4/4, beautiful

Well, that went better than expected, much much better. Plenty of players dropping out that you wouldn't have expected, the bottom half of the draw in particular has been blown completely wide open with Wright and van Gerwen dropping out, not got time to wait for a de Sousa/Clayton line to appear (although you'd have to think it's evens?), so will just take a look at tomorrow and come back for the remainder of the last sixteen tomorrow evening.

Chisnall/Smith - Starting off, irritatingly, with a line that looks just fine. The market is seeing this as ever so slightly better than 60/40 in favour of Chizzy, which is maybe two or three points too much in favour of Dave, maybe even a little bit more given the relative performances in the first round, but it's not enough. Chisnall favourite but Ross being a very live dog seems fair to me.

Wade/Bunting - Line seems more or less the same, except with more vig, as the previous game - Wade being favoured as you would expect. Just with the way the additional vig is working makes this a no bet at this time - Bunting probably has a little more than a 40% chance, and 6/4 is all we can get. Bunting looked good though, maybe if his line drifts more to the best price of 8/15 we have for Wade we can think about it, but there is bizarre agreement as to the exact line amongst almost all bookmakers here.

Price/King - Price looked real good in the first round, any time you can average over 100 in double in, you've got to be feeling confident, while King's average was way down, can't really tell why given how much of a dumpster fire dartsdata is to use nowadays, but it's a bit of a concern. 4/1 is a pretty huge price though so I'll have a small nibble, 0.1u King 4/1, he has been playing well enough in 2021 that he shouldn't be that much of a dog in anything apart from the longest of events, I've got a feeling that Gerwyn will just roll, but we'll see.

Searle/Humphries - Bookies have these even, and this should be incredibly spicy between two players very much on the rise. Gun to the head and I'd take Searle, but fortunately there isn't, I'm only seeing it as 55/45 which isn't really enough to take a shot here.

Bottom half tips tomorrow evening, actually in the office then probably not back until later.

Grand Prix bets

Always a difficult thing to judge, as it's so reliant on doubling percentage which will throw off my projections a bit, but not that much, I think you can bump the good doublers ever so slightly, but not by a massive amount, and it's pretty hard to get any sort of useful data. You can't actually use DartConnect for this either - sure, you can work out if it says the player's taken out 40 in 1, 60 in 2 or 156 in 3 what double they've taken and how many darts they've used with either complete certainty or some level of it - but what if it says 40 in 3? Sure, they're likely 1 in 3 attempts, but what if they shank into the 5 with the first dart and they've only actually had two darts? Or, with a more realistic example, 76 in 3? Is it T20-miss-D8, or is it 20-whatever-double? You just don't know.

So, bets:

0.25u King 4/6 - I'm primarily going to use a best of 11 guide here. That's kind of the same length of match in the quick first to two here, at which Mervyn would be 70%+ against Kleermaker. Seems decent enough.

DvD/Humphries line looks close enough. Probably shaded a bit in favour of a bet towards Dirk, but the double stats I've seen aren't favourable so pass.

Close to a Bunting bet. Getting 6/4 seemed a bit of an outlier, but Gurney is actually favoured, although 5/4 would be about where I have it so not so much of an edge. Gurney has course and distance as well, so the format ought to favour him slightly.

0.25u Smith 8/5, Ross is super underrated, and I'm not sure where we're at in terms of Cullen, whether the #1 Pro Tour ranking is overrating him in comparison to what he's done on TV. Projection calls it a flip so we take that price.

Chisnall is really close to a bet, 3/4 seems nice when he's around the 65% mark. Suljovic, however, is really solid doubling and is upticking following his final, Dave historically had some doubling issues and the format multiplies the chance it is an issue, so I can just about talk myself of it.

I wish we could get slightly better on Heta (ooh, that rhymes). 11/8 is real close to a match I see as a pure coinflip. Stylistically however Wade is an awful matchup and Wade's doubling is as solid as it gets.

The line looks round about right in Price/Smith. 9/4 is maybe underrating Smith a tough, I'd say 7/4 would be a fairer spot, but it's really hard to bet against someone who's won the two Euro Tours without any real trouble at all. If Smith doesn't do anything daft like lead off with 3+ missed doubles throughout the game, which is always in his locker, maybe he pulls it out.

I was expecting Dimitri and Ryan to be matched up a little bit closer and hence we could take Searle at 13/8 - but Dimitri is actually projecting in the 55-60% range, which doesn't give us enough of an edge. I was talking to someone earlier and saying that this is a real good section for Ryan, this might be the hardest game before the semi finals, and he's not without a chance.

Labanauskas/Dolan - Looks like the market has adapted to Dolan. Maybe over-adapted slightly, I see this as bang on 60/40 in favour of Brendan, and he's 4/7. No real value.

Was thinking that maybe this'd be a spot to jam on Callan Rydz at 2/1 against Jonny Clayton. But it isn't - the line is actually perfect. Oh well. Maybe it's worth a tiny spot given Jonny has a little bit of waivering form, but I can't possibly recommend it.

Vinny up against Gabriel is a really intriguing one. I want to shoot on van der Voort here. He's 5/4, and the line in my view should be the other way around. One to monitor, if it shifts to even 11/8 or so then I think it is worth a stab. The games from Dolan onwards are Monday so I can jump in if the line does move.

The market can't separate Aspinall and Ratajski. Kryzsytof is very close to taking a shot, it looks like a 55/45 game same as last time, but Nathan looking better in the last month, coupled with the projections not being enough in favour as needed, makes it a pass.

0.25u White 9/5 - we've not seen anything real decent from either player in 2021. Anderson didn't show anything threatening in Copenhagen, and the Matchplay wasn't brilliant either. Stats say White is actually playing better so we'll take the shot, knowing full well this could go wrong given how flaky both have been in getting results.

If we could get a bit longer on Cross, I'd gamble against Wright. Over this short a format a recent world champion shouldn't be quite so long as he is. But there's not quite enough here, I'm seeing 65/35 in favour of Peter, and I doubt the line would ever drift enough to take even a small gamble.

0.1u Noppert 7/2, this is basically the same sort of punt we've taken numerous times before, the analysis hasn't changed. I'm going small again like last time even though we have the advantage for a quarter unit, but there is enough of a chance in such a short race with the format that van Gerwen plays well enough that Noppert has no shot, or that Danny makes one error and puts himself into the same situation.

I feel sad for Glen. He's longer than 5/1, and it's perfectly justified.

That's the lot. Congrats to Thibault Tricole for getting the cake in Denmark, looks like Veenstra has a decent shot of getting a win today.

Grand Prix incoming

I really must post recaps of tournaments quicker, but general apathy towards the clusterfuck is the European Tour has kind of knocked me back a bit. Congrats to Gerwyn for winning again, while it was a bit of the old guard returning with Mensur and Whitlock making good runs, Aspinall also reaching the semi finals. Wasn't good enough to get Simon into the Grand Prix, which is a big loss for him and will knock him down the rankings. Speaking of which...

New FRH rankings (these incorporate Grand Prix mincashes):

1 Gerwyn Price

2 Peter Wright

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 James Wade

5 Dimitri van den Bergh

6 Jose de Sousa (UP 1)

7 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

8 Michael Smith

9 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 1)

10 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

11 Joe Cullen

12 Jonny Clayton

13 Dirk van Duijvenbode

14 Nathan Aspinall

15 Stephen Bunting

16 Devon Petersen

17 Mervyn King

18 Luke Humphries (UP 2)

19 Simon Whitlock (DOWN 1)

20 Daryl Gurney (DOWN 1)

Luke would have stayed where he is if we don't count Grand Prix money. Petersen oddly holds on to the top 16 spot for now, but will drop out if King can beat Kleermaker or Humphries beats van Duijvenbode, both of which look very live possibilities. Next man down who isn't in the Leicester field is Chris Dobey, who's now been passed by Callan Rydz. Suljovic's final pushes him back into the top 30.

So, double in in Leicester. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. I'll likely post tips on Sunday morning, but first, some quick draw thoughts:

Price/Smith - One that looks spicy on paper but one that Gerwyn likely wins surprisingly comfortably.

Kleermaker/King - Yet to be convinced that Martijn is really good enough to be making major fields. King's had a good twelve months and ought to take this.

Chisnall/Suljovic - Dave's had a fairly quiet year after his worlds exploits and he's now slid below Ratajski. Would have said this should be comfortable, but Mensur looked OK and who knows now.

Cullen/Smith - Interesting one for Ross. These are the sorts of games Joe needs to be winning if he really wants to push on in the rankings, this is a real potential banana skin.

Wade/Heta - I'm sure I've described Heta's game as being a bit like Wade's. Maybe they played before at some point fairly recently. I can't remember. Wade probably out Heta's Heta here.

Bunting/Gurney - Daryl was actually fairly close to missing out on this one. He was only one of the last three players in. It's a decent shot for both this, ought to be fairly evenly poised.

van den Bergh/Searle - Don't think either player really wanted this one. Searle would have liked to avoid a seed, and Dimitri's hit one of the most dangerous non-seeds in the field. Tough one to call.

van Duijvenbode/Humphries - Dirk's gone a little bit off the boil in the last few months, and couldn't get a win with either shot in the last couple of events and misses the Euros as a result. Luke's still in our circle of betting trust but the market has almost caught up now. Would think Luke'll have enough here.

Wright/Cross - This one would have been fun a couple of years ago. As is,  can't really see Rob putting up too much resistance.

Aspinall/Ratajski - This one might quietly be tie of the round. Not heard much out of Nathan in 2021, but is picking his game up it seems, and Krzysztof always produces the goods.

de Sousa/Durrant - LOL

Rydz/Clayton - Callan has the peak game to defeat Clayton here, who's had a couple of wobbles of late and it's ended up costing him a spot at Salzburg. If Jonny isn't on his game here he could easily be upset.

van Gerwen/Noppert - Repeat from last weekend. Danny can easily do this, he just needs a bit of composure at key moments.

van der Voort/Clemens - Weird one this. Can't really recall either player doing much of anything in 2021. Who knows. Gabriel probably slightly better.

Anderson/White - What Ian is going to turn up? He's not really had anything of note in 2021. Then again, has Gary done anything since the worlds final?

Labanauskas/Dolan - I'm not entirely sure how Darius has edged into the field, but here we are. Brendan is a bad draw though, and Darius probably loses this.

I think I'm way behind on 2nd/3rd division darts. I'll catch up this weekend.

Gib quarters

Can't be disappointed with the Noppert bet. If anything, I'm disappointed I didn't go larger, even though it would have resulted in a larger lost. Grabbing four match darts as a 3/1 dog seems to indicate we were on the right side of the line, all we can do is keep doing that and the results will come. Quarter finals starting in about an hour, we have these games:

Whitlock/Dolan - Should be quite close. I'm seeing Dolan as a small favourite - as is the market. I've got a touch over 55%, so with him at around 5/6, there's no advantage either way. Big opportunity for both players here.

Ratajski/Suljovic - Bit surprised Mensur won earlier so easily, but that's that, this should still be a tricky match up and Ratajski is correctly a small favourite. 8/11 is close to worth it, I'm seeing it right in the 60-65% range for Krzysztof, but we won't go with it. Ratajski's not looked fantastic this weekend after all.

Price/van Gerwen - Oh boy, this should be good. The bookies can't separate them at 10/11 the pair, if it was a bit more weighted in favour of MvG I'd probably take Price who I see at a shade over 55% to claim it. But it isn't, so we won't.

Wade/Aspinall - Another game where the bookies can't split them. I can't either. So we won't bet this one either.

I won't be back on for the semis and finals, but with the pricing as it is I'm guessing there won't be any value whatsoever.

Gib last 16

Solid day yesterday. Two safe bets were extremely safe, Smith-Neale pulled the huge upset to get us well into profit (although looking at the stats I'm not sure how), Krcmar got us pretty close to another and was unfortunate to find Wade playing as well as he is, Hempel didn't work but Gerwyn was playing fine. Eight games this afternoon, let's see if we can find any value.

Whitlock/Evetts - Ted wasn't great but just about did enough to take down van Duijvenbode, while Whitlock was just hitting steady five visit kills to take down Michael Smith in eight. Simon should be comfortable here, the 4/9 he's quoted at looks to be an absolute perfect reflection of where the match is at.

Rydz/Dolan - That was some performance by Callan yesterday to take out the former world champion. That's title winning form. We'll see if it continues, Dolan wasn't brilliant yesterday but steady enough to take out a bit of an underperforming Mervyn King. Rydz is only a small underdog in the market - maybe he should be a fraction longer, but it's not enough to bet on Brendan (57% when he's 4/5 isn't enough edge), I suppose factor in yesterday's games a bit more than larger data and it's fine.

Smith-Neale/Ratajski - Krzysztof was opportunistic against Searle yesterday in a match he had to win, Searle being very close in lots of legs and missing many doubles. Smith-Neale took advantage of Clayton doing the same really, but with a pretty mediocre statline in comparison. ASN is 10/3, that seems like a fair bit of an overadjustment, I wouldn't have thought that if Ratajski were to play Clayton instead he'd be a huge underdog, so I'll leave this alone.

de Sousa/Suljovic - Both did what they had to do yesterday, Jose whitewashing a pedestrian Kenny Neyens, while Mensur was a bit fortunate to edge out Kim Huybrechts in a game that was worth a lot more than the additional grand in prize money he immediately won. Jose is 4/9, it should probably be slightly shorter (I'd say 4/11), Mensur is not as close to Jose as the market thinks, but it's not enough of a gap to bet either.

Price/Heta - Should be a fun one, Gerwyn hitting five visit legs for fun, Heta was a bit up and down but did enough to take out Adam Hunt while never really being threatened, being up 3-0 and 5-1. This is not a bet, the Heta side seems a bit underrated, but he's not got chances to warrant being even 2/1 and there's only 5/2 available, so let's move on.

van Gerwen/Noppert - Michael dispatched Rob Cross easily enough, just the one great leg to finish it, while Noppert was embroiled in a couple of sticky legs in the match against Harrysson but hit enough five visit kills to keep the qualifier at arms' length throughout. We're going to shoot 0.1u Noppert 3/1, I really should go a quarter unit here given I see Danny at over 40% to take the match, but maybe Michael outperforms his season stats comfortably with having finally broken his title duck, and blitzes him with a 108 average or something silly like we know MvG can do.

Wade/Clemens - James was really good against Krcmar, neither player letting anything easy get away, just the two legs in the entire match which dragged on past fifteen darts, and just the two breaks of throw in the whole game. Gabriel booked his European Championship spot taking down Devon Petersen who just let Gabriel win too many easy legs. Wade's about 60/40 in the market, this looks spot on to me.

Cullen/Aspinall - Joe strolled past Joe Murnan who really didn't put up much resistance and only won the one leg in a mutual clown show of doubling, Aspinall meanwhile played maybe the best he'd done all season with three four visit kills against Edhouse, and could have averaged much higher than the 102 he did but for one leg where neither could hit trebles. The market has this close to evens with Joe having the tiny edge, I think that's a fair enough assessment.

So just the one flier on Noppert, they generally seem to have where the name players are at correctly enough these days to not leave a huge amount of value on the table. Should be able to check in before the quarters.

Gib day 2

At football tomorrow (that sounds nice), so will blast through tomorrow's schedule for bets:

van Duijvenbode/Evetts - Well, Ted got through, but that was a dumpster fire. Maybe not the dumpster fire of the round, but it was not good. Line looks perfect, Dirk should win this 75% of the time. Whether he does or not, I don't know, he's not looked brilliant in 2021 compared to his 2020, but against Ted's performance today it may not matter.

Dolan/King - This will be a real good game to watch. Maybe not one for the casual, but for the purist, they could watch this first to whatever number and double it. Seems like King should actually have the slight edge in this one. Market agrees. Moving on.

Noppert/Harrysson - OK, Andreas beat Keane Barry, so I guess that's a thing. Did he do anything impressive in the process? No. 0.25u Noppert 3/10, would go more but for fear I've completely misread this.

Heta/Hunt - Oh god Hunt. Just gone for a quick check on Adam's stats, and he seems consistent, so maybe he's lost a bunch of close games on variance. Seeing Heta at 80%, will take a bit of 0.25u Heta 2/5, looks alright to me. Only on Unibet so take it while it lasts.

Suljovic/Huybrechts - What do we even make of Mensur right now? I know what we make of Kim, he continues to play great stuff, should have whitewashed Koltsov, but meh, who cares, job done. Market is even. Not going to push my luck with Kim, but it's really close.

Smith/Whitlock - Simon was clinical enough, Michael is a huge step up in quality though. Whitlock is still with chances, I see him as having just short of a 40% shot. Sadly, so does the market.

Wade/Krcmar - Boris just smacked up a World Cup winner with a near 98 average, and he's only being rated as having a 25% shot against Wade? Sure, I'll take a small piece of that, 0.1u Krcmar 3/1, only not going larger given there might be a bit of uncertainty on Boris' match sharpness and that Wade always tends to overperform against his rating. But Boris should take this 35%. That's worth a punt.

Ratajski/Searle - This will be real fun to watch. I can barely pick a winner, maybe seeing Krzysztof as having a 10/11 edge. That's roughly where the market is at, they're on the Searle bandwagon, so it is what it is.

Clayton/Smith-Neale - We don't have much on Adam, but what we do have makes me think it is definitely worth a tiny shot given the price, 0.1u Smith-Neale 13/2. Again, only on Unibet, so grab it.

Petersen/Clemens - Surprisingly evenly matched on my stats, but Gabriel's been a bit underwhelming, still he got a good result today. Market has Gabriel as a 1/2 favourite, that is, shall we say, excessive, but Devon just feels like the dictionary definition of a confidence player, so I'm not going to take him at odds against, especially given the vig in the market.

Wright/Rydz - Should be a fun one if Callan can bring his peak game, but the market indicates he won't do so on a regular enough basis to make it worth a bet. Wright being around the 75-80% range? Seems fair.

Price/Hempel - 0.1u Hempel 5/1, he's very much in our betting circle of trust, it's a big ask, but I'm seeing 30%. He is that good. Gerwyn likely wins, but this is definitely worth the punt.

van Gerwen/Cross - I really wish van Gerwen hadn't have won at the weekend to give him confidence. Then again, with Cross only barely longer than 2/1 and only being at 39% chances, and not looking brilliant today, maybe it's for the best.

Cullen/Murnan - Joe on Joe violence, you love to see it. Market I think is probably fine, it is probably underrating Murnan by a few ticks, but certainly not enough to go for him to pull any sort of upset, given he only barely scraped through today.

Aspinall/Edhouse - This one is kind of similar. Edhouse is probably a bit closer than the market suggests, but it isn't worth the punt. He's 36%, he's 5/2. It's close, but it's not enough.

So we're taking two solid favourites, but not with enough confidence to go yolo on them, then three dogs to see if we can spike on one of them. This is the sort of day that goes wrong a large amount of the time, but if we have our favourites hit then we're close to freerolling on some good upside plays. Let's see what happens.

Gib second session bets

lol nentjes

After a bit of a delay, oddschecker is up and running, as is dartsdata which took until the third game to appear but at least had the data. Why they don't switch everything to Dart Connect is beyond me, but it is what it is.

Bunting/Hempel - Hempel's pretty good, and the market seems to be respecting that despite the big name opposition, he's only 7/4. I think that's worth taking, he's only averaging slightly lower than Bunting and actually projects as a tiny favourite based on winning legs - 0.25u Hempel 7/4.

Parody/Neyens - No real data to go on here. Neyens is only 60/40 in the market. I feel this should be a Kenny bet, but we just don't know enough.

Searle/Schindler - What a matchup this is. Close to a Schindler bet. The market seems to be recognising that he's much improved, not giving us better than 13/8, but Ryan is still a favourite at 55%, which doesn't give us quite enough equity to consider betting on Martin, particularly given that Ryan will have accumulated a lot of stage experience in comparison to Martin in the last twelve months.

Jones/Whitlock - This should be a pretty easy Whitlock win. It's not worth the bet though, I'm seeing 79% chances, 4/11 is kind of tempting but there isn't the edge to recommend a play. Seems safe to acca.

Koltsov/Huybrechts - Here's an edge though. Kim's averaging a full five points more than Boris is, which is equating to an 80% chance to take the match. We can get 4/9 in a couple of places which is around the 70% implied chance margin, so we'll go with it - 0.25u Huybrechts 4/9, it's very tempting to go half a unit and with a slight bit more edge (and if Koltsov wasn't so swingy), we would.

Rydz/Hewitt - Rydz is 1/9 lol. I half want to snap off a tiny play on Hewitt, but I won't, I don't think he's quite ready to take on someone of Callan's calibre.

Edhouse/Beaton - Bookies can't separate them. Understandable, they're both scoring 89 a turn for the season and I can only see it 55/45 - in favour of Edhouse. 10/11 take your pick isn't tempting.

Humphries/Clemens - Gabriel is still playing fine darts, it's just Luke's pulled away with a great 2021. Humphries is 4/7, this seems a little harsh on Clemens who I'm seeing with just a shade over 40% chances, but it's not worth the bet.

So two more tips added, let's hope that Florian can undo the damage from this afternoon.