Minor adjustments

Got a little bit of time, so let's look at how I'd adjust my picks given what happened today, will work through in new order:

Evans - Looked basically safe before, got a win, looked very impressive in the match he lost, is probably a lock now

van Dongen - Kind of got fucked over by the draw, but still played solid against Price, has enough in the bank with how things turned out now surely

Edhouse - Great run. Pushed through to win his board and is now clearly on the right side of the cutoff. One more win would be nice, and assuming no horrible draws I wouldn't back against him getting it

Zonneveld - Didn't improve any after getting a tricky draw against Pietreczko, but there were enough people below him not doing much that he should be fine. An opening win tomorrow should make things absolutely safe

Wattimena - Good run to the board final has probably shaded my thoughts from being marginally out to being marginally in. There's enough people within shooting distance that it's not a lock, but he looks a lot better today than he did 24 hours ago so I'm swapping him to the in camp

Brown - Beat an out of form van der Voort then averaged 70-something against Razma. I fear that one win might be enough with how things have transpired, as it's probably going to need two people to make a board final minimum to shove him out. I'm still calling out for now, but last man in seems like a probability

Brooks - Comfortably beaten by Waites. Only £250 above the cutoff as the last man in right now with four players one win away from overhauling him. Still out for me, really needs a great draw to stand any chance

Kuivenhoven - Maik really shook things up with a quarter final run to come from a fair bit back to be the last man out. We thought he might not have enough runway to get over the line but with an additional 3k in the bank, I'm upgrading him to in. Will clearly need one win and may need two given how tight it is, but I'm going to give him the upgrade still, there's enough game there

Burton - Solid run to win his board has put him into contention as well. On the same money as Kuivenhoven, but not playing quite as well. Entirely possible that he gets a decent draw and forces his way in, but I'm going to stick with my initial assessment at this stage

Kleermaker - Getting drawn against Gilding was not ideal and he now drops from provisionally in to provisionally out. I had him as in as of yesterday, but I'm going to downgrade to out, he's now got a couple of players ahead of him who are playing better that we weren't expecting so I am thinking he's going to need a lot of things to go his way

Hughes - A board win has at least given himself a chance. It may be the case that just a board final will be enough, I just don't think he does quite enough tomorrow, we'll see

Rodriguez - Added £750 to keep hopes alive, but I don't think that's going to cut it

Hempel - Did have him in, but got to downgrade to out. Ran into an inspired Vandenbogaerde, and is now in a spot where he must get to the board final just to draw level with the 32 spot as of right now. Seems tricky

Meikle - Got the better of Gurney in round one but then fell apart against Burton in round two. Is on the same score as Hempel, we know he has enough that he can pull it out, but the question is still the same as to whether he can find it

Soutar - We're getting into hero shot stages here, needs a quarter really, didn't play too bad today to add a first roiund win, but seems too far back now

Boulton - Real disappointing to see him draw a fellow Challenge Tour player in Plaisier and throw a 5-4 lead. I still hold hopes but think he couldn't afford a first round exit in either event if we're being realistic

Klose - Not convincing in round one, murdered in round two, doesn't look likely to happen

Krcmar - Now at the stage where people need a semi, and he showed nothing today to make me think he'll get a semi

Killington - Awful game today against Barney probably writes him off for good, losing too much ground and seemingly not playing well today either

Landman - Got the draw he needed against a Challenge Tour player but couldn't get out of the low 80's

Suljovic - Unfortunate to draw Ross Smith, now so far back he needs a final

So right now I've upgraded two and downgraded three. I guess the default choice given points on the board will be Keegan Brown, he does after all need two players to reach a board final to knock him out, so I guess I'll have to actually say he'll be the last man in, but with the huge proviso that it would not surprise me in the slightest if two from the Kuivenhoven/Burton/Kleermaker/Hughes cluster do what's needed. Or one does and then someone makes a hero run we're not expecting - there are enough within striking distance that, if Brown loses round one, have the game to get to the round needed to overtake him.

Of course, the likely outcome is that Brown will draw Bradley Brooks and fuck everything up. Or a Goffin, Fullwell, Murnan type of player, and get the win. One should put him safe. Let's see. It's going to be an exciting day.

It's the final countdown

OK, here we go, the back to back Pro Tours which will decide who's going to get to the biggest show in darts, who's going to have a Christmas off, and who might need to decamp to Wigan or wherever the fuck they're holding Q-School in January. The situation is this:

I think in all likelihood that the chances of enough players overhauling anyone from Zonneveld up is remote, but not unbelievable, so I'm going up as far as Ricky Evans - I had the cutoff at £25k tentatively, I'm just pushing it up slightly. Similarly, I'm not going below Suljovic, he already needs two board wins to stand a chance, anyone below needs even more, and given there's a clear £1k drop from Suljovic to Arron Monk, it seems pretty unlikely that unless someone goes on a Szaganski-esque miracle run, we're talking about seven from these twenty-one as to who's going to fill out the Pro Tour spots for Ally Pally. But the question is who are they going to be?

I think this is enormously form based, particularly short term form. As such, I'm going to give you two tables - one from the last twelve Pro Tours in terms of cash money won (so this is from those that started from late August on), and scoring from that same cutoff (which will include any European Tour events which have taken place, as well as anything like the Challenge Tour for the likes of Boulton etc who are eligible to play in non-Pro Tour events.

Let's look at the former first:

Obviously this looks good for Edhouse, seemingly only being outside on countback, and possibly good for Klose and van Dongen as well - but there's a difference between those, Daniel has got the neormous majority of his money from that one Pro Tour where he made the final, and that was moderately early in the sample, whereas van Dongen has been accumulating with just the one brick in the twelve events we're looking at. That's tough going - Kuivenhoven also has just the one first round exit, but ten second round exits, which if you follow expected trends is a bit of a problem for someone who's probably going to need to put on £4k if not more, chipping away £750 at a time isn't going to cut it. Who should be concerned are Brown and Brooks, both possibly hanging on by a thread at this stage.

But let's ignore results, what about how they are playing. As stated, we'll use a cutoff of 26/8/23 and see what we've got:

Here again it looks really good for van Dongen, while Boulton, very fresh off a Challenge Tour win, is likely the next best along with Suljovic. Again looking at what players are actually doing, it looks really bad for Brown and especially Brooks, neither of whom are throwing what they need to do right when they need to do it.

So who out of these 21 are grabbing the 7 spots? Let's go through it:

Evans - YES, appears to have enough of a combination of money in the bank, recent accumulation and decent recent play to be fairly sure.

van Dongen - YES, only 250 quid less than Evans in the bank and doing everything better.

Zonneveld - YES, is nowhere near as convincing as the two above, but points on the board is key and I can quite easily see him squeaking out the probable win or two he'll need to make himself absolutely safe.

Wattimena - NO, accumulation is not overly convincing, scoring the same, while it wouldn't surprise me if he sneaks in, I'm calling him just missing out.

Brown - NO, play has dropped off a cliff and looks like it needs a miraculous turn around to get there.

Brooks - NO, see Brown, but worse.

Kleermaker - YES, this might be a controversial call, but he seems up and down enough coupled with the quality he has in floor events that I think he scrapes the win or two to push himself above the few players immediately above him and just holds on.

Edhouse - YES, scoring is good, recent accumulation is very good, just continuing what he is doing ought to see him get there.

Hempel - YES, appears to be having an uptick in form, scoring appears to be there just about enough, I think he does just enough to get there.

Rodriguez - NO, numbers don't lie, he's been playing poorly all year, while he can turn it on if he needs to and it wouldn't surprise me for him to hit a quarter final from nowhere, it just seems unrealistic.

Boulton - YES, I can't discount the level of play he's been doing, peaking at the right time, and he has a winning mentality right now.

Meikle - NO, the peak game is clearly good enough to be able to force himself into the picture, but he's not shown it for too long and I doubt it happens this week.

Burton - NO, I fear he may be the last man out, he's been doing enough lately that he's certainly got a chance, but I think there's enough of a combination of being too far back and having enough competent players above him that he just falls short.

Hughes - NO, might have been a touch unlucky in terms of results, but the overall level of play just isn't there right now.

Soutar - NO, simply not able to get results, and the numbers he's putting up doesn't make me think it's a case of bad draws, the game's just not there at the moment.

Klose - NO, the metrics are good, don't get me wrong, but there's just too much of a gap. He has the game to get there, but the lack of consistent results makes me think that he could make a semi and give himself the chance on Wednesday then brick the first round on Thursday. Probably the best bet from relatively downtown, but still in the big ask stage.

Kuivenhoven - NO, can't recall really talking about him this year. Think it's another case where if we had six events left, he's doing enough to get there but there's not enough race to run at this stage.

Killington - NO, has shown some flashes but is likely too far behind. Recent results will give him confidence however so certainly wouldn't rule him out of winning a board on day one and giving himself a platform.

Landman - NO, he's really only in the equation due to a bit of a freak Pro Tour final, is not doing anywhere near enough however you look at it to be a realistic shot. But hey, if you've done it once...

Krcmar - NO, really struggling with results. Quality of play is not terrible, but it's basically asking him to produce the breakout performance we know is in there somewhere right where the pressure is highest. Which is a big ask.

Suljovic - NO, Mensur appears to be doing a bit better of late than he has been all year, but when back to back board wins would only give him a place on countback if nobody improves, it's just another case of being too far back.

So I'm going with everyone who currently has 25k in the bank upwards along with Kleermaker, Edhouse, Hempel and Boulton to get the job done and punch their Ally Pally tickets. Thoughts?

Very brief post-Euros post

Did not expect a Wright > Wade final, but hey, good to see Peter hit a bit of form after what's been a bad year whichever way you look at it, also good to see Wade, who's not been playing badly, get himself into the Slam and get a nice wedge onto his ranking, which should solidify things although still see him a bit outside the top 16. New FRH rankings:

1 Michael Smith

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Nathan Aspinall

5 Peter Wright (UP 2)

6 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 1)

7 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

8 Joe Cullen (UP 1)

9 Dave Chisnall (DOWN 1)

10 Danny Noppert (UP 2)

11 Rob Cross

12 Dirk van Duijvenbode (DOWN 2)

13 Damon Heta

14 Dimitri van den Bergh

15 Andrew Gilding

16 Ross Smith

17 Chris Dobey (UP 1)

18 Josh Rock (UP 1)

19 Ryan Searle (DOWN 2)

20 James Wade (NEW)

Schindler drops out, but is only a board win on the floor behind Wade. van Veen rises up to a solid #33, less than 1k behind Pietreczko. Challenge Tour is done - Owen Bates claimed the second spot after a good run in the final even to pip Hendo to the post, getting the two critical wins in deciding legs.

I'll try and get back tomorrow evening and do some quick stats on the race for the worlds ahead of a Wednesday/Thursday Pro Tour double header, which will also see many players see themselves needing to hit the PDPA qualifier in order to save their card.

Euros round two

What a couple of days of action! The number 1 seed gone, the defending champ gone, the tournament favourite should have been gone (Madars isn't going to get over that one in a while unfortunately), and while there's plenty of big guns still in there, it's already looking a bit of an interesting tournament. Up to first to ten now, while (as we've discussed before) it doesn't give as much of an advantage to the better player as many think, every little helps, so let's go with round two.

Dobey/Bunting - Chris took care of a slightly off Chisnall fairly comfortably, while Stephen eliminated Schindler even more solidly, and this one rates to be extremely close with the two of them side by side on scoring in the last six months. Maybe Dobey has the slightest of slight edges, but with the market shading him only a slight favourite as well, there's no betting interest here.

Price/Aspinall - Gerwyn didn't really need to get out of second gear to beat Keane Barry, while Nathan was asked a few questions by Searle and the 6-3 scoreline could easily have been closer on another day. Nathan's got decent chances here, it's more than 40% - but it's not really that much more than 40%, and with the market not giving us better than 13/8, while it's an OK price, I'm not feeling sufficient certainty about our edge to recommend a play here.

van Veen/Gurney - Gian looked excellent in eliminating Damon Heta, while Daryl continues an under the radar excellent season dropping just the two legs to Josh Rock who was averaging a ton. This seems moderately tight again, with Gian having an edge but it's only 55/45 or there abouts, and the market either isn't sufficiently on the GvV hype train or recognises Gurney's playing well, as they're only offering 11/10. No play here.

Smith/Wright - Matchup of players who did for our bets (two up, two down, tiny profit) - Michael didn't need to do anything special against Barney, while Peter forced a big comeback against Clemens, finishing in style in a decider, but while Wright played well Gabriel should really be finishing from there. Smith's got an edge, but it's not by that much, he's maybe playing better on TV than the floor where the bulk of the data is here so let's call it 60/40. Wright's 6/4, Smith's 4/7, we can move on easily.

Cross/Noppert - Rob won as expected against Dimitri, while Danny was outstanding in whitewashing Andrew Gilding, only trailing van Veen for the highest average of the round. Cross looks the better player overall though, with winning chances getting closer to 65% than 60%, and the market appears to have recognised it somewhat, pricing him at 4/6, which is better than break even but, like with other games, I don't have the confidence in such a small edge to recommend a play, particularly with Noppert's first round performance fresh in the memory.

Wade/de Sousa - James was pretty darned mediocre against Dirk, but with the Dutchman apparently struggling with some sort of injury he didn't need to be, while de Sousa got maybe the upset of the round in defeating Jonny Clayton, being the beneficiary of a comedy miscount for a change (Clayton going 18, 20 bull on 86 for reasons unknown). This rates to be extremely close - I'm actually seeing de Sousa as a tiny favourite in the projections (so small, it's closer to 50% than 55%), but with a decent consistency advantage to Wade, so I'm calling this a pure flip. The market likes Wade somewhat, and 13/10 on the Portuguese number one is the closest I've seen to a bet yet - 7/5 would probably be enough for a small nibble, so consider him if the market moves or you see better on exchanges.

van Gerwen/Pietreczko - Michael needed to dodge match darts against Madars Razma, while Ricardo got ahead early against Ross Smith and made no mistake seeing it out with an average solidly into three figures. Pietreczko isn't going to be intimidated given he defeated MvG on the way to winning his Euro Tour title, but he is a significant underdog here, not even projecting to win one in four, with the lines putting van Gerwen at 3/10, we're not even slightly interested in this one.

Humphries/Ratajski - Luke dropped one leg against Dolan in a match that was as comfortable as we thought it might be, while Krzysztof nearly hit a nine in a competitive game against Joe Cullen, which saw the usual Sportradar fuck up and scrambling to get the statistics from it. Luke's the better player, and while Ratajski is someone we do rate, he's a pretty big dog here in the 70/30 range, which I thought might be tighter. Luke's 1/3 so we're not touching that, Ratajski is nowhere near long enough to consider, we'd need more than 3/1 to even start thinking about it and with the market vig we're not there.

So no bets, but there's some spots where if you take a slightly more optimistic perspective on some players, you might find a bet of your own which would at least be break even. Should be back before the quarters.

Euros round one

Well that was one heck of a Pro Tour series, with unexpected winners and a lot of surprising deep runs, which have really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons in terms of the worlds race - I was thinking £25k would be enough, now I'm thinking that it could need nearer to £26k to be sure? Guess a lot will depend on the strength of field of PC29/30, we'll see. Anyway, we've got another major incoming, I'll hold off on new FRH rankings until after we're done, but let's look at round one:

Noppert/Gilding - Feels like neither is in top form, despite Noppert getting a Pro Tour win about a month ago, maybe he has the slightest of edges at around 55/45. Gilding's a touch longer than that, but only in some places and not longer enough to recommend a play.

Aspinall/Searle - Both appear quiet since the Matchplay at least, but the numbers are still solid for both, especially Nathan who looks to edge this around 55-60% of the time. He's 8/11, which looks a perfect line.

Chisnall/Dobey - Dave's been one of the standout players of the season, while Dobey is playing strong stuff, just not getting the results overly frequently, but still looks to be favoured about the same amount Aspinall is. The market puts him as at evens, which we'll take, 0.25u Dobey evs, ideally we'd want slightly odds against, but with this looking like a good spot for Chisnall to be under maybe more pressure given the seeding, I'll go with evens.

Cross/van den Bergh - Rob's defending champions money, but I don't think that'll matter so much against someone in such mediocre form as DvdB, Cross projecting just over a two in three favourite in this one. 4/7 looks really close to a play, 8/13 (which might be out there on obscure books) might be worth a small play, I'd really want 4/6 before opening up on this one.

Price/Barry - Not really sure what Keane's done to get here, I don't remember too many deep runs but he's here and that'll help his rankings, and I think there's a possible lottery ticket here despite Price's obvious quality. I'd put Keane at approaching 30%, 7/2 is there or there abouts, but I think I'd really want 4/1 or better before I could recommend a play to be honest. It might move closer to the off in our favour so keep an eye out.

Wright/Clemens - Pretty much the best sort of draw Clemens could want in getting someone who's been relatively out of sorts all season. Wright isn't even on page one of the stats and this looks truly like a flip. As such, we can go with the price Ladbrokes are offering, 0.25u Clemens 29/20, lots of books have this at about 5/4 but we need to be approaching 6/4 before we really want to punt, and we can do.

Smith/van Barneveld - Not sure what Barney has really done this season to get into the field and remain a seed in the Pro Tours, but he's doing something, which is more than what could be said for Smith, at least outside of TV. Michael I think ought to be comfortable enough, but Barney's got chances in the low 40% bracket, which would indicate we're looking for better than 2/1. Ladbrokes give us that, 0.25u van Barneveld 23/10

Schindler/Bunting - Martin's still looking for a first tour win, while Bunting continues to fly under the radar in terms of quality. Very hard one to call, I can't split the pair, so with the market favouring Stephen, we're looking at Schindler on home soil here, but with the odds not really shifting beyond 5/4, we're not quite getting the edge we want in this one.

Heta/van Veen - Gian's making what seems like an effective TV debut here, and Heta's not a great draw, although maybe a bit better than it would have been this time last year. van Veen I think is playing well enough that he's got a clear 60/40 edge, so of course we're snapping off the odds against 365 are offering, 0.25u van Veen 11/10

Ratajski/Cullen - Krzysztof has a win in one of these and is another player that appears undervalued, recovering form after a bit of a blip around twelve months ago, while Cullen is without a title this year as far as I can see, and looks like he's playing a touch better than Ratajski is. The line favours Joe marginally so we're not really interested in this one from a betting perspective.

Rock/Gurney - Nice local derby here, Josh perhaps surprisingly hasn't added to his title haul this season (yet), while Gurney is playing at a deceptively strong level, and has been pretty much all season. He's playing well enough that this only seems like a 45/55 dog situation here, and it's fairly surprising that we can't get better than 13/10 on Daryl, making this a no bet, but maybe a line that moves if there's a bit of Rock hype nearer the off.

Clayton/de Sousa - Jonny has a Euro Tour win this season, which is a lot more than Jose's done, it being hard to recall too much that he's done in 2023, but it's clearly been enough to get into the field. Clayton's around a two in three favourite in the market - maybe it should be a little bit tighter than that, but I don't think Jose's level of play is quite enough to really start considering 7/4 as a play.

van Duijvenbode/Wade - Dirk's been solid at floor level, but whiffed both finals at Euro Tour level and his best games seem to have been front loaded, which might help Wade, who feels like is playing at the best he has done for a few years. This appears really deceptive in terms of how close it is and I think Wade's got approaching 45% chances here - the market's caught on however and isn't offering better than 11/10 sadly.

Humphries/Dolan - Luke's broken through at major level and will look to go back to back against Dolan, who's not bad, but with scoring only just over 90 in the sample I'm looking at, feels like is making up the numbers at this level. Humphries looks like he should win somewhere between three in four and four in five times - so 2/7 looks a perfect line.

van Gerwen/Razma - Michael's actually outside the top three in scoring over the last six months, which does surprise but he'll have more than enough for Madars here, whose scoring is way down but appears to have just about enough that we're not just going to autoclick on van Gerwen at 1/6. If anything, we should be considering the 5/1 on Razma we can see here and there. There's a skill differential, but it's not quite as big as the market suggests.

Pietreczko/Smith - The newest Euro Tour winner on home soil against the defending champion is a real intriguing game to finish, this one should mean a little bit more for both, we'll see how it goes but Ross is hitting form at the right time having binked the latest Pro Tour, and should grab this one a touch closer to 65% of the time than 60%. The market gives us 8/11 which is close to worth considering.

That's the lot, fill your boots.

Well that shakes things up

To go from having your European Championship qualification in the balance to binking, take a bow Ricardo. That's completely changed the lineup for that event (at least in terms of seedings), it's shaken up the Slam, Pietreczko nicking into the 14th spot with only two to be decided at the expense of Ratajski, it's also seen him likely lock up Matchplay and Grand Prix qualification next time around and move up to #35 in the FRH rankings. Not someone we had pegged to win at this level, but we did have him installed at #8 on our "next to win a Pro Tour title" list, and he's jumped that list completely. Nice job. It gives him a tasty tie against Ross Smith with a potential second round game against Michael van Gerwen to follow (with the draw for the European Championship of course having been finalised), that should be a fun one. New FRH rankings:

1 Michael Smith

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Nathan Aspinall

5 Gerwyn Price

6 Jonny Clayton

7 Peter Wright

8 Dave Chisnall

9 Joe Cullen

10 Dirk van Duijvenbode

11 Rob Cross

12 Danny Noppert

13 Damon Heta

14 Dimitri van den Bergh

15 Andrew Gilding

16 Ross Smith

17 Ryan Searle

18 Chris Dobey

19 Josh Rock

20 Martin Schindler

Wright's final doesn't really do much apart from give him a bit of breathing room from the onrushing Chisnall, indeed apart from Pietreczko and the rise of Jules van Dongen and George Killington into the top 90, there's really not much movement at all.

We're coming up to a run of four Pro Tours starting on Wednesday, which accounts for two thirds of the remaining Pro Tour money ahead of the World Championship. I'd guess that £25k is what's going to be needed to be really safe, so quite a bit of work to do for a lot of players in the upcoming days. Stay tuned.

Very very quick round three thoughts

Lennon had darts at double in both the legs he lost early to go up 5-0. Those are the fine margins you need to take in order to beat someone like MvG, if he's faltering slightly you've got to punish. Letting him break in seven visits and then not breaking in eighteen yourself when given the chance (heck, Lennon wasn't even on a double after eighteen), can't be doing that, but still confident enough that Steve is outperforming market value and we may well see him again later on this year. Real quick as we're close to go time:

Clemens/Smith - Looks moderately tight but the Englishman is favoured in projections by a near 60/40 margin, he's nominally around 4/6 so clear no bet.

van Gerwen/Cullen - 2/1 on Joe is half tempting. He looked OK yesterday, one mutual bad leg aside, and I'm seeing this around 60/40 as well, it's nearly enough, but not enough to really go with. I'll probably just wait until nearer the off, see if the exchange moves and have a small personal play.

Killington/Pietreczko - JFC what the hell did George do yesterday. Ricardo wasn't half bad either. This one actually looks fairly close on paper, believe it or not, although George has a much, much higher inconsistency rating, so I'd taper what was a wafer thin edge to George more towards 55/45 in favour of Ricardo, maybe more given the crowd and the pressure now being off Pietreczko in terms of making the Euros. Market is tending to give the German the edge ever so slightly so nothing here.

Bunting/van Dongen - This is a really wide open section, and another game where the initial projection calls it 60/40, that's just how well Jules has done of late to keep it that tight to someone consistently good like Bunting is. Yeah, it's another game where inconsistency is a factor, but I'll weigh that off against Jules' form being loaded towards the second half of my sample size and stick with the original numbers - which are putting van Dongen at about 11/8. Nothing to see here.

Heta/Lukeman - Martin's not without chances here, been playing better the last two weeks and he should sneak this more than one in three times - but not that much more. bet365's 13/8 is fairly close to where I'd have it, 7/4 looks like the correct line but it's another one where with the vig the bookies are giving up nothing.

Kurz/Wright - Do we keep on the Kurz hype train? I think it's an automatic play, 0.1u Kurz 3/1, someone who does what Kurz has done in the qualifier and then against Slevin and Clayton should be considered a strong enough opponent that he easily has more than a 25% chance against Peter Wright in his current form. Especially as match six of a card in Germany, regardless of how much they love Peter there.

Humphries/Wade - Damn, Wade is continuing to look strong. Maybe the best he's looked since the UK Open win? Humphries on the other hand also looked phenomenal in his first game as a major champion. I've got 71% Luke, he's 2/5 in a few places which is the exact corresponding line, so no bet.

Cross/Smith - Hmm, thought the markets might favour Michael a bit more, what with being the world champion and that, and ignore that the bulk of his games this season haven't been great (or at least world class level, still very good compared to mere mortals, or the bulk of the 128 for that matter) and actually Cross is outplaying him overall. They're not, but they're not really offering what I'm seeking on Smith here, I'd have shaded it as Cross 10/11 whereas you can get Cross 11/10, Betfair has 6/5 which I'm thinking about, I'll probably watch and see if the exchanges go out to about 2.3 or there abouts and then have a small play myself.

Will be watching the rugby later so no future tips likely, if Kurz does win then I think that we probably get an overreaction in pricing for the quarters and the value goes sadly.