ET3 aftermath

So it's Schindler that gets a first Euro Tour title, and a first senior title of any description, it's been well overdue and very well deserved given how he played this weekend - let's see what it's done to the FRH rankings:

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen

3 Michael Smith

4 Rob Cross

5 Gerwyn Price (UP 1)

6 Nathan Aspinall (DOWN 1)

7 Damon Heta

8 Peter Wright

9 Dave Chisnall

10 Jonny Clayton

11 Dimitri van den Bergh

12 Stephen Bunting

13 Chris Dobey

14 Luke Littler

15 Joe Cullen

16 Danny Noppert

17 Ryan Searle (UP 1)

18 James Wade (DOWN 1)

19 Ross Smith (NEW)

20 Gary Anderson (DOWN 1)

Price's final sees him up exactly 3k compared to Aspinall, while Searle making the final session puts him a bit less than that ahead of Wade. Smith edges out Ando and Rock with a good run to get back into the 20. Schindler is now up to 24 after his win, not far behind Gilding for the 23 spot, and more importantly he's now the highest ranked German, one place ahead of Clemens. Final day runs for Richard Veenstra and Cameron Menzies see them inch up into the mid 40's, Edhouse's final session sees him back into the top 60.

Really good event for the betting - we put nine bets in play and won seven of them to claim a unit of profit and get into the black for the season, however as four of those winning bets were on Schindler and Menzies, I do wonder if we've lost a bit of an opportunity going forward. We'll have to see again on Friday - Menzies isn't there for that one but Schindler is along with a pretty exciting selection of qualifiers. We've got a great selection of youth with Barry and Littler, Edhouse is back again, Perez will make a debut (I think), we get to see early Challenge Tour contenders in Grbavac and Roetzsch, it looks like it should be a good one. I may update in midweek to do a "next players to win at this level" post, it'll depend on time though and I might wait until the start of May once we've got another couple of Euro Tours in the books, as it feels like there's a lot of players that could break through at that level real soon. Be back Thursday in any case for thoughts as we head into Sindelfingen.

ET3 quarters

The Menzies money printing streak comes to an end, really just missed doubles, missing three clear in multiple legs (and busting when just looking to hit big 3 to get another two clear) isn't something to make a habit of. Oh well, we move on to the quarters, looking at things I have the following projections - Schindler 61/39 Noppert, Searle 44/56 Dobey, Bunting 70/30 Edhouse and Price 61/39 Smith. Will reign the Schindler one in a tad due to consistency, the rest all seem pretty much in line with each other. As such, I'll take 0.1u Schindler 6/5 which is on 365 right now, the Dobey and Bunting games look close enough to correct just looking at the one market, 365 have Smith at 2/1 which I'd be thinking about were it not for Price's obscenely good display against Pietreczko.

ET3 round 3

This is real quick as I'm late up this morning:

Veenstra/Schindler - Market may be finally taking notice of Schindler. I'm seeing it about a one in three shot for Veenstra, 13/8 clearly is not of interest, Schindler being slightly longer than 1/2 isn't bad but there's not the edge there.

Aspinall/Noppert - Looks about a 60/40 in the favour of the Asp for me, looked really good yesterday, 4/5 is pretty close to being worth a play but it's not quite there for me and I don't think it ever gets any longer than that.

Heta/Searle - Kind of a similar spot where we don't quite have the edge, but it's close. I'm seeing Ryan as just short of a 55% favourite, we can get even money, going with it isn't bad but again, I'd want slightly more to recommend a play officially.

Clemens/Dobey - Dobey 60/40 for me, so we're again in the ballpark where we can consider looking at Clemens. 7/4 is not a bad bet, but there's not quite enough there for the third game running, and that's without considering just how fantastic Chris played today.

Humphries/Bunting - Stephen's certainly a live dog here. Luke's not even projecting to win this two out of three, I've got the Bullet as fractionally over 35%. That said Humphries is 1/2 so with vig it's a clear move on quickly spot.

Cross/Edhouse - Rob's the better player here, around 75/25, and he is priced at 1/3. Ritchie's doing OK of late and it was a fantastic kill to win, but the market does look to have his value correct right now.

Price/Pietreczko - Same price as the above with Gerwyn being 1/3. I think this could even be a tick shorter, I'm getting Price as a touch closer to 80% than 20%, but that's not even as good a spot as the Aspinall/Searle thoughts, chuck in the crowd and I can ignore this one easily enough.

Menzies/Smith - Pure coinflip for me. Cammy needed to ride his luck slightly, but got there. Ross was generally pretty solid on the legs he won (where O'Connor averaged over a ton), but was mediocre on the five legs Willie won, a really, really slow start to go 4-1 down. I think we can go small here, 0.1u Menzies 11/8, it's a couple of extra percent which I think is enough to open the wallet and try to repeat what we had yesterday.

ET3 round two

Ok first day. Evans completely didn't turn up against Rydz who absolutely was there for the taking, but Edhouse was comfortable, Menzies was mostly comfortable and Clemens rode his luck but got there, we take those and have booked a small profit for the day. Onto round two now:

Smith v O'Connor - Willie was OK yesterday but nothing special, but it was enough to beat King, Ross is going to be a big step up but I'm thinking he can get home one in three times, maybe a fraction more. At 7/4 we're not taking a punt though. 

Heta v Rydz - Callan was very rusty yesterday but Evans couldn't capitalise. Try that again and Heta's off the stage in 10-15 minutes tops. I've got Rydz's chances as a little bit better than the 2/1 you can get, but with the unpredictable nature of his game and a right poor first game, we're not touching it with a barge pole.

Searle v Gurney - Daryl just did a professional job against an interesting qualifier, can't really draw much of anything from that one. Searle should make for a good contest, think the market is marginally overvaluing Daryl but not enough where we can start to think about taking Ryan.

Ratajski v Dobey - Chris looked, if not in top gear, certainly solid in a trivial win over Dylan Slevin and rightly comes into this one as a favourite. Maybe a bit too much of a favourite, Ratajski is still a really good player and the line should probably be 6/4 and not 7/4 for me, but I'd need slightly more than that to open the clip, 2/1 probably.

Noppert v van den Bergh - Dimitri was a bit up and down in round one but never really threatened, and comes into a game with Danny as more or less his equal. 5/4 is really close to a bet on the Belgian - if he had shown a bit more yesterday, or if Noppert wasn't coming off a Pro Tour win, I'd probably go small, and wouldn't dissuade anyone wanting to take that price on for all intents and purposes a coinflip.

Bunting v Unterbuchner - Michael caused pretty much the only upset yesterday to dump Luke Woodhouse out, didn't look as good as we have seen him in the past, but it was OK. It wasn't enough to make me think he has much of a chance against Stephen, 1/5 seems about fair to me.

Clayton v Aspinall - Nathan could easily have been dumped out by Owen Bates, who hit a very nice 350 out in six, but then missed match darts, so maybe a good omen for the Asp? He's rated in the market as having low 60% chances, which to me is really too low, Clayton is a name player but his level of play has been average at best and this looks a 70/30. As such, 0.25u Aspinall 8/13 on Coralbrokes, typically available 4/7 also looks fine.

Smith v Edhouse - Ritchie had a couple of good legs against Jitse, but generally didn't need to push too hard to get the easy win. He'll need to up it today, he's rated just shorter than 3/1 which looks fine to me.

Pietreczko v Wade - James wasn't bad against de Decker, and now comes into a game with Ricardo where neither myself nor the market can find any real differences between the players. As such, easy no bet.

Chisnall v Veenstra - Richard was made to work by Andrew Gilding, but looked more than competent and he has more than enough game to take this match from Chisnall just over 35% of the time in my estimation. We can't even get 2/1 though, so we're not interested in bets. 

Cullen v Schindler - Martin was pretty much flying, just having the one duff leg which the qualifier was able to nick, so seems in good form into a game with Joe, who's outperformed projections a couple of times but has been fairly quiet for a while. I'm getting Martin as a near 2-1 favourite - even if we say that we are wildly underestimating Cullen and he actually has 10% more chances than that, it's still a play. 0.25u Schindler evs 

Price v Dolan - Brendan looked really good against Gotthardt, who wasn't playing bad at all and just unfortunate to run into Dolan playing as he did, against probably half the field we're still talking about Kai today. Gerwyn is a different story, if Brendan continues this level he's more than capable of causing a few problems, but the 2/5 line for Price seems accurate to me as to how often the former world champ lets that happen.

Rock v Menzies - Cameron won all his legs in 15 darts or legs and was averaging in the mid 90s in the ones he didn't, so the game is on. That is more than enough to trouble Rock, who we still love, but such is the level of play from Menzies I don't think Josh should be the favourite here. It looks close still, call it 55/45, but that makes things easy enough for us, 0.25u Menzies 13/10, we absolutely take odds against here.

Humphries v de Sousa - Jose came through with a good late spurt to put away a spirited Cor Dekker, who played well himself to keep things tight at 3-3, and there's enough there on that display to indicate that he might be able to ask some questions of Luke in this one. I've got it slightly tighter than the 4/1 that is available, but not by much. The edge isn't there to fire, but if you want an underdog play then I don't think it's -EV at all.

van Duijvenbode v Clemens - Touched on Clemens above, he nicked the scrappy legs and otherwise had just about enough to get home, and we have another game that is too close to call. Can't see value in this one, Gabriel is slightly odds against in places, but I've likewise got Dirk as a really tiny favourite. In Germany, I guess you're not losing money in the long term if you take Clemens here but that's really gambling for the sake of it to me.

Cross v van Veen - Gian had things a little bit easier against Barney this time, first four legs were not great from either player, but he picked things up albeit not really hitting his stride at any point. Will need to clean things up a bit against Cross, it's absolutely a game he can win and it looks around 60/40 to me, I'm thinking Rob's chances are being overstated slightly at 8/13, but there isn't the value there to go on GvV.

So three bets, they all seem solid to me, let's clean up.

ET3 round 1 bets

van der Wal/Edhouse - Think this is good enough to be worth a play, 0.25u Edhouse 4/9, Ritchie's in good form and Jitse hasn't done a great deal this year, this looks to me to be at least 75/25 and as such 4/9 is a take.

Gotthardt/Dolan - No play, maybe there's some angle here as Brendan's shorter than 1/3 and Kai has shown enough of late to make me think that he's a live dog, but I'd want a bit more before I'd take a stab.

Unterbuchner/Woodhouse - Same sort of prices here, think this one is closer as I'm thinking Michael's probably a touch more likely to win than Kai is, but still not confident enough against a decent opponent to play it.

Masek/van den Bergh - I mean there's a couple of places that are offering 1/8 which surely isn't that bad?

Gurney/Klingelhoefer - Not really interested in this one. The qualifier is not good and Gurney's 1/14 at best.

Veenstra/Gilding - I think they've got who has the tiny edge the wrong way round, but as both are so tiny we only have a tiny edge, and we don't play tiny edges.

Rydz/Evans - 0.1u Evans 7/4, I took better than 2.8 on the exchanges yesterday immediately on seeing the draw, but he is certainly live enough against in fairness a dangerous but inconsistent opponent.

O'Connor/King - Looks to be round about the right line. Mervyn's maybe a touch undervalued which is likely just the market not quite getting to pace with both players' relative form this season, but it's only by a tick so nothing worth punting here.

de Sousa/Dekker - Cor's half tempting here. Against an opponent who's not been outstanding when you're getting close to 4/1 and the underdog has shown a little bit of recent form is a formula that works sometimes, but I'd ideally want 9/2, maybe 5/1 before I go with it.

Dobey/Slevin - Chris is pretty short in the market as expected, perhaps he could be a bit shorter even compared to what he is, but it'd be a pretty slim bit of value that we'd be pushing and I wouldn't even be certain it's there in the first place.

Dueckers/Schindler - Martin's big odds on, that seems fine.

de Decker/Wade - Market can barely separate the two, but they do correctly have Mike as being the favourite. 5/6 would be kind of a marginal play, if you're aggressive then I don't hate it, I would probably want 10/11 before I actually recommend a play but I don't think I'll ever see it and if anything the exchanges are bullish on de Decker.

Menzies/Whitlock - 0.25u Menzies 8/13, took even better than this on the exchange yesterday, 4/7 also looks more than OK for this one, that's just a case of how much better Cameron is right now.

van Veen/van Barneveld - Line seems near enough to me. Gian's better, but he's not that much better, this is pretty similar to the de Decker game where if you have more risk tolerance than me you can push 4/5, but I won't officially recommend the play.

Clemens/Wright - 0.1u Clemens 11/10, there's a couple of places which are offering this price including Hills which I think is enough to make a pushy small stab. The extra couple of percent compared to van Veen or de Decker, plus the intangibles of Wright having to make an awkward trip (having been to Riesa I would not want to get from Birmingham to Riesa in under 24 hours) and Clemens being at home gives me enough confidence to play it.

Bates/Aspinall - Half tempted with Owen, 3/1 I don't think is awful and I wouldn't disagree with anyone that says go for it, I just don't know where his confidence is at really.

So four plays, good luck everyone.

Into Riesa

Running into a busy period of the schedule, and an important one as we start getting closer and closer to the Matchplay, the next three weekends having half the Euro Tour events before the cutoff so a huge chunk of the money is at stake this month. Before then, of course, we had a couple of Pro Tour events, with Chris Dobey and Danny Noppert being both surprising (given the strength of the fields) and unsurprising (given they're both bloody good players in their own rights) winners, which has done the following to the FRH rankings (which include minimum money for ET3):

1 Luke Humphries

2 Michael van Gerwen (UP 1)

3 Michael Smith (DOWN 1)

4 Rob Cross

5 Nathan Aspinall

6 Gerwyn Price

7 Damon Heta (UP 1)

8 Peter Wright (DOWN 1)

9 Dave Chisnall (UP 1)

10 Jonny Clayton (DOWN 1)

11 Dimitri van den Bergh

12 Stephen Bunting (UP 1)

13 Chris Dobey (UP 2)

14 Luke Littler

15 Joe Cullen (DOWN 3)

16 Danny Noppert (UP 1)

17 James Wade (DOWN 1)

18 Ryan Searle

19 Gary Anderson (UP 1)

20 Josh Rock (NEW)

The big one is van Gerwen overtaking Smith by less than 100 points, but Smith can regain the number 2 spot just by winning one game at ET3 with van Gerwen absent. Heta's bump appears to just be to do with Wright being in bad form, Chizzy and Clayton being in a similar spot. Bunting has had some OK decent runs, obviously Dobey and Noppert won this week, while Rock made a final and Ando's getting the benefits of good form.

So, onto Riesa, and we've got no less than five players who'll enter the FRH rankings so a few names who we'll not have great data on, but they're not all unfamiliar, let's go through in running order.

Jitse van der Wal v Ritchie Edhouse (Michael Smith) - Jitse's a fairly new tour card holder, and has done well to win through to here given he's had a bad start, with just one win and pretty miserable numbers, and plays Edhouse who got qualification to two future Euro Tours yesterday and has had some pretty nice performances, and rates something like an 80/20 favourite albeit on rather limited data. Smith I believe is who Edhouse beat on TV a couple of years back at something like the PC Finals, and he's merely been OK for someone with world champion money on his rankings, maybe only being about a 70/30 favourite against Ritchie.

Kai Gotthardt v Brendan Dolan (Gerwyn Price) - Kai is a name we've seen occasionally, I thought he'd made the Euro Tour more than once before but that's what it looks like, we've also seen him in things like the German Superleague and he's off to a pretty good start on the Challenge Tour, so maybe showing signs of improvement, although he only peaked in the mid 80's in the quali, which is likely not going to be enough to trouble someone as competent as Dolan, who's not had a bad start to 2024 relatively speaking. Price can't complain with this draw and he does like the event, and is doing well enough that he's closer to a three in four than two in three shot for this one.

Alexander Masek v Dimitri van den Bergh (Danny Noppert) - Masek won the Eastern qualifier, and will make his debut having got through to the second stage of Q-School but otherwise being basically unknown, and apart from a real good first round win, didn't threaten much more than mid 80's at any point in that quali, which against someone with the renewed confidence of a recent major win just isn't going to cut it. Another player with recent confidence will of course be Noppert, and that second round game rates as too close to call.

Richard Veenstra v Andrew Gilding (Dave Chisnall) - Stupidly good game to have in the afternoon session of round one, but that's the new quali rules for you, Andrew had a nice run in the last Euro Tour while Veenstra hasn't really kicked on massively after a good worlds, but still looks good enough to make this one an effective coinflip with Goldfinger having only the tiniest of edges. Chisnall won't particularly like this matchup in round two whoever comes through, but still should be in the 60-65% range against either of them, which is an edge but not a game he can remotely take for granted.

Daryl Gurney v Patrick Klingelhoefer (Ryan Searle) - Patrick's pretty much unknown, first appearing in the PDC for real at this Q-School, not making stage two but he does have three Challenge Tour cashes now and makes his debut, albeit only getting higher than the low 80's in one round of the qualifier, so he may well not be able to put up too much resistance against Gurney, who's looked pretty good as he looks to hold in a race to partner Rock at the World Cup. Searle is going to be an interesting opponent, he's better but not that much better and a second round game only gives Searle slightly closer to 60% than 55% chances.

Callan Rydz v Lee Evans (Damon Heta) - Rydz had a couple of good early runs to start 2024 off but has tailed off a bit since then, while Evans has merely been steady if not spectacular, but doing enough to be possible value with Callan only rating around a 55/45 favourite in this opening round encounter. Heta shouldn't be too displeased with this draw, but they both look dangerous enough opponents to warrant having a chance somewhere in the 30% range, Rydz naturally being a bit higher, so it's a good but not perfect draw for the Aussie.

Willie O'Connor v Mervyn King (Ross Smith) - Willie has been pretty average on the floor so far this season, but it's a bit more than King's been doing as Mervyn's battling to save his tour card, although King did at least have the consolation of a solid UK Open run to give him a bit more of a chance. It's the sort of game he needs to win and he's got around a 45% chance to do so, so certainly not out of things, and Ross is kind of in the same spot of "I'll take it but it could be better" in terms of draws, he's just dropped out of the FRH top 20 but, like Heta again, has got somewhere in the 60% chances to win against either opponent, so may be able to nick the spot back dependent on other results, or claim it back outright, a final session run ought to be enough for that.

Michael Unterbuchner v Luke Woodhouse (Stephen Bunting) - Michael is in a second appearance of the season, which is a nice return to form for someone who was making a bit of a name for himself in the BDO days and probably has the best numbers of any of the qualifiers we've looked at so far, not breaking 90 but being closer to that than 80 for the most part. Woodhouse had a good UK Open and has had a good run in midweek as he looks to lock down a Matchplay spot, he's in good shape and ought to be able to get through this one, but then Bunting in round two, although maybe not doing quite as well as he might have done in 2024 given his red hot form towards the end of the year, is going to be a tricky one with the Bullet being closer to 65% than 60% to advance past Woody to a potential matchup with the world champion in the last sixteen.

Jose de Sousa v Cor Dekker (Luke Humphries) - de Sousa is now out of the FRH top 32 and hasn't really been doing enough to make us think he'll be out of the top 32 proper this time next year, currently solidly on the outside looking into the Matchplay reckoning and it's not ridiculous to think he won't be seeded for the worlds this season. Dekker however isn't the worst opponent as the Norwegian makes a first Euro Tour since 2019, he's a name that's been known for some time who's had World Cup appearances, but was wildly up and down in the quali with a couple of 90's but one game down in the low 70's, although did back up making this event in weekend 1 of the Nordic series with making the final of an event last weekend. Jose should have enough, but Humphries should easily win the second round game at least 75% of the time.

Chris Dobey v Dylan Slevin (Krzysztof Ratajski) - An all card holder battle here, Dobey's right in form for reasons stated above, while Dylan has had an OK start to 2024 but nothing quite as good as what he had in early 2023, which is looking more and more like an outlier, albeit in a career that's still very much in its infancy with plenty of time to grow some more consistency to the game as we know the peak game is pretty good. Dobey ought to be extremely comfortable here, a projection of nearly 85% may be a touch overkill but not completely outrageous, and in Ratajski he's got one of the better seeds he could get and looks about a 60/40 favourite in that second round game, assuming he gets past Slevin.

Jan Dueckers v Martin Schindler (Joe Cullen) - Dueckers is another player who's pretty much unknown, did Q-School but didn't make stage two, and did play the German leg of the Challenge Tour picking up one mincash. In the quali he had a good 6-2 win with a 90 average against the in form Franz Roetzsch, but was below 80 in three of the other four games and only just over in the other one, so it's hard to see Schindler having problems here. Cullen ought to be a good test, the projections I'm getting are showing Cullen as a fairly significant underdog with having just a one in three chance, but he's not actually looked bad when we've seen him, so despite pretty middling results in 2024 it might play out a bit closer than what a 2-1 game ought to look like.

Mike de Decker v James Wade (Ricardo Pietreczko) - Real interesting section which could go any way. de Decker got qualification for another Euro Tour this past week, has made the final day once already this season, and is within touching distance of a Matchplay return, while Wade is not actually guaranteed to get there himself and hasn't had the most fantastic start to the season, and actually comes into this game as just less than a 40/60 dog, that's just how competent de Decker is right now. Ricardo isn't a bad seed to draw and has had his moments over the past few months, and actually rates as possibly the worst player of the three, being a 65/35 dog to de Decker and being on the wrong end of a coinflip against Wade, although he will have the benefit of a first game on evening session crowd which always helps.

Cameron Menzies v Simon Whitlock (Josh Rock) - Menzies is continuing to play really good stuff as we move into 2024, with some moderately good runs, while Whitlock is struggling to put up results, and is now out of the FRH top 50 and rates as less than a one in four shot against Cameron, that's just how good he's playing right now (and/or how middle of the road Simon has been of late). Rock made another final this week so looks to be playing well - but actually projects as a tiny underdog if he were to face Menzies in the second round.

Gian van Veen v Raymond van Barneveld (Rob Cross) - Didn't we have this in the last event? Why yes, yes we did. van Veen won that one 6-5, and that sort of close scoreline doesn't look out of the question, with the younger Dutch player projecting up towards, but not quite at, 60%. Really could go either way. Cross would have a similar sort of edge against van Veen, so while Rob will be looking for a deep run and to go one better than he did in Belgium, this is a nasty draw and while there's a logical order to the players in terms of chances of getting through, making an argument that any of them might progress would not be ridiculous in the slightest.

Gabriel Clemens v Peter Wright (Dirk van Duijvenbode) - Clemens is still continuing to look for a first tour win, and hasn't really been getting close this year so far with just the one board win. Wright's been a bit more up and down with a couple of semi final runs, but nobody can realistically say that Peter is anywhere near his best game and we may well be at a stage where that best game is forever in the past - although he still has enough game to be competitive, albeit Clemens does project as a 55/45 favourite despite a lack of results in 2024. Dirk has had a final run on the floor and is probably off our do not touch list, and looks to be flipping against Clemens and having a similar edge against Wright as the German does in round one, so this may well be the tightest mini section of the lot.

Owen Bates v Nathan Aspinall (Jonny Clayton) - Tough draw for the Master here, Owen hasn't gotten off to a fantastic start on the tour with more first round losses than wins and not even a board final to his name yet, but he got through the quali here for what appears to be a debut on this stage. Aspinall's no joke though and being in the playoff spots more than half way through the Premier League is seriously good play. Nathan is actually only projecting around 70/30, which does surprise me and feels like an underestimate, Owen's numbers are a bit inconsistent. Then again, so are Aspinall's. Clayton it feels is someone who's just there right now and kind of making up the numbers of the top sixteen, feels like some time since he's done anything hugely notable - probably since the Matchplay game he lost to Aspinall to be honest. Aspinall actually rates about the same sort of edge to repeat that result as he does against Bates, which seems kind of nuts but Clayton's only just scoring over 90 a turn since the start of September, which is behind a lot of players who are not even in the top 32 in the world right now.

Bets tomorrow morning, don't know if oddschecker will make things easy for us but lines are at least out.

Day 3 quick bets

Rock/Smith - Got quite excited when I saw Rock being quoted at 2/1 on oddschecker on VC, but naturally that was quickly corrected to 11/8, that I don't think is an awful play with there not being much of anything to choose between the players and I'll go small, 0.1u Rock 11/8 which is also there on 365, I would probably go a bit larger if I could get longer than 6/4 given how good Smith looked in round two.

Price/Searle - Not touching it, I'm seeing Ryan as having a touch over a one in three shot, and he's best priced at 7/4 so nothing doing here.

Cross/Noppert - Maybe there's a sliver of value on Rob in this one, I'm seeing him just shy of a two in three chance, and some of the spread companies have him at longer than 4/6, if you've got money there then I don't think that's bad, but the traditional bookies aren't giving better than 4/6 which isn't quite fat enough particularly in the context of Danny looking fantastic in round two.

Humphries/Joyce - Line looks fair enough, Joyce being priced at 3/1 I think is a fair enough reflection that he's a good player but running into probably the best player in the world right now, maybe he should be a tick or two shorter but that's neither here nor there and 3/1 certainly doesn't represent value. Might have a tiny dabble on the exchange if we can get bigger possibly.

Aspinall/Smith - Another one where I was momentarily excited when I saw oddschecker's front page showing 6/5, which when I'm seeing the game the other way around would provide enough of an edge to fire, but going in we're not actually getting better than evens, which I don't think is dreadful or -EV, but it's close enough to correct to ignore as a punt.

Schindler/Dobey - Chris is maybe ever so slightly shorter than he ought to be, this is one of the few matches we're likely to see at this stage where we've got someone who is maybe a little overvalued against someone who is a little undervalued, and a partizan home crowd would certainly help Schindler, but that's Dobey's best price. We can't get better than 11/8 on Martin, which is just break even and we're not interested in betting for the sake of betting without a better edge than "bet Germans in Germany".

van Gerwen/Cullen - Line looks fair enough again. Joe's a touch longer than 2/1, we've got him at a touch less than a 30% chance, but there's enough data points to show that Joe might be a tad better than the projections say. Certainly not enough to make us even remotely think that 11/5 is a good bet though.

Chisnall/Wattimena - We finish with another no bet. The angle we'd be looking at is on Dave, 4/9 is maybe a little bit undervaluing just how good he has been playing for the last year or so, and he is the most recent Pro Tour winner, so if you want to go for it, there's tiny value there. I won't recommend it as an actual play as Jermaine's shown enough over the first couple of Euro Tours to indicate he may be playing a bit better than the numbers suggest, but I can't think that price is in anyway bad if you want to bet on Chisnall.

So just the one play, and we're back to Josh Rock. Is it 2022 again?