Slam day 4

lol smith

We are clearly not touching Buntz/Chisnall, van Gerwen/Kleermaker or Aspinall/Pietreczko, which leaves us with five games to consider:

Gilding/Muramatsu - Line looks fair enough. Gilding probably just needs to win by as much as the other players have beaten Muramatsu by and he's probably safe. Haruki's showed enough that maybe he nicks this the one in four times required for Andrew to be a clear no play.

Heta/Greaves - Straight match up for the second spot. Heta's 2/5, implying around a 70/30 game. Heta would be about that much of a favourite against someone like Darren Webster as an example. Is Greaves at that sort of standard? I want to say probably not yet, could get up there though and it's not that much of a differential.

Noppert/Dolan - Danny probably just needs to not shit the bed to get through, whereas Dolan kind of needs to win and then likely get a bit of help, unless he can get a clear win. Market's giving it a bit more than 60/40 in favour of Noppert, I'm thinking it might be a slight bit tighter than that, but the danger is that they play after Gilding plays, and we could be in a situation where if something weird happens Dolan might know he only needs something like three legs to be safe. I'm not going to push what is only a slight edge regardless in these circumstances.

Cross/Sherrock - I mean Rob should be really comfortable here, but we thought that about Kleermaker as well, at 2/9 there's enough oddness that might happen that not looking at this one seems automatic.

Wright/Bunting - Final straight shootout for the group advance, market has it evens each way, we've got Bunting favoured but only by a percent or two, so easy enough no bet.

Full last sixteen look later today.

Slam day 3

Pretty much worst case scenario yesterday, all four bets losing 5-4, two of which had match darts, missing a combined fifteen darts at double in legs that they lost. Picking off just one of them wouldn't have been too bad, but it is what it is. We are not touching Rock/van Peer or Price/van Veen for obvious reasons, which gives us six games to look at:

Anderson/Lennon - Steve looked OK in game one, but was dragged down to Dirk's level in game two, he's not completely dead but needs a big win and then help from Humphries, Ando similarly needs help from Humphries as well as getting the win. Ando's 1/3 and I see it as 75/25, so let's move on.

Clayton/Dobey - Winner takes all here, looks like Clayton's slightly outplayed Dobey in two games against common opponents, but not by much, I see it as a pure flip, market has neither player odds against, move on.

Ratajski/Girvan - Krzysztof kept things close enough against Smith so that a regulation win against Girvan, who's not looked dreadful but has looked out of his depth, ought to get him into the next round - by my maths a 5-2 would probably force at least a playoff, a 5-1 would make it safe. Hard to really call Krzysztof's edge given the limited data we have on Nathan, but 1/4 with how the two have played doesn't look unfair.

Humphries/van Duijvenbode - Luke's pretty much through already, only two 5-0's going the wrong way would see him out, and it's real hard to consider a bet on Dirk given his post match interviews explaining his injury situation and how far he is off his peak game. 4/11 on Luke seems like it might actually be value but I don't really want to try to evaluate what the line is in this one.

Smith/Wade - Line looks close enough to me, Wade's a touch longer than 6/4 so an implied chance in the high 30% range, I'm seeing low 40%, but even off the floor/TV form for Smith and I think it's an easy ignore.

Searle/Rafferty - Straight heads up game, Searle could do nothing against a great game from Price, while Rafferty got an excellent win against van Veen to give himself a shot. Searle projects about a three in four favourite, the market has it a bit closer, but not really enough that I can consider a bet - although it is the closest thing we have to a bet.

Slam day 2 evening session

Afternoon session just done, everything into the master computer, sadly the results mean we've got three dead rubber games already in the final sets which is going to severely limit the amount of action we might be able to get on, but it's the natural result of an absurdly silly group stage format (although that's probably the fourth silliest thing with how the Slam is organised, behind the huge number of spots given to the Pro Tour qualifier, the quarter final rematch potential which fixes things so that bookies could price up "to win quarter" markets but they don't, and the semis/finals on the same day thing) and we can't do much about it.

Looking at this evening, I'd have been looking at Lennon in the first instance against van Duijvenbode, but he's too short already at 6/4 and Dirk's of no interest either. Wade against Girvan being priced as a 75/25 matchup seems absolutely fine. Wright/Chisnall suddenly became a lot more important after yesterday, Chizzy being priced as a small favourite looks perfectly correct. Kleermaker against Sherrock is the most interesting one, I'm not reading the slightest thing into "zomg sherrock 92 average" bullshit, that's severely inflated due to MvG only allowing her one dart at double. BetVictor think this will somehow be close, I don't, 0.25u Kleermaker 4/6 on BetVictor is the play, anything longer than 1/2 looks absolutely fine. Bunting against Buntz is one where I think there's maybe a slight overreaction to Stowe's game yesterday, but not slight enough to bet against him, he's clearly got enough game to have at least a 25% chance, so Bunting at 2/5 isn't really that interesting. van Gerwen against Cross I think is another one that's mispriced, I find it really hard to separate the two, van Gerwen's fractionally better and if he plays like last night it's going to be tough for Rob, but VC offer us another decent price, 0.1u Cross 7/4. Only not going a quarter unit given the relative performances yesterday. Smith/Ratajski is another one that I think looks very, very close, although if Michael is performing better on TV than he is on the floor then maybe we don't see the level of edge we do in the above game which makes it a clearer small bet sizing, 0.1u Ratajski 6/4 is widely available. Finally we have Humphries/Ando, I'm thinking it's a case where Gary's slightly better as opposed to the market saying Humphries is slightly better, but the margins involved each side of 50% are that small that I can't recommend a play.

Back probably later this evening with the Monday matchups.

Slam day 2 afternoon session

Just a quick post, not having put yesterday's data into the master computer, there's nothing that stands out as value in the afternoon session, the only game that looks like it's a possibility is the Muramatsu one - he looked like probably the upper quartile of what we thought his range might be, and but for a few wired doubles, could easily be playing in the winner's game. 7/4 I don't think is quite enough, but Dolan's not going to have it all his own way. Should be able to get some better analysis ready for before the evening session.

Also Stowe Buntz is a legend and the beer prices yesterday were comical 

Slam day 1 picks

Don't expect day 2 picks until probably Sunday morning as I'm going to the afternoon session tomorrow and will be late back accordingly, let's hop through the first day's lineup:

Heta/Pietreczko - Looks real tight, particularly if you go into shorter samples which make it look 50/50 rather than Heta having a small edge. Not loving 4/5 Heta in the slightest, and 6/5 Pietreczko, while not bad, isn't really a solid enough edge for a player who's still lacking a bit of TV experience.

Gilding/Dolan - Extremely tight, finding it close to impossible to pick a winner. Market appears the same, 11/10 on Brendan if we had to pick someone would probably be how lean, but we don't have to pick anyone.

Searle/van Veen - Should be extremely competitive. Am seeing this very close once more, with van Veen having a small edge, not really getting more than 55% in any sort of sample. Market has him shading it at 5/6 with Searle evens, so will ignore this one from betting angles.

Dobey/Rock - Small edge to Dobey on this one, which looks to grow from the low 50% range to the high 50% range as we get more form based. Which isn't enough to tip in another one where neither player is odds against but Chris is looking the better of the two in the market.

Noppert/Muramatsu - Haruki is going to be tough to call. As detailed in the previous post, his top game is pretty decent, but there's horrific inconsistency which may well end up giving Danny a couple of legs head start, which is extremely dangerous in the shortest format we have in the pro game today. 7/2 I don't think is a horrible price, but I kind of want to see what he does before recommending any play. This might cause us to lose our market if, as I think, he is a bit better than expected and a good showing lets the cat out of the back, but it's a risk I'll take.

Aspinall/Greaves - Beau's going to be even tougher to call. 5/1 is one that might be a touch long, but Nathan's really good, so I'm happy again to pass this one.

Clayton/van Peer - Kind of half tempted by van Peer. He's floating around a one in three shot, but improves to closer to 40% as we get more form based, albeit that might then start to run into form issues for a non card holder. A price approaching 5/2 is maybe a touch harsh, but it's not the slam dunk play I'd have liked it to be. If the market is bullish on Clayton in the warm up then I don't hate a small play on the Challenge Tour winner.

Price/Rafferty - Nathan's in trouble in this one. A price of 5/1 over a decent sample doesn't look unkind at all. As we get more recent and form based, his chances do go up a bit into the low 20% range, but that's still a long shot and not something we really want to be considering.

Wade/Ratajski - James is playing well, but Ratajski looks better to me - hovering in the mid to high 50% mark dependent on samples. As such, this is probably the closest thing we have to a bet so far with most markets giving Krzysztof an underdog status, albeit at 11/10 generally available. I'm going to say no, simply given that Wade looks to be upturning in form with a recent major final run, but this is possibly just me talking myself out of a decent bet.

Cross/Kleermaker - Looks like a standard two in three game for Rob over large samples, ticking slowly upwards towards three in four as we get more form based. 3/10 isn't worth considering, 3/1 on Martijn might have been worth a look if he had a couple of extra percent across the board and the trend was the other way, but he doesn't and it isn't.

Chisnall/Bunting - Good game this one. Chisnall's favoured, but not by much, fluctuating between a 55% favourite and a pure coinflip. He's 4/5, Bunting's 6/5, that's a bunch of no thanks for punting.

van Duijvenbode/Anderson - Gary is correctly favoured here - starting at around 60%, rising to about two in three as we get more form based, which we'd kind of expect given Dirk's best work appeared to be earlier in the year. Sadly the market puts him at 4/7, that's not in the slightest bit interesting, and Dirk's not long enough either, and with a possible minor injury issue that really affected him in Dortmund I think it's hard to quantify exactly what we'd need.

Humphries/Lennon - Steve's a talented player, but Luke is good enough now that this does represent a real gulf in class, I'm seeing Luke up at 70% give or take a percent regardless of sample, 10/3 on Lennon is the better side, but there is no significant edge and it feels like one he wouldn't really capitalise on for some reason.

Wright/Buntz - What level of game Stowe brings is going to be very interesting to see. For now, this one looks like a pretty trivial ignore - Peter's just off the back of a major win, so this looks like bad timing, and 7/2 doesn't feel like it's an overly generous price in the first place.

van Gerwen/Sherrock - Why does this feel like one where we should just empty the clip on MvG at 1/12? I won't, there's enough random things that can happen that makes it just not worth the risk.

Smith/Girvan - Why does this also feel like one where we should just empty the clip on Smith at 1/6? Scoring on the Development Tour is down at 83, while that's deflated a bit due to quality of opponent, this looks like a horrible mismatch. I'll just not bet this one and then regret it later.

So no bets, there's quite a few where we're in a holding pattern while we wait for information on the players we lack data on, and hopefully our suspicions are confirmed before we lose a potential market in games 2/3 - but in general it looks like the markets are correctly valuing most players in this with it being a pretty darned strong field, and with the matches being a bit flippy given the short race distance. Let's see if we get anything for Sunday.

Slam initial thoughts

Actual tips for the first round will come tomorrow, but for now, here's initial thoughts of win projections for each group game, based on stats dating back to the worlds inclusive to try to capture as much as possible for some of the more random players:

Sherrock and Greaves have 11 and 4 legs won respectively in the sample, which is way, way too small to consider. If Greaves had played the Challenge and Development Tours, she'd probably have got there, but she didn't. Sherrock did play the former but didn't get enough. That leaves in terms of low samples to be wary of Girvan, with just the 36 legs won, and Muramatsu, with 43 legs won. The latter is particularly misleading in terms of how well he rates, as he pretty much ran hotter than the sun in the legs he won, and in the 28 legs he lost he scored over 12 points lower per turn, one of three players (Paul Lim, Conan Whitehead) in the database to be over 10 for that stat with some reasonable number of legs played. As the projections are based on legs won, take the percentages with a pinch of salt, but he may well be more competitive than you think in a group that has three solid players, but no superstar players that you would think "Premier League" or anything like that, despite having two major winners and another major finalist.

So who's getting through?

A: Feels like Girvan is the obvious weak spot, making it a clear two from three. Think Smith has the edge, floor form has been mediocre but he's found it when he's needed it, which makes it look like a battle between Wade and Ratajski for second. This feels intuitively close but Wade looks to be rounding into form at the right time. Smith > Wade > Ratajski > Girvan

B: This is an absolute knife fight. van Peer is a real dangerous operator and should be able to challenge any of these, but I don't think he actually gets a win, leaving the same sort of scenario as we've had in the first group. Clayton I think's been the best player of the lot this season, Dobey appears to be in solid form, while Rock's numbers don't lie but he's had a very disappointing second season and not really converted it into titles, or results generally. Dobey > Clayton > Rock > van Peer

C: Group of death anyone? I'm putting Lennon last straight off the bat, I like his play a lot and he's been very underrated for ages, but this is a who's who of darts right now and it's a brutal draw. Dirk I think is maybe a touch off his peak form, which for me leaves it between Humphries, who's picked up a major very recently, and Anderson, who on the numbers might have been the best player out of anyone the last six months. I'd take Ando to nick it, and then probably later on run into issues in a longer matchup. Anderson > Humphries > van Duijvenbode > Lennon

D: I think we've got a clear top and bottom here. Price has been outstanding all year, and while two of the games will not be gimmies, I think he should still take them the overwhelming amount of the time. Rafferty looks out of his depth in this group, which leaves us with a straight clash between Searle and van Veen, which despite Searle not doing a whole lot wrong all season and maybe not getting the results he should have done, I've kind of got to give the edge to the ascending Dutch talent. Price > van Veen > Searle > Rafferty

E: This looks exceedingly tight between the three card holders. Buntz is going to be an interesting proposition (Spellman would have been more interesting but we can't pick our winners sadly), and it wouldn't surprise me to see him pressure at least one player, if not get into a spot to nick one, but this does look like a bad group in what looks like a huge step up in quality and experience. Wright's nicked a major but I can't be looking past Chisnall, who's barely put a foot wrong all season, and Bunting, who's maybe the most underrated player on the planet at the moment, to get through. It could be one where this ends up with two wins a piece, it's that tight. Chisnall > Bunting > Wright > Buntz

F: This appears to be clearly the most interesting group. Noppert is arguably the weakest top seed, and is best described as extremely steady. Gilding has the major win this season and while the level maybe isn't quite what it was in the first half of the year, still isn't bad. Dolan is likely Northern Ireland's number three right now, but is still very competent and a danger in a short format. Then we have Muramatsu, who in limited data has looked very up and down, and none of these players look that far ahead that he's out of any of the games. General feeling is to go in seeding order, but it wouldn't surprise me to see any result possible here. Noppert > Gilding > Dolan > Muramatsu

G: Probably the easiest group to call in terms of the actual qualifiers. van Gerwen is still an elite talent, although the field has caught up a lot. Cross remains severely underrated. Kleermaker I feel isn't overly suited to this sort of format, while Sherrock I think is genuinely making up the numbers at this level. van Gerwen > Cross > Kleermaker > Sherrock

H: This is a bit of an awkward one to call. Aspinall's been a bit mediocre since claiming the Matchplay, but does look to still have enough of a game to be able to clear up a short format match. Heta is maybe not quite at the same level he was at last year, while Pietreczko is very much in the ascendency and a danger to either one of these. That leaves Greaves, who I have no idea where she is at given she's basically chosen to stagnate playing nothing other than women's events. There's clearly a game there that can threaten, but these are three good players and hopefully this is a wake up call. I'm going to go for the player on the rise, but this looks any two from three. Aspinall > Pietreczko > Heta > Greaves

Expect tips on Friday evening for the Saturday sessions.

So the floor season is done

We're into the home stretch of 2023 for sure now, with all the floor events in the books. Congrats to everyone that secured their qualification for Minehead and Ally Pally, the latter of which seems very much like it's going to be a changing of the guard season, with big names like Soutar, King, van der Voort, Lewis (albeit for different reasons) and Suljovic all currently outside and reliant on the PDPA qualifier. We've also had a pretty solid set of players coming through the Grand Slam qualifier - I think it's unanimous that eight spots is way too many, and that there should be more people qualifying directly. Some wouldn't go as far as me and say that they should accept everyone who wins a European or Pro Tour event, and only hold a qualifier to fill the remaining spots, but we can't really argue with a lineup of Noppert, Bunting, Searle, Rafferty, Heta, Lennon, Kleermaker and Dolan. Not bad at all and no real complete randoms. Particularly for the three who weren't seeded, getting here could be the difference between losing and retaining a card, so it's a big chance for them. Even getting third place in the group could be the difference between Q-School and no Q-School.

New FRH rankings - these include minimum cashes for the Slam and PC Finals, nobody's ranking is affected for the latter with only Aspinall and Wright not being there (which is pretty shocking), while Cullen would be above Noppert on account Noppert's Slam money. Cullen didn't even try to qualify so he can lose the place early as far as I'm concerned:

1 Michael Smith

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Luke Humphries

4 Nathan Aspinall

5 Peter Wright

6 Gerwyn Price

7 Jonny Clayton

8 Dave Chisnall (UP 1)

9 Danny Noppert (UP 1)

10 Joe Cullen (DOWN 2)

11 Rob Cross

12 Damon Heta (UP 1)

13 Dirk van Duijvenbode (DOWN 1)

14 Dimitri van den Bergh

15 Andrew Gilding

16 Ross Smith

17 Chris Dobey

18 Ryan Searle (UP 1)

19 Josh Rock (DOWN 1)

20 James Wade

Notable changes lower down - van Veen has now cracked the top 30, Jim Williams is up to the top 40 following his final in Barnsley, Kleermaker sneaking into the Slam puts him back up into the top 50 for now, Rafferty sneaks back into the top 70, van Peer hits the top 90, while Chris Landman having minimum money for Minehead puts him into the top 100. We're also down to less than 300 players in the rankings overall with the last few people who played in the 2021 Pro Tour dropping off, it's currently Alan Tabern propping up the table in 297th. We'll be back up to over 300 once all the international qualifiers for the worlds get added.

Expect more on the Slam later this week, we're expecting the draw tomorrow, but looking at the bracket for Minehead there's some great first round ties - Huybrechts/Schindler, Dobey/Barney, van den Bergh/Jim Williams and Michael Smith/Veenstra being my picks, one from each quarter being coincidence, while if things go as expected we could see last 32 ties such as Bunting/van Veen, van Gerwen/Ross Smith, Chisnall/whoever wins the Dobey match, Wade/Gilding, Searle/Pietreczko, van Duijvenbode/Michael Smith - the quality of players is so, so deep these days. Also going to update the 2nd/3rd Division Darts to make it correct as of now shortly. Check back in probably Tuesday for Slam thoughts.