), Jeffrey de Zwaan 15-11 Dave Chisnall (2), Dimitri van den Bergh 9-4 Josh Payne (3), Nathan Aspinall 18-17 Dimitri van den Bergh (3)

Meet your BDO entrants

As Niels Zonneveld claimed the first tour card of Q-School, a Dutch lad who finished in the top 10 of the Development Tour last year on the back of two finals, one of which he won, we're also just a couple of days from Lakeside - let's do a one line preview of everyone who's there, at least on the men's side for now:

Mark McGeeney - #1 seed. Dutch Open back to back winner. Beaten finalist last year. Not sure how he's number one.
Derk Telnekes - Youngish Dutch player. Second time here having lost to de Vos last year. Two games away from stealing Meeuwisse's Ally Pally spot.
Martin Phillips - Hugely experienced Welsh international. Twice semi finalist earlier in the decade. Former World Master.
Conan Whitehead - 32 year old Englishman who had a good run in the UK Open in 2013 and a couple of years in the PDC to follow, ranking in the 20's seems accurate based on his record this year.
Richard Veenstra - Semi finalist three years ago and Finder Masters finalist this year. Winner of three BDO titles this year, probably having the best year of his career.
Jim Widmayer - USA! USA! USA! Here through their regional table after a four year absence. Got to the last 16 once.
Nigel Heydon - Qualifier, nicknamed the Undertaker given he used to be an undertaker. Had a nice PDC run 7-8 years ago, and made the latter stages of the 2010 UK Open.
Scott Waites - Twice world champion. Only Grand Slam winner from the BDO. Still only in his early 40's and should have switched long ago.
Jeffrey van Egdom - Belgian who's one of the last men in on the main ranking table, nearly beat Jim Williams in the Finder Masters this year, but doesn't even appear to have a quarter final anywhere?
Wesley Harms - Dutch player still with plenty of time on his side, back after a bit of a hiatus and looking to match his semi final runs from 2012 and 2013. Got out of his Grand Slam group.
Willem Mandigers - Eindhoven native making his fifth straight appearance. Only once made the last 16, last year. Won the Denmark Open in 2018.
Paul Hogan - Legend. Guaranteed last 16 in the UK Open every single year. Guaranteed to lose to Gerwyn Price every single year. Twice quarter finalist, gave Durrant real trouble in 2017.
Wes Newton - Former Premier League player and multiple PDC major finalist. In the BDO for the first time after losing his card, in as the first alternate.
Michael Unterbuchner - Possible German number one regardless of code. Semi finalist twelve months ago, best performer in this year's Slam, World Trophy finalist.
Mal Cuming - Australian debutant at the age of 53, won several events there to claim a spot through their ranking table.
Justin Thompson - Also Australian, here for a second appearance after giving Fitton a good game last year. Very impressive in his domestic WDF scene.
Wayne Warren - Veteran Welshman who was a bit of a surprise quarter finalist last year and gave McGeeney issues at that stage. Added a World Masters and Finder Masters quarter as well.
Mark Layton - Even more experienced Welshman, making his debut in his sixties. There's hope for some of us yet! Been in the UK Open a few times and has cashed, semi finalist in the Worthington champions event in 2017.
Glen Durrant - Two time defending champion. Clear best player in the BDO. Can he complete the hat trick?
Mark McGrath - New Zealander who's had several appearances in the worlds in both codes. Beat Michael Smith in the Auckland Masters earlier this year.
Adam Smith-Neale - Current World Master. Wouldn't fear Durrant as he already beat Durrant to do so. Then he broke his leg, so who knows.
Ross Montgomery - Hugely experienced Scot with over ten appearances on this stage, but only one quarter final to his name. British Open winner last year.
Scott Baker - Englishman who narrowly lost to Andy Baetens on debut last year. Won a BDO event in Wolverhampton in July, and a quarter finalist in the World Trophy.
Gary Robson - Been in the game for more than 20 years, arguably having his best season ever, definitely since earlier in the decade. Multiple finalist this season, just made the Slam and got a win over Joe Murnan.
Dave Cameron - Not the former Prime Minister, the Canadian is making a sixth straight appearance but has only got past the prelims once.
Andy Hamilton - Former PDC world finalist and Premier League player, the Hammer lost his tour card and opted to rebuild through the BDO. Needed the qualifiers to get here, but is playing better darts of late.
Chris Landman - Lost in the prelim on debut last year, but is seeded this year thanks to multiple quarter final or better runs. Clearly his best season to date.
Kyle McKinstry - Big Northern Irish hope, has had a bit of a weird major record but makes his second appearance after losing to Veenstra last year. Won the England Open this year.
Jim Williams - Welsh number one, has won multiple events this year to be the three seed, reaching the semi finals in all of the World Trophy, World Masters and Finder Masters. Lost a thrilling quarter to Durrant this time last year.
Roger Janssen - Belgian who's qualified through the regional tables, lost in five sets to McGrath two years ago. Good consistent record in the European opens in 2018 nearly got him here through the main ranking table.
Wouter Vaes - Second appearance here, like Janssen he made it two years ago, losing to Fitton. Decent runs in the Dutch Open and World Masters in 2018, he also won the Antwerp Open.
Daniel Day - Peripheral name on the PDC circuit earlier in the decade, now having his best season on the BDO side, claimed a couple of titles to sneak into the seeds.
Dean Reynolds - Young Welsh talent who declined a tour card from the Development Tour a couple of years ago but has been missing a bit since then. Just crept in through the main ranking list.
Scott Mitchell - Winner in 2015 after years of trying. Twice World Masters semi finalist. Has wins in Spain, Denmark, Germany and England this year, schooled Schindler in the Slam but missed out on the knockout stages on leg difference.
Oliver Ferenc - Serbian making his Lakeside debut having played the PDC event in 2012, losing to Joe Cullen in a prelim. Want to say he's a soft tip player primarily?
Ryan Hogarth - Scottish debutant who won through the qualifiers, young enough to have played the Development Tour in 2017, has had a few quarter finals in the second half of the year.
Dave Parletti - Multiple time UK Open qualifier, turned the BDO form on this year to get a seed, won the Welsh Masters and made the latter stages of the World Masters. Weekly Dartscast alumni.
Brian Lokken - First Dane here for a while I think? Good record in the Scandi and Baltic scene, best of a final in Lithuania where he lost to Labanauskas. On debut.
Krzysztof Kciuk - Pole who played the PDC worlds in 2010 and nearly again last year, knocking Ratajski out before losing himself in the final. Won through the main qualifier and reached the TV stages of the World Masters this season.

Euro Q-Schööl and Barney

Some interesting names and some interesting omissions on the list which kicks off tomorrow - it seems a bit off that not only are they playing it during the first two days of Lakeside (although, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't anybody that's on the Euro entry list that's entered in Lakeside, at least not on the days that overlap), but that they're finishing it off a whole week before entries even close for the UK event. How exactly is someone supposed to know what they've got to do in the final event until they know how many cards are available on countback?

Some interesting names in though, mostly from people who I'd assumed were long retired - Artut, Stompe, Greebe, Seyler, then some people like de Vos that I wasn't sure if they would. Looks like all the decent players that we saw at the worlds are back in, it's going to be a tight one.

Was hoping that Burton would do a 2020 Ally Pally race tweet, but he's done a season to date ranking money one which I can use (I can't use my spreadsheet as it counts Euro Tour mincashes), so let's use it and then tack on the 2018 worlds cash:

From Burton's list I've removed Nicholson, Labanauskas, Barnard and Rodriguez as I assume that Nicholson losing his card, Labanauskas never having one in the first place and Barnard and Rodriguez picking one up through the secondary tours resets them all to zero. And then realised that dartsdatabase are super on the ball and already have a qualification page for 2020 up already. So let's look at Barney. He's currently £9k outside the seedings. So, even if Barney reached the final of the UK Open (the only major he's in line to qualify for), it'd only take everybody above him to make £31k across all tournaments all year (and everyone on this list has done a lot more than that, although that does count the worlds, which wouldn't count for these purposes) to dump him back out again. So how on earth is he going to make 2020, unless he does win the UK Open? He is going to have to hit the floor, and hit the floor hard.

The key one is going to be the Euro Tour qualifiers. That's because these effectively count twice - not only will they count for the main Pro Tour, they'll also help him to get in the European Championship (unless they've changed the rules again), and if he's able to get a run in some of them early, he may put himself into the equation for the Grand Prix as well, even if he doesn't hit every single ordinary floor event. If he's able to accumulate enough to do that, he'd have got around 30k or so from floor events - if he's able to do alright in the UK Open and make a quarter, and then win a first game at the Grand Prix and European Championship, that's another 25k roughly. Add that on to what's in the bank and he's up to £140k - roughly what Hopp needed to get the last seed.

Of course, if he was able to get 30k from floor events, he'd be pretty safe to get in through the Pro Tour rankings anyway, but I'm sure he doesn't want to go into the worlds in the first round.

We'll see what happens. But it is amusing right now that Wright's down as low as number 8 and Adrian's barely the highest seeded Lewis in the event.

2019 Year End FRH Rankings

You have two columns, I couldn't get the Blogger table format to work after getting it to work for last year's scoring. We have slightly less churn than last year in that we've had 23 players drop off as opposed to 24, the highest ranked player to fall off being Robbie Green from number 46 to not even in the top 100. Danny Noppert's the highest new entry.

A reminder to newer readers who may not know how the FRH rankings work - we count all cashes in PDC ranking events in the same way as the PDC do, except we do not arbitrarily remove cash for arbitrary reason. If a seed fails in the first round of a European Tour event, that counts. If someone loses a tour card, gives up a tour card or otherwise never had a tour card their score does not reset back to zero. We then have the value of the prize count in full as the PDC does, but only for the first four and a bit months - it then degrades linearly at 1% every six days until, two years after the cash was earned, it is at zero. Hence more recent cashes count much more strongly, which gives a better idea of where players are at right now, rather than where they have been in the past.

A shout out to Ron Meulenkamp. He's been at number 55 at the end of the year three years running now. Nothing if not consistent!

World Championships roundup

Congrats to Michael van Gerwen, it wasn't a classic final but Smith's got to be thinking that if he'd hit a couple of key doubles at key moments, that could easily have been five sets each rather than over. Oh well, he'll come back stronger and as I stated in a 2019 predictions thread on Reddit, I think Smith finally bags a major this year - it feels like he's exactly on the same career trajectory as Adrian Lewis was just before he won his world title, and we all saw what he ended up doing.

In the fantasy competition, congrats to Redditor 16redbird16, whose team of Gary Anderson, Michael Smith, Dimitri van den Bergh, Devon Petersen and Royden Lam scored 705, to nick it from Scothead180 who also had Smith but his other selections of Cullen, Dobey, Clemens, Dekker, Humphries and Malicdem ended up 5 points short. They were the only players who broke 700, with Twitter user @warrenallsworth rounding out the podium with Smith, Wilson, Dobey, Evans, Brown, Clemens and Ilagan to finish on 592. It's not anywhere near the dream team of all the cheap players who overperformed (if you think of someone cheap who's done good, they'd be there, only Michael Smith breached the top 15 in terms of points per cost who would have set you back more than 20) which ended up at nearly 1500 points.

They've just announced the Premier League lineup, and it's the lineup everyone thought it'd be - van Gerwen, Cross, Anderson, Wright, Gurney, Price, Wade, Smith, Suljovic and van Barneveld. Think what you like of the Barney selection, but it's an exhibition and there's not anybody that's really outside that staked a huge claim without it being really too soon for them, or wouldn't be a less interesting retread (i.e. Whitlock, Chisnall etc). If only Ian White hadn't gone to pieces on TV at the business end of the season.

Speaking of White, he ended up winning the Second Division Darts, with only the match between Chisnall and Jamie Lewis affecting the rankings from before the world championships - that pushed Chizzy up into second just ahead of Joe Cullen, so they are the two automatic selections based on their 2018 performances. The selections based on the FRH rankings are Simon Whitlock (10th), Dave Chisnall (12th), Darren Webster (13th) and Jonny Clayton (14th), which leaves a question of four wildcards. I'm going to give one to Jeffrey de Zwaan, whose defeat of the world champion twice this season in major events, Matchplay semi final run and win of a PDC title goes along with having the highest points per turn of anyone not already selected makes him obvious. A second will go to Adrian Lewis - he didn't win anything, but he's the highest ranked player in the FRH rankings that isn't yet in, and is scoring more than multiple Premier League players. A third will go to Joe Cullen - he's one spot behind Lewis in the FRH rankings, was only pipped by Chisnall in the very last event of the season to an automatic spot, and his TV and European Tour appearances highlight that he's very much a top 16 player and should be in the mix. That leaves one spot, and I'm going to give it to Krzysztof Ratajski - what he's been able to do over the past 15 months without having a tour card has been nothing short of remarkable, he has one now and I'd really expect him to progress hugely from here.

There's a few that were close to selection - Aspinall and Hopp probably being the closest, Steve West was there or there abouts, Mervyn King and Stephen Bunting maybe - they were certainly the five with the highest ranking not in, but for some of these we have the new third division, exclusively for players younger than 30 as of today.

edit 3/1/19 - I double counted Chisnall, whoops. Thus I'm giving the tenth spot to Steve West, as he seems to be peaking in terms of the quality of his darts right now. Bunting still seems a bit off his best but is trending the right way, King did manage to win an event but doesn't really look like he'll ever get back to his best at this stage.

I'm including both of Aspinall and Hopp obviously, Dimitri van den Bergh is in based off of his world youth title, Danny Noppert gets in through winning a PDC event and going very deep in a major, Luke Humphries did great in the worlds as well and jointly won the Development Tour. Chris Dobey is in having come very close to winning a couple of events and also putting it together on the TV stage, having reached a European Tour final, Steve Lennon also earns selection. That leaves three spots - Martin Schindler can have one as he continues to build on an impressive record on the senior circuit. Keegan Brown's top of more or less any metric that you could care to look at who's not already in, which leaves one spot, and I'm going to give it to now twice PDC senior event winner Josh Payne, who like many here appears to be pulling everything together. I can't include Cadby, as there's still so much that's unknown as to his current status, Richard North and Ricky Evans were also very close.

I'll post up the year end FRH rankings in another post, but needless to say van Gerwen is number one by quite some distance, having a quarter of a million more points than numbers 2 and 3 combined. Then again, getting 300,000 points added to your total today does help...