Slam days 3-4

Bit of a disappointing day 2 with all the bets whiffing, Schindler's really disappointed this tournament, Rusty wasn't bad (idiotic bull route on 66 when he was broken in leg 2 aside), Dobey had the one terrible leg 7 which was very costly, then Rowby wasn't exactly bad, just got outplayed by Joyce. Things happen.

A few people have booked their place in the last 16, any game where we've got a qualifier against someone already out we're taking off the board and not considering. It becomes a friendly for all intents and purposes. So what do we have left?

Dobey/Joyce - Off the board.

Price/Schindler - Off the board.

Krcmar/Williams - We can consider this one, although Krcmar is basically needing two 5-0 results to qualify. Hard to think he's going to be that motivated as a result. On straight paper the model favours Jim ever so slightly, and he's 8/11, so we're not going to touch this one as a result.

Wade/Cross - Hmm. Cross only needs 2-3 legs to secure the group win. Wade may not need anything when this goes live as a Boris win will qualify Wade unless he gets absolutely murdered. Model says this is flippy, market is favouring Cross a bit too much but just because of the group dynamics I'm ignoring it.

Brooks/Rusty - Rusty is favoured 70/30 in the model, but Bradley's played extremely well in this group so far. As such, Rusty is actually the dog in the market. Rusty needs at least a 5-2 win and then help from Clayton to advance, would an early Bradley leg put too much pressure on? I think we've got to take a small 0.1u Rodriguez 11/10, but this could end up being a weird one.

Clayton/King - It could be the case that if Brooks wins, then King will need at least a 5-1 win. Or, if Rusty wins, then King just needs to get home. King isn't quite value on the market - he's done enough this year that he shouldn't be longer than 2/1 here, but this could again be odd.

Ratajski/Rafferty - Straight winner takes all here. 0.25u Ratajski 3/10, moderately small here despite the model favouring Ratajski hugely, given that Nathan hasn't been too bad.

Bunting/Rowby - Another winner takes all. Bunting is coming in as the near 2-1 favourite. Rowby seems better than that, 0.25u Rodriguez 7/4, the model says it's a flip. Bunting's probably playing a little bit better than year long this weekend, but Rowby has looked good as well. Taking him with confidence here.

Clemens/Sherrock - On to Tuesday now. Gabriel is on four and Sherrock is on two, so while Gabriel will take the group with a win, he only actually needs to get to a decider. I think we can avoid this, Fallon's rated as winning one in three, which seems fine, she did look pretty good against de Decker.

Anderson/van Barneveld - Yet more straight showdowns, and Barney comes in as a slight dog. I'm not really sure why, season long stats give it to Barney 55/45. What exactly has Gary done this year after the worlds? 6/5 is very close to a value punt. If I see Gary has lost the bull and I can still get it, I'll jump in.

Cullen/Ashton - Lisa needs a 5-0 here or she's out. 9/2 is perhaps underrating her slightly, although maybe she's underperforming a touch in the first two games. It's not underrating enough to warrant a bet, maybe Joe will also relax if he just takes the first leg and knows that, barring Hendo being a fuckin legend, he's through.

de Sousa/Humphries - Four point versus two point game here, Jose's needing three legs to guarantee the tiebreaker over Luke, who really needs to win and likely do so heavily enough to get ahead of de Sousa. The market looks close enough to correct, I'm seeing 63%, he's 4/6, next please.

Suljovic/Campbell - Mensur can get through with a 5-3 win, so he can't take this too easily. He's looked good, Matt's looked OK but not really doing enough that I think he'll truly threaten Suljovic. The odds for Suljovic look within fractions of a percent of being perfect anyway, so we'll move on again.

Smith/Davis - Off the board. 1/33 anyway lol.

van Gerwen/Henderson - Michael's been looking spectacular. Hendo hasn't. We can get better than 1/5 on Michael, that's more or less where I do see this game. He only needs one leg, so I think this is a case of getting it then playing with complete freedom.

Wright/de Decker - It's not a complete dead rubber despite de Decker being out already - he's only out on leg difference. Wright just needs a win of any description, and it's hard to see that he doesn't do this given that Mike's really not looked great in the first two games. Season long Wright is too short, but maybe de Decker just folds too easily given the situation. He can't even get third unless we see a 5-0 and then the same in the Clemens/Sherrock game.

Hopefully these go a bit better, although if they don't, maybe we dial back our expectations of the Rodriguez brothers as we approach the business end of the season. As an aside, Paul Lim is back! Legend.

Slam day 2 evening

Missed off one game from the afternoon session, whoops:

Brooks/Clayton - Bradley just took the chances he was offered really, three legs in seven visits. Clayton looked real solid on his own throw, so I'm thinking it's going to be tricky for Bradley in this one. Market has Jonny as a huge favourite as you would expect, and 1/5 is somewhat justified. Could even be a tick or two shorter really.

Davis/van Barneveld - Joe's game really wasn't there unfortunately. Barney had a fun game with Smith where he came up just short, failing to hold in the decider but generally not doing much of anything wrong. I really don't want to recommend Barney at 1/14, but I can't see how he doesn't win this one.

Campbell/Humphries - Matt was a bit up and down, the middle part of the game he played fine, missing doubles for two big checkouts to break and a steady hold, but the other legs were a bit of a mess. Humphries wasn't doing a great deal wrong throughout his game against Suljovic to be honest. Market thinks 75/25 Luke, which seems spot on to me.

Ashton/Henderson - Lisa didn't even get a dart at a double, only really the last leg where she was scoring heavily enough to truly warrant one, but Michael killed in five visits so that was that. John was kind of similar but did get a couple in the first leg and a chunk in the last, albeit at a less than ideal double. Market thinks 2-1 in favour of Hendo, that looks about right to me, maybe Lisa has a bit more of a chance than that but my stats don't include the World Cup so maybe it's more correct than I think.

de Decker/Sherrock - Mike mainly just had a few half chances against Clemens, Gabriel wasn't doing too much wrong apart from one scruffy leg which Mike took. Fallon was beaten easily by Peter but the game was marred by lots of missed doubles from both sides. Market has this fairly close, sort of about a 60/40 Mike game, that feels like it should be about right given how de Decker has played of late.

de Sousa/Suljovic - Jose was just fine against Campbell, one or two iffy legs but nothing major. Mensur was steady, didn't win too many quickly but was right there with some very good scoring in the legs he lost, definitely having a fine autumn. Market thinks Jose takes this a bit more than 60%, but not quite two in three, that looks to be just about right really. I've got it two in three but factor in recent form and I can accept movement of a couple of percent.

Anderson/Smith - Gary was basically in neutral and did enough to win, it wasn't a good performance in the slightest but it didn't need to be. Smith was very steady in the legs he won but couldn't quite get enough scoring in the others. Think Michael's being undervalued a bit here, I'm thinking 60/40, market has him at 4/5. It's not quite enough to bet, but maybe if you see him win the bull you can take a small poke at it.

Clemens/Wright - Gabriel looked maybe the best he's been for some time in a professional display against de Decker, while Wright was in a bit of a scrappy game. 65/35 Wright is where the value is projected, Peter probably takes it slightly more than that but especially with the vig in the game it's nowhere near enough to take a punt.

van Gerwen/Cullen - Joe did enough to beat Hendo, although what would have happened if John had have held the two times he had darts to do so is another question, probably still wins but it would be more interesting. MvG also won 5-0, doing a little bit better than Cullen did statistically. Michael is shorter than 1/2 here, that maybe underrates Joe ever so slightly, but there's no real edge here.

So yeah, if you were looking for any additional tips, sorry, there are none.

Slam day 2 afternoon

Didn't watch any of it yesterday (football did for the afternoon session, circumstances beyond my control did for the evening session), mostly went as expected but a couple of surprises in there for sure, will mention how things went as we go game by game and try to extract some value - I'll post the afternoon stuff now and come back quite shortly with the evening session, just want to get it out there quickly:

Schindler/Rafferty - Martin seemed off, missed some doubles, unfortunate. Rafferty played well, holding his own throw solidly but never really doing enough to generate anything to break Price. Market is 2-1 in favour of Schindler, I have enough of a sample on Nathan that we can take it, 0.25u Schindler 1/2, Martin rates to be a big favourite, but only half a unit as Nathan looks to be trending upwards in the last month or two and definitely looked alright yesterday.

King/Rusty - Big surprise for Mervyn to lose that one. Just wasn't scoring much at all. Rusty was fine, just a bit off in the first one for the break and then couldn't get close to Clayton on Jonny's throw. About the same price in favour of Mervyn here, I think it's more like 60/40 though. Rusty at 2/1 is real tempting, especially if we know that they're going to maintain their respective form from yesterday. What the hell, 0.1u Rodriguez 2/1, we'll go small and see what happens.

Wade/Krcmar - Boris just couldn't do anything on his throw, mainly double hitting. Cross was giving nothing away on his, but Krcmar gave away his own throw too easily. Wade wasn't bad against Jim, just a couple of dodgy legs to be broken in the midgame really, not sure what was worse, still being on three figures after 18 darts or missing three clear at double ten. Most un-Wadey. Similar analysis to the last one, except Wade is slightly more of a favourite than King, and Boris didn't show too much yesterday, so an easy pass.

Bunting/Dobey - Stephen was involved in a decent duel early on, scoring extremely heavily in the legs he lost, Joyce just stealing what he could and pinching the match. Dobey just wasn't in top gear, combination of weak scoring and missed doubles gave Rowby enough chances. Market can barely split them, just giving Dobey the edge, but I can split them, 0.25u Dobey 5/6, he's playing well enough right now that he should take it two out of three. If Bunting plays like yesterday this could go horribly wrong, but we'll trust the bigger picture.

Joyce/Rowby - Ryan got the win with a very Wade-like performance, Rowby just did what he needed to, which you would think might favour Joyce in this one if he's in equally opportunistic mood today. Market's got a bit of vig and just under 60/40 in favour of Ryan, but I kind of think that should be the other way around to be honest. Joyce is barely scoring more than Rowby this season, and on winning legs Ryan's a clear point less which generates a 57% win chance for the Austrian. 0.1u Rodriguez 13/10, this seems a solid edge but there's enough uncertainty and variance that I'll cut the bet down to the minimum.

Williams/Cross - Jim just snook over the line against Wade, only the one real impressive leg to open then plodding along with six visit kills and scoring around 85 in the ones he lost. Cross wasn't really challenged by Krcmar and you feel he's got more gears if needed. The market seems to favour Cross, perhaps a little bit more than is warranted, but I can't really recommend a bet on Jim even at north of 2/1.

Ratajski/Price - Tantalising matchup to close the session, Ratajski played just fine to take what Martin offered and hit a few legs, especially on throw, that didn't allow Schindler a chance. Price we mentioned earlier, didn't look fantastic on throw, only getting the one leg in fifteen in a match that went with serve all the way, but the scoring was such that he was pressuring the Rafferty throw relentlessly, scoring over 110 a turn on it. Market thinks Price at more or less two in three (a bit of vig here), that is underrating Ratajski a bit here, but not enough to take it. 9/5 at 38% isn't really the sort of edge we're going to push against a world champion.

Back real soon.

Slam day 1 bets

Going to be incredibly brief here unfortunately as there's so many games.

Bunting/Joyce - Seems right. Bunting favourite, Joyce is live, meh.

Ratajski/Schindler - Possibly the best game of the day is second on? Fuck this tournament. Fairly close to a Schindler bet but the market's caught up enough.

King/Brooks - Probably actually close to a value bet on King. Seems close to 80% and we get better than 1/3.

Wade/Williams - Sample size is a bit short on Jim, so got to be careful here, but what sample we do have puts it at around 60/40 and he's 13/8, which isn't tempting.

Cross/Krcmar - Very close to a bet on Boris. Not quite the edge over a year long sample and Cross is doing better work of late so happy to avoid.

Clayton/Rusty - Meh, this is kind of close to value on Rusty. It's short enough that I see him as better than one in four, we can get 7/2. Don't hate the bet, but no.

Price/Rafferty - Probably acca safe. Nathan's not shown enough to make me think he can threaten, but while taking Price at 1/7 is probably technically correct, I'll pass on it as short race, weird things can happen.

Dobey/Rowby - Projections have this pretty much bang on 2-1 in favour of Chris. Shame that the market is aligned in the same way, I thought there might have been value.

Clemens/de Decker - Seems deceptively close. Market is underrating Mike a touch, not quite enough to punt though. Wouldn't hate a quick handicap punt on Mike, particularly if you see he has won the darts.

de Sousa/Campbell - Matt isn't hugely lacking in sample size given how much he pwned the Challenge Tour, so I think we can say that the market isn't actually being unkind to him. Jose is just that much better, and if we were going to take a shot it would be on the Portuguese ace.

Humphries/Suljovic - Appears too close to call, albeit Luke appears to have the slight edge. Market agrees. Might actually be shaded too far in Luke's favour ever so slightly with Mensur on a bit of an upswing. Nothing here though.

Anderson/Davis - Think Joe should be off the board until we've seen him play. 1/4 Ando seems awfully tempting though.

van Gerwen/Ashton - Can Lisa hit some hot form enough to take down MvG? Yes. Can she do it often enough that we can take 13/2? Nope, although it looks about right.

Cullen/Henderson - Hendo might have slightly more chance to take down Joe than the market suggests. We can get 5/2, I'm thinking it should be nearer 7/4, 15/8 territory. I wouldn't hate the punt but there isn't quite the edge.

Wright/Sherrock - I have no data on Fallon. No idea if she played the Challenge Tour off the top of my head, but if she did, she did nowt in it. 7/2 looks about right.

Smith/van Barneveld - Should be a close game. It's nearly a bet on Barney. 13/8 with 46% win chances isn't a bad punt, last on on the day with a pissed up crowd likely in his favour, if you want to go with it I wouldn't hate it.

Day 1 of this is always a bit of a minefield, as such that I've talked myself out of everything may not be the worst idea. It isn't as if I've talked myself out of anything concrete for spurious objective reasons. Maybe I should go Barney, I don't know. I'm happy enough to see how things go and then re-evaluate on Sunday morning. Good luck ladies and gents.

Some Grand Slam thoughts

Dimitri's tested positive for the bubonic plague, sigh. We have no idea whether he's actually ill or not, but oh well, let's look at the groups.

Group A - This is a spicy one. Let's get the obvious out of the way - Rafferty will clearly lose all three games. He's got a ton of potential for sure, but hasn't shown anything this year which makes me think he'll compete with players of this calibre. Question now is whether Schindler can convert his top 20 level of play into results against Price, who is clearly still super elite, and Ratajski, who is clearly putting up top 10 levels of performance and results. He can, and the short race will help. It's only best of nine (I see no real reason why they can't bump to best of eleven), variance helps here.

Group B - Clayton's the clear favourite. He's hoovered up everything that doesn't count towards the rankings and is top five in scoring for what counts. He'll clearly be fine. Brooks and Rodriguez is going to be an interesting battle of youth, until you work out that Rusty is way better than Bradley is. Then we throw in Mervyn King, who's been super solid all year, but isn't that far ahead of Rusty in all honesty. Will be down to those two I'd think.

Group C - This seems like one of the more interesting ones. Wade is nowhere near one of the more dominant seeds, indeed Cross' resurgence in form sees him above him in scoring. Williams, from what we've seen on the Challenge Tour, has been playing at an extremely competent level and can easily threaten either over a short format. Then we chuck in Boris Krcmar, who is deadly on his day and can quite easily upset any of these. I wouldn't like to call a top two in this one.

Group D - This was the Dimitri group, but now we've got Chris Dobey in, which I don't mind as according to my scoring table it actually makes the group stronger. He's in red hot form and will probably get out of this one. Bunting, Joyce and Rodriguez don't have a great deal to separate them - Rowby is probably the weakest of the three but is trailing Joyce over the course of the year by less than a quarter of a point per turn. Stephen's only about a point higher than either of them. It's going to be tight as anything.

Group E - God knows what will happen here. Wright's going to take the group, that much seems obvious. As for the others, who knows. Clemens has got a couple of decent runs this year, but looks a fair bit off what he was doing in 2019. Sherrock has looked great in exhibitions but we'll see what happens here. de Decker hasn't done a huge amount in 2021, but certainly has upped his game over the last month or so and is peaking at the right time, so we could easily get a situation where this comes down to leg difference.

Group F - This is going to be good. Jose, for what many say, is still playing at an elite level, clearly top five in 2021. Humphries would probably be a name I would chuck into a "next player to win a major" conversation and is scoring in the top 20. Mensur's done most of everything and has picked his game up a ton in the last quarter and is probably playing as good as he has in the last couple of years. Then we chuck in Matt Campbell, whose data looks a bit pedestrian but we've not seen since the last worlds what he can really do, on his day he can certainly push any of these hard. Think he's the clear underdog in this one, but I'd love him to do well here.

Group G - This seems one of the easier groups to call. van Gerwen is back to the top of my scoring charts after a solid last weekend, finally grabbing a ranking title. Cullen is hanging around the top 20 area and should grab second. Hendo isn't doing too badly but is scoring below 90 over the course of the year and is a clear three points per turn lower than Cullen is. Then we chuck in Lisa Ashton, who's always been a bit hit and miss at this level, but mostly miss on the Pro Tour this year, but perhaps the Women's Series has sparked an upturn, and in a short race she can roll off 3-4 legs pretty rapidly.

Group H - Ando's hanging around as the top seed. Not sure why, Barney's outscoring him, as is Smith. To be fair, Barney's not ahead by much, but he is ahead, Michael is a good point further ahead. I think unfortunately we can chuck Joe Davis out of the equation, he's been struggling with injury per the PDC and didn't show a great deal on the Dev Tour when he did play, so this will likely be a straight three into two equation, one which I hope Smith doesn't manage to fuck up.

Bets tomorrow.

So what was I saying in the last update?

Something about the Development Tour. Wow, that German kid could be something special. That's quite a lot of damage to do very early in a not exactly weak field. Won't get ahead of ourselves, will see what happens at Ally Pally, but it's exciting times again.

I've asked the Weekly Dartscast peeps who they think is the strongest player not currently in the worlds field. For me, it seems like a pretty obvious James Wilson. He's actually on the top page of my database right now with scoring for the year of just under 92, slotting in between the ever deadly Mervyn King, the major winner Daryl Gurney, the former world champion Adrian Lewis and the upstart that is Florian Hempel. He's lacking sample size a bit with about a 45% leg win rate over less than 400 legs played (by contrast, Gurney has won that many this season), but it's perhaps an indication that he's been running into tricky draws.

Who else? It looks razor sharp as to whether Jason Lowe will make it, I think he's close to the last man out as of right now, I think it's fair to say he's had nowhere near as good a season as in 2020, but he's not played bad at all. Andy Boulton and Scott Waites are only fractions behind, as are the ever dangerous Krzysztof Kcuik and Karel Sedlacek, hopefully one can bink a regional qualifier.

In general, the worlds field is beginning to fill up. We've got pretty much all the remaining ones over the next couple of weekends, so let's see what goes on.

Been a bit of a break in updates

Yeah, yeah, my bad, just got caught up in various things so didn't get out the content I wanted after the penultimate Super Series, but we're done with it now. Straight to the rankings:

1 Gerwyn Price

2 Peter Wright

3 Michael van Gerwen

4 James Wade

5 Jose de Sousa

6 Jonny Clayton

7 Dimitri van den Bergh

8 Rob Cross (UP 1)

9 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

10 Krzysztof Ratajski (UP 1)

11 Joe Cullen (DOWN 1)

12 Michael Smith

13 Dave Chisnall

14 Nathan Aspinall

15 Dirk van Duijvenbode

16 Stephen Bunting

17 Danny Noppert

18 Ryan Searle (UP 2)

19 Luke Humphries (DOWN 1)

20 Mervyn King (DOWN 1)

Most moves are beneficiaries of binks, at least in the case of Cross and Ratajski, Searle making two more finals but not getting the additional bink that might have given him a chance to make the Slam might be costly. Smith binking one keeps him right behind Cullen, MvG (!) binking one means he's not actually that far behind Wright now, Dobey is still outside the top 32 but is closing the gap back down again. Dimitri's bink was kind of offset by a string of bad results afterwards, steady performances and one decent run might have seen him get past Clayton, but it's not to be. Rydz is solidly in the top 30 now, there's a bit of a north east feel around that with Rydz, VVDV, Durrant, Ross Smith and Dobey in that order from 29-33.

We're closing up the Dev Tour now - obviously Rusty will hold, but cool to see Bialecki getting a title yesterday. Should be back on Sunday evening with a bit more stuff, some Slam previewing in the week maybe.