Worlds day 3-4 reaction post

Lot of stuff went down over the weekend so let's go through game by game.

Vandenbogaerde/Davies - Clearly didn't think Mario was an overwhelming favourite or anything like that, and Davies clearly had chances, but that was a pretty darned poor showing, only coming close in two sets? With your tour card on the line? Sure, as things have transpired he only needs a double to retain but that's probably the most important match he's had for two years and he was not close in it.

Gilding/Crabtree - Really expected a lot more from Cam here. Sure, not necessarily a get the win sort of performance, but conceding the first six legs basically kills the game.

Woodhouse/Krcmar - This looked like a fairly solid display from Luke in one that could have got twitchy with a very solid opponent taking the opening set, but very steady stuff from there saw him safely through.

Anderson/Hunt - This was weird. Hunt kept this one a lot closer than it really should have been, and if I remember the gameflow right, he was in position to actually win the match. Gary came through, but that was a lot less comfortable than it really should have been.

de Graaf/Lim - This one was really great to see, and it looked to be mainly Paul bringing it rather than Jeffrey throwing it away. Big story and real happy to see this one happen - not least because I bet on Lim.

Nijman/Sedlacek - Mentioned this was a tough draw for both pre. Maybe Karel could have got a bit closer on some of the sets, but Nijman did more than well enough to keep him at arms length with one of the better showings so far.

Humphries/Evetts - Another one that can go in the dull matches pile, Luke really not being touched at all, before Ted played OK for a set, only for Luke to finish it off in the fourth. Not much to say here.

Clemens/Spellman - This was very disappointing from Alex. He's a good player and this looked like a more than reasonable draw, but to win just the single leg is really quite a shame. Not as if Clemens was blowing him away, seven of nine won legs were in more than five visits so the game was open for Spellman.

Edhouse/Tata - Think most people had identified Edhouse as a seed that might be in danger early, and Tata as someone competent enough that he could cause problems, but I don't think anyone was really seeing a straight sets win for Jonny. Not a bad showing.

Taylor/Lukasiak - Straight forward win for Dom here, dropping just the one leg. Very good showing, Oskar's probably a bit overrated, but Taylor's really very good so to get through this easily ought not to be that much of a surprise.

Veenstra/Kumar - Now this is the shocking one. This is very much being opportunistic - Veenstra was averaging a fair chunk more and the two sets he won were very comprehensive. That said, Nitin came through when it mattered so fair play to him for getting this result after years of trying. Nice job.

Cullen/Brooks - Another one that was disappointing. Joe just doing his usual thing of deciding to show up at the worlds after doing not a great deal all year. Brooks missed a couple of chances but looked a bit below what he had been doing and should have had more than a couple of chances in all honesty. Thankfully I tempered my suggested betting size on this one.

Wenig/Plaisier - Lukas did well to pull this one back to some degree, could have run a bit out of control after Wesley won the first set to love, but couldn't get the key leg in the third set to really make things interesting.

van den Bergh/Beveridge - God knows what's up with Dimitri. I didn't have high expectations, but that was below even what I thought he might have been able to do. An absolute gift for Darren.

Bunting/Bialecki - Oh wait, we've got tiebreakers in the first round. Nice of someone to mention this rule change. Of course, this shouldn't have been anywhere near a tie breaker with Bunting two sets up and Bialecki not exactly tearing things up either, but Stephen will move on. Just about.

Hurrell/Buntz - Had a small flier on Stowe in this one. Think he was slightly unfortunate here, he had the chances to take this to a deciding set but Hurrell had just about enough.

Betting is going OK, as long as Brendan clears up this fourth set, got a few moderate sized bets in play today, Manby winning would put us in a really good spot so let's see what happens there.

Worlds day 1-2 reaction post

Very simply? Boring. Let's go through game by game and look at how things went:

Huybrechts/Merk - Arno was better than expected, but man Kim was bad. Thankfully this is why we have sample size warnings on projections

Smith/Ashton - Seed wins 3-0 boring

Littler/Labanauskas - Seed wins 3-0 boring

Razma/van den Herik - This was at least moderately close but Jamai just couldn't bring it when it mattered

Zonneveld/Puha - Hopes wasn't bad, but Niels just rolled for the most part

White/King - Some people have called this the Mansell/Long of this tournament. I would not disagree. That was just terrible

Searle/Landman - Seed wins 3-0 boring

Cross/Dekker - Seed wins 3-0 boring

Smith/Harrysson - ZOMG AN ACTUAL INTERESTING GAME INVOLVING A SEEDED PLAYER!!! I mean Andreas is one of the players that we would think has a reasonable chance of bucking the trend, and fair play to getting it done, but jesus christ Ross, all the chances were there to kill the game

Evans/Leung - Moderately tight sets, but better player gets it done, I guess not the worst game

van Veen/Reyes - Seed goes up 2-0, other guy tries a bit of a comeback but can't get it to the interesting part so boring

Heta/Lennon - See above

I feel the only thing we've actually learned is that Arno Merk might be a tad better than expected, so against the player he might play maybe he has round three potential, and also that Ian White is playing worse than expected by some distance, so that makes Cross even more of a favourite than he should be. Tiring few sessions. Will be at football tomorrow obv, may get back in the evening with these sorts of thoughts but might be Sunday.

New stupid tournament idea - Basho!

WARNING - NO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENT IN THIS POST

I mentioned before I started on the worlds previews that I had a new stupid tournament format idea. So with the previews all done, let's look at it. For better or worse, I've been watching a lot of sumo over the past couple of months. Probably directly relates to them having a tournament in the UK for the first time since Phil Taylor had one world title, but whatever. What I liked about it was three fold, ignoring the actual merits of the sport:

a) Matches are quick. They can literally be over in seconds. Perfect for the Tiktok/ADHD addled generation.

b) The entirety of the pro scene has one continually moving, fluid divisional system, where competitors can rise or fall very quickly and will do so after a very good or bad tournament.

c) As such, every match matters - not just for those that want to win the outright title, there's a heck of a lot of pressure on getting the eighth win to have a winning record for the tournament, and conversely avoiding the eighth loss. But even after you've hit either mark, it still matters, as the amount you go up and down the rankings is not static, someone with a 7-8 record will only have a small drop, but end up 3-12 and you'll plummet.

So I then thought this could actually be a pretty good kind of system for darts in an odd way. How I would configure the tournament is like this:

- It runs across a seven day period starting on a Monday and ending on a Sunday, in something similar to a Euro Tour venue, replacing one European Tour and two Pro Tour events in the calendar. Total prize money would be relatively the same - the events being replaced would amount to £425k in prize money, but let's bump it to half a million (with revenue from additional sessions of live play open to the public, that does not seem absurd). Would probably look to hold around four of these per season, and each day's play has two sessions.

- The list of tour card holders is broken up into three roughly equal divisions - the top 40 who will play on the stage, then the next 40 and last 48 in lower divisions, who will play backstage on a pair of streamed boards. Whoever wants to enter plays, if there are fewer than 40 who enter in the bottom division, then Challenge Tour players complete the field just like in a Pro Tour. The bottom division stream on the afternoon session, the middle division on the evening session. If the stage schedule is running ahead of schedule then additional matches can be pulled from the stream room to fill out the time.

- Matches are a potentially very short format - first to gain a two leg lead wins the match, sudden death if 5-5. In other words, very similar to a tiebreaker deciding set at the worlds, except that if someone goes 2-0 up the match is over. To avoid the situation where it is the same player who is trying to hold to stay in the match all the time, rather than alternating legs, someone will have the darts in leg 1, then the other player will have it for the next TWO legs, and they swap throw every two legs after that.

- Opponents are determined for the following day after the previous day's matches are finished - there is no fixed match list. Who a player will get is typically based on trying to give an even structure of players ahead and behind them in the previous rankings in the first few days, before trying to match up those with more even records and clashes between the highest ranked players in later days. This has two purposes - it ensures that players will normally play someone in the same kind of tournament situation as them to increase the importance of each match, and loading the biggest match ups towards the end of the tournament helps to increase the excitement and hype around the business end. Should a player or players decide to not enter a given tournament, or withdraw midway through for whatever reason, then they are not outright replaced like for like - instead, each day will see players at the top end of the division above get a call up, the result counting in each player's respective division, the bonus for the player moving up being that they're playing for bigger prizes on the day.

- Whoever has the best record in each division wins. If two or more players are tied with the best record, then a playoff match(es) will take place to determine the winner. Following the tournament, players will move up or down the rankings, and up or down divisions, based on their records. Additionally, to take into account the tour card system, players who lose their tour card but don't regain it will be removed from the rankings, and everyone below them slides up a place.

In terms of prize money, this is how I would break it down for top/middle/bottom divisions:

Outright division winner: £50k/£30k/£20k

Individual match win: £1k/£600/£400

Tournament winning record: £60k/£36k/£24k split evenly between the respective players. Should the bottom division run with more than 40 players then the £24k will be reduced to account for more match win prizes needing to be paid.

Sounds complicated? It really isn't, but I'll do a walkthrough of how a typical tournament would operate in a separate post. That said, I hope there's enough explanation there to demonstrate how this would generate a lot of evenly matched content, and give everyone across the 128 a fair chance of having a solid week. Just getting to 4-3 in the bottom division would get you more than two and a half grand, which for a lower tier player isn't bad given that, in the tournaments this would replace, you're probably not qualifying for the Euro Tour and you'd probably need to beat a seed twice in the Pro Tours to do that.

Basho example

WARNING - STILL NO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENT IN THIS POST

So let's walk you through how a tournament would work. We'll just do this for the top division - lower divisions, for all intents and purposes, operate in the same way. Let's start with the ranking list as of the last tournament - here I've just taken today's FRH rankings and placed players accordingly:

To demonstrate what happens in the event of someone not taking part, I'm going to pretend Gary Anderson and Ryan Joyce have withdrawn from this event. I'm just maintaining the standard ranking names as used in sumo, which would clearly be anglicised somehow, but from here, let's draw the first two day's matches and simulate it:

Day 1:

Luke Littler 0-2 Jonny Clayton

Luke Humphries 0-2 Michael van Gerwen

James Wade 0-2 Nathan Aspinall

Gian van Veen 1-3 Chris Dobey

Danny Noppert 5-3 Josh Rock

Stephen Bunting 5-3 Damon Heta

Gerwyn Price 3-1 Ryan Searle

Jermaine Wattimena 3-1 Luke Woodhouse

Ross Smith 3-1 Mike de Decker

Martin Schindler 3-1 Cameron Menzies

Wessel Nijman 3-1 Dave Chisnall

Daryl Gurney 3-5 Andrew Gilding

Dirk van Duijvenbode 2-0 Ricardo Pietreczko

Rob Cross 0-2 Ritchie Edhouse

Peter Wright 1-3 Michael Smith

Joe Cullen 2-0 Dimitri van den Bergh

Krzysztof Ratajski 4-2 Martin Lukeman

Raymond van Barneveld 4-6 Kevin Doets (j)

Willie O'Connor 2-0 Niels Zonneveld

Niko Springer 0-2 Scott Williams (j)

Day 2:

Luke Littler 2-0 Martin Schindler

Luke Humphries 0-2 Stephen Bunting

James Wade 2-0 Jermaine Wattimena

Gian van Veen 3-1 Wessel Nijman

Danny Noppert 1-3 Gerwyn Price

Jonny Clayton 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode

Michael van Gerwen 2-0 Peter Wright

Josh Rock 2-0 Daryl Gurney

Nathan Aspinall 3-1 Chris Dobey

Ross Smith 6-5 Damon Heta

Mike de Decker 4-2 Ryan Searle

Luke Woodhouse 3-5 Nike Springer

Cameron Menzies 2-0 Raymond van Barneveld

Dave Chisnall 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski

Rob Cross 2-0 Andrew Gilding

Ricardo Pietreczko 1-3 Joe Cullen

Ritchie Edhouse 0-2 Willie O'Connor

Michael Smith 2-0 Dimitri van den Betgh

Martin Lukeman 2-0 Callan Rydz (j)

Niels Zonneveld 2-0 Brendan Dolan (j)

These are all ordered with the highest ranked player first, and the higher ranked player on the left. You'll notice that most players will have one match on each side of the match list, this will indicate that they've played both someone ranked higher and lower than them. Obviously those right at the top (and bottom) can't do this, and for some other players it can't be helped to give them an easier/harder start, but we can rectify that as we start to schedule based on record as well. Looks like there's only eight players with a 2-0 record already. Those players I have denoted with a (j) have been called up from the division below for that day. The first two days were decided mostly at random, but I'll start scheduling with a bit more thought from now on.

Day 3:

Luke Littler 3-1 Gerwyn Price

Luke Humphries 3-1 Nathan Aspinall

James Wade 0-2 Jonny Clayton

Gian van Veen 4-2 Michael van Gerwen

Danny Noppert 1-3 Chris Dobey

Stephen Bunting 2-0 Ross Smith

Josh Rock 4-2 Mike de Decker

Jermaine Wattimena 2-0 Martin Schindler

Damon Heta 4-2 Rob Cross

Wessel Nijman 3-1 Cameron Menzies

Ryan Searle 5-3 Luke Woodhouse

Daryl Gurney 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode

Dave Chisnall 4-2 Michael Smith

Peter Wright 0-2 Willie O'Connor

Andrew Gilding 2-0 Ritchie Edhouse

Ricardo Pietreczko 0-2 Mickey Mansell (j)

Joe Cullen 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski

Raymond van Barneveld 1-3 Niko Springer

Dimitri van den Bergh 1-3 Ricky Evans (j)

Martin Lukeman 0-2 Niels Zonneveld

This has now resulted in quite a lot of the undefeated players lose today - only Bunting, van Duijvenbode, Ratajski and O'Connor remain with perfect records. Let's keep going on.

Day 4:

Luke Littler (2-1) 0-2 Gian van Veen (2-1)

Luke Humphries (1-2) 2-0 Jonny Clayton (2-1)

James Wade (1-2) 0-2 Josh Rock (2-1)

Danny Noppert (1-2) 5-6 Michael van Gerwen (2-1)

Stephen Bunting (3-0) 6-4 Gerwyn Price (2-1)

Nathan Aspinall (2-1) 0-2 Jermaine Wattimena (2-1)

Chris Dobey (2-1) 0-2 Dirk van Duijvenbode (3-0)

Ross Smith (2-1) 2-0 Martin Schindler (1-2)

Damon Heta (1-2) 3-1 Mike de Decker (1-2)

Wessel Nijman (2-1) 2-0 Ryan Searle (1-2)

Luke Woodhouse (0-3) 0-2 Andrew Gilding (2-1)

Daryl Gurney (0-3) 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (3-0)

Cameron Menzies (1-2) 3-1 Willie O'Connor (3-0)

Dave Chisnall (1-2) 6-4 Rob Cross (1-2)

Peter Wright (0-3) 4-2 Jeffrey de Graaf (j)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-3) 0-2 Ritchie Edhouse (1-2)

Joe Cullen (2-1) 4-2 Michael Smith (2-1)

Raymond van Barneveld (0-3) 2-0 Martin Lukeman (1-2)

Dimitri van den Bergh (0-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (2-1)

Niko Springer (2-1) 3-5 Kevin Doets (j)

So we see Bunting, DvD and Ratajski maintain their perfect record (and lock up winning records) but Ratajski falls off into a big cluster of nine players at 3-1. At the other end three players have now dropped to 0-4. We go again.

Day 5:

Luke Littler (2-2) 2-0 Danny Noppert (1-3)

Luke Humphries (2-2) 1-3 Gerwyn Price (2-2)

James Wade (1-3) 4-2 Gian van Veen (3-1)

Stephen Bunting (4-0) 2-0 Michael van Gerwen (3-1)

Jonny Clayton (2-2) 6-5 Wessel Nijman (3-1)

Josh Rock (3-1) 3-1 Jermaine Wattimena (3-1)

Nathan Aspinall (2-2) 6-5 Ross Smith (3-1)

Chris Dobey (2-2) 0-2 Krzysztof Ratajski (4-0)

Martin Schindler (1-3) 3-1 Mike de Decker (1-3)

Damon Heta (2-2) 2-0 Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-0)

Ryan Searle (1-3) 1-3 Willie O'Connor (3-1)

Luke Woodhouse (0-4) 3-1 Daryl Gurney (0-4)

Cameron Menzies (2-2) 1-3 Dave Chisnall (2-2)

Rob Cross (1-3) 2-0 Peter Wright (1-3)

Andrew Gilding (3-1) 0-2 Joe Cullen (3-1)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-4) 2-4 Dimitri van den Bergh (1-3)

Ritchie Edhouse (2-2) 5-3 Callan Ryfz (j)

Michael Smith (2-2) 3-1 Scott Williams (j)

Raymond van Barneveld (1-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (2-2)

Martin Lukeman (1-3) 3-1 Niko Springer (2-2)

So Bunting and Ratajski remain unbeaten, and will be given legitimate opponents, while a lot of players have now secured a winning or losing record. Let's go on.

Day 6:

Luke Littler (3-2) 1-3 Stephen Bunting (5-0)

Luke Humphries (2-3) 2-0 James Wade (2-3)

Gian van Veen (3-2) 3-5 Gerwyn Price (3-2)

Danny Noppert (1-4) 5-6 Krzysztof Ratajski (5-0)

Jonny Clayton (3-2) 2-0 Josh Rock (4-1)

Michael van Gerwen (3-2) 2-0 Nathan Aspinall (3-2)

Chris Dobey (2-3) 0-2 Willie O'Connor (4-1)

Jermaine Wattimena (3-2) 6-5 Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-1)

Ross Smith (3-2) 2-4 Cameron Menzies (2-3)

Martin Schindler (2-3) 1-3 Damon Heta (3-2)

Mike de Decker (1-4) 0-2 Joe Cullen (4-1)

Wessel Nijman (3-2) 3-1 Dave Chisnall (3-2)

Ryan Searle (1-4) 6-4 Brendan Dolan (j)

Luke Woodhouse (1-4) 2-0 Peter Wright (1-4)

Daryl Gurney (0-5) 0-2 Ricky Evans (j)

Rob Cross (2-3) 0-2 Niko Springer (2-3)

Andrew Gilding (3-2) 3-5 Michael Smith (3-2)

Ricardo Pietreczko (0-5) 2-0 Raymond van Barneveld (2-3)

Ritchie Edhouse (3-2) 0-2 Niels Zonneveld (2-3)

Dimitri van den Bergh (2-3) 2-0 Martin Lukeman (2-3)

So going into the final day, we have two undefeated players, who'll go against each other for the title. This is also where we chuck as many players on 3-3 against each other as possible to see who ends up with a winning record, which oddly includes both Lukes.

Day 7:

Luke Littler (3-3) 6-5 Luke Humphries (3-3)

James Wade (2-4) 2-4 Gerwyn Price (4-2)

Gian van Veen (3-3) 2-0 Nathan Aspinall (3-3)

Danny Noppert (1-5) 2-0 Jonny Clayton (4-2)

Stephen Bunting (6-0) 3-1 Krzsyztof Ratajski (6-0)

Michael van Gerwen (4-2) 3-1 Josh Rock (4-2)

Chris Dobey (2-4) 3-1 Joe Cullen (5-1)

Jermaine Wattimena (4-2) 2-4 Damon Heta (4-2)

Ross Smith (3-3) 3-1 Wessel Nijman (4-2)

Martin Schindler (2-4) 3-1 Luke Woodhouse (2-4)

Mike de Decker (1-5) 0-2 Willie O'Connor (5-1)

Ryan Searle (2-4) 2-0 Cameron Menzies (3-3)

Daryl Gurney (0-6) 2-0 Michael Smith (4-2)

Dirk van Duijvenbode (4-2) 2-0 Jeffrey de Graaf (j)

Dave Chisnall (3-3) 4-2 Andrew Gilding (3-3)

Rob Cross (2-4) 1-3 Mickey Mansell (j)

Peter Wright (1-5) 4-2 Raymond van Barneveld (2-4)

Ricardo Pietreczko (1-5) 4-2 Martin Lukeman (2-4)

Ritchie Edhouse (3-3) 0-2 Dimitri van den Bergh (3-3)

Niko Springer (3-3) 2-0 Niels Zonneveld (3-3)

This gives final rankings of:

7-0 - Stephen Bunting

6-1 - Krzysztof Ratajski, Willie O'Connor

5-2 - Gian van Veen, Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen, Damon Heta, Dirk van Duijvenbode, Joe Cullen

4-3 - Luke Littler, Jonny Clayton, Josh Rock, Jermaine Wattimena, Ross Smith, Wessel Nijman, Dave Chisnall, Michael Smith, Dimitri van den Bergh, Niko Springer

3-4 - Luke Humphries, Nathan Aspinall, Chris Dobey, Martin Schindler, Ryan Searle, Cameron Menzies, Andrew Gilding, Ritchie Edhouse, Niels Zonneveld

2-5 - James Wade, Danny Noppert, Luke Woodhouse, Rob Cross, Peter Wright, Ricardo Pietreczko, Raymond van Barneveld, Martin Lukeman

1-6 - Mike de Decker, Daryl Gurney

0-0-7 - Gary Anderson, Ryan Joyce

Hence 19 players would split the winning record prize, Bunting would of course claim the champion's pot. The only thing left to do now is to work out the post-tournament rankings. Here' the typical yardstick is to move someone up or down one rank (for these purposes, rank indicates one row on the initial ranking, i.e. each rank has two players, east and west, with the former being technically higher) for each win you have more than losses, or vice versa. However, promotion up to the top ozeki rank has special requirements in sumo (and similarly to the rank of yokozuna above that again), and similarly for relegation from that rank. We're going to assume that Humphries is not already in what they'd call kadoban and will not drop, similarly we're going to assume that nobody is in the spot where they could potentially promote to the top rank based on this tournament's results. Now it can become a bit complicated as you can very easily end up with more than one player at a new rank - indeed in this example, you have four players (van Veen, Bunting, Price and MvG) all with enough wins to get to the top rank you can freely promote to. Hence there is frequently a lot of manual fiddling, often resulting in some players moving up down more or less than expected, although it's usually the case that they will always have you moving somewhat in the right direction. As such, the next ranking might look something like this:

The last three spots indicate players who would have earned promotion from the division below. As we didn't simulate it, I'm just slotting them into the bottom three positions, replacing Lukeman, Zonneveld and van Barneveld, whose records were such that they would normally expect to be relegated. In reality, those promoted might actually have a bit of a higher rank, or those towards the top of the lower divisions might all have losing or otherwise not convincing enough of a record to earn promotion, which might result in a reprieve for one of those three players listed. Anyway, the worlds kick off in a few hours, so back to actual tournaments.

Worlds post 10/8 - the projections bit

Alright, here's what you've all been waiting for, the first round projections. This is basically a data dump, and I've colour coded a lot of it, so here's the explanations as to what is meant by what.

In headers, date and player should be obvious. Short, medium and long are the size of the data. The first is the last three full months (plus whatever is in this month, which for the entire field will be nothing). The second is the last six full months, the last is the last twelve months (data model automatically filters out all results from more than 365 days ago). The composite is the overall projection. For short/medium/long, green indicates at least than 50 winning legs for both players in that time period. Yellow indicates between 20 and 49 winning legs. Red indicates less. For the purposes of calculating the composite score, green numbers are counted in full, yellow counts half, and red is ignored, basically to limit or exclude data samples that are too small to be completely or even partially reliable. As for the coding of the composite score itself, green indicates three greens or two greens and a yellow, and should be very reliable. Yellow indicates individual scores that count for two or one and a half samples, so something like a green and two yellows, one of each. These numbers should still be OK, but proceed with caution. Red numbers indicate where there is less data again and are only included when there is at least one partially reliable dataset to go with. I would NOT use these for any gambling purposes, they are just there for completion. Where we don't have any data or not enough data even on the full sample size, that is indicated. A N/A in the short/medium/long column indicates that the player on the right does not have any data at all in that period. Finally, all numbers are percentage chances to win FOR THE PLAYER ON THE LEFT.

With all that said, here we go:

Worlds post 9/8 - the last 16 bit

Yeah that title is silly, but it's that time of the year. I've picked out who I think will make the last sixteen in each of the previous posts, now let's try and call it from that stage onwards.

Littler 4-1 Cross - Love Rob's game but he's a clear tier below the people that are a clear tier below Littler. He's got enough to win a set maybe so I'll call him to get one, but that I think is probably the limit.

Price 4-3 Dobey - This could be an absolute fantastic game. Price has won it before, Dobey has gone deep before, they're both playing at a very high level, but I think Gerwyn has just that little bit more.

Bunting 4-2 Searle - Ryan's a very good player, but Stephen's just that level above. Not that far above that he'll just shut Searle out, who I think's got more than enough to keep this fairly close, but Stephen has this.

Clayton 4-3 Smith - These two look so evenly matched based on the year long stats, there's basically nothing to choose between the two. Maybe Ross has an explosive set at the right time and nicks it, but I think Clayton's greater experience in these sorts of situations will see him through.

Humphries 4-2 Aspinall - Don't think Luke will be in serious trouble here, Nathan has got a lot, lot closer to his best this season, but his best is going to be a chunk off of Humphries' normal game.

van Veen 4-2 Wade - Gian's just going to keep on rolling here, Wade will probably have a set or two where he's just steady out in fifteen repeatedly and do enough, but van Veen is just a clearly better player.

Wattimena 4-2 O'Connor - Jermaine has just been putting up convincingly better darts in 2025 than Willie has, and I've already been somewhat controversial in putting him through to this stage in the first place. Game will probably be a bit of a lower level than the others, and I think that it'd be swingy enough to stay moderately close.

Rock 4-1 Noppert - There's not many players who would be able to blow apart Danny's high level consistent play. Josh is one of those players and should push on to the quarter finals with relative ease.

Littler 5-3 Price - These have already had one really close game this season at the Grand Prix, and their Players Championship game was also pretty close. Price is one of those players in that group behind Littler, this might be one where it gets to about 2-2 before Luke pulls away.

Bunting 5-3 Clayton - Think that Stephen will properly avenge their Matchplay game here. Jonny is not that far behind statistically, but there's enough of a differential that I can't look past Bunting, almost said 5-2 but I think Clayton might keep it a bit closer.

van Veen 5-4 Humphries - Got to go with the previous results. Luke's got the better numbers, but it's only slightly, so I'm thinking that Gian completely having Humphries' number this season will continue and van Veen pushes through to the semis.

Rock 5-1 Wattimena - If this plays out as it has for Jermaine then it's been a fine run, but this looks about the natural limit, Josh has been in this sort of situation a lot more all year and there is a pretty signifigant difference in numbers, so I think this is the closest we get to a blowout in this round.

Littler 6-2 Bunting - In a repeat of last year's semi final, I think Bunting keeps things a bit closer - but not much closer. That one didn't feel like a 6-1 game, but it's hard to think that if this half goes to seedings that Stephen gets much more out of the game. Maybe 6-3 I could agree with.

Rock 6-4 van Veen - In terms of the raw numbers, these are very close, and in terms of the number of times they've both been deep in majors, it's pretty even as well. More or less can't be separated as third favourite for the tournament either. But I'm thinking that maybe Gian has a harder run catch up to him, and that he's not really done anything at all at this venue prior to this event also catches up to him. Josh has just been around for that little bit longer and I think that counts for just enough.

Littler 7-4 Rock - I really, really cannot look past Luke defending his title (although, as indicated in a previous post, I would not be touching him outright at what is now odds on more or less everywhere). Josh has way too much talent for this to be a blowout, but Luke is on a different level to everyone right now and over a very long format match like this, there is just too long for Littler to be able to rectify things should he get in a hole early.

Next up - round one projections.

Worlds post 8/8 - the Noppert bit

It's been a tremendous season for Danny, arguably his best outside of the year where he won his UK Open title, and despite not actually having won a title in 2025, his rise up the rankings means that a deep run here gives him the potential of being in the Premier League discussion. This is mainly down to excellent TV form, where Danny made four semi final appearances, five if you include the World Cup. This started with the Masters where he beat Michael Smith, Willie O'Connor and Stephen Bunting, only losing to Humphries. It'd continue at the Grand Prix where he beat Wattimena, Bunting again and Anderson, losing to Humphries again, and a third straight European Championship semi final saw another loss to Humphries, this time having eliminated van Duijvenbode, Aspinall and Pietreczko. The last one would be in the Grand Slam, where he came through the tour card holder qualifier and had a bit of a struggle to get out of the group, but would beat van Gerwen, Lukas Wenig and, for some variety, lose to Luke Littler this time. Earlier exits were seen in the UK Open (a narrow 10-9 defeat to Rob Cross in round five), the Matchplay (hey, you're the sixteenth seed, guess who you get in round two! Wait, it's not Humphries? Oh, it's Gian van Veen instead) and then the Players Championship Finals (losing narrowly 10-8 to Nathan Aspinall). An almost flawless record in terms of not losing to anyone bad and going deep frequently. Noppert would get close to a European Tour title in Hungary, notably beating van Gerwen and Littler, but would come up just short in the final against Niko Springer, but on the floor, he surprisingly wouldn't make a final, although he did get to the last eight or better on seven occasions. He's never been able to get anything going on the world stage (at least in the PDC, he was of course a BDO finalist prior to making the move), but his ultra-consistent style of play, very reminiscent of James Wade for me, means that it's going to take something special to take him out of this one.

Jurjen van der Velde is a relatively young Dutch player who many first noticed when he lost in heartbreaking fashion to Gian van Veen in last season's world youth championship final. That cost him a worlds spot for last year, and any chances of retaining his tour card, but he will now make a debut here after the places on the Development Tour trickled down enough to give him the last available berth through that route. On the Development Tour, Jurjen won two titles, both against Henry Coates in the final, and would get deep enough on enough other occasions to accumulate the cash to qualify. Not being a card holder, van der Velde has had quite a few other opportunities - he also won a Challenge Tour title, beating former European Tour winner Jamie Hughes in the final of that one, part of a good finish to that tour where he also went very deep in the final two events and end up a creditable tenth on that ranking. Unfortunate timing given he got most of his money after the majority of the Pro Tour season was finished, he did get a couple of call ups in Hildesheim but didn't really do anything there. He had some other nice runs - the UK Open was great, reaching the last 32 by beating Tytus Kanik, Bradley Brooks, Keane Barry and Adam Lipscombe before losing to Nathan Aspinall, and that world youth final gave him a Grand Slam spot, where he surprisingly got out of his group after beating Damon Heta in a winner takes all clash, and you can't criticise losing to Luke Humphries in the knockouts. Will be interesting to see what he can do, it's been a rebuilding season but a good one, just a shame that against Noppert he's got one of the tougher draws available.

Nick Kenny is back for a fourth shot at this, twelve months after causing a little bit of a shock by beating Raymond van Barneveld to get to the third round where he'd run into Luke Humphries. Back through the Pro Tour rankings like last year, having made a couple of appearances a few years back after winning the PDPA qualifier, Kenny is comfortably within the world's top 64 and retaining tour card holder status for another year. On the floor, Nick started strong, winning his board twice in the first four events along with matching a career best run to the semi finals of Players Championship 3, losing to Jelle Klaasen at that point having beaten Jermaine Wattimena in the quarters to get there. Nick would play steady stuff, picking up another couple of board wins but never really replicating the rapid start he had to the year. He needed every penny from the Pro Tour as he couldn't add anything at all from the European Tour, only getting one game away on one occasion where he was heavily defeated by Bradley Brooks - indeed, if we had last year's qualifying criteria in a smaller field, it'd probably have had to be the PDPA qualifier again to try to make the field. Kenny won his initial group at the World Masters and was very close to making the main field, beating Brendan Dolan and Jim Williams before falling just short against Jermaine Wattimena, while the Minehead majors were generally fine. He had a bye to round three of the UK Open where he defeated Dominik Gruellich only to draw Gian van Veen in round four, then in the Players Championship Finals, Kenny nicked one against Niels Zonneveld before losing a fairly tight game to Martin Schindler, so both going about as you'd expect. He's not defending any money here, and seems a generally steady and competent player who's had some results on this stage, so should be able to consolidate his ranking nicely here.

Justin Hood won his tour card in January by taking day 2 of Q-School outright, and has looked one of the stronger new card holders in 2025, finishing solidly in the Pro Tour rankings (above Kenny) and having the occasional notable win. It's his first appearance here but he did play the last BDO worlds (the one Wayne Warren won), losing 3-1 in sets to Richard Veenstra in the last 32. Hood's season on the floor started off with a quick board win, adding a second in April, and was typically only being beaten by very good players, or at least well established ones. Shortly after the Matchplay he'd push through to a quarter final where he lost to Lukas Wenig, and while the run in wasn't brilliant, he would pick up a further board win, beating potential second round opponent Danny Noppert in that one. Justin qualified for a couple of Euro Tour events, in Kiel he'd beat Joe Cullen before crashing out to Josh Rock, whereas in Hildesheim, Hood would average alright but lose an opener 6-2 to Ryan Joyce. Justin couldn't get out of his World Masters group, while at the UK Open he'd done just enough early to get a bye to round two, beat a qualifier and then Darren Beveridge, and then draw Rock to end his run at the last 64 stage. He'd done enough on the floor to make Minehead in November, and would cause a bit of an upset by winning his first match against third seed Damon Heta, before only losing in a deciding leg to Andrew Gilding. He's shown good results and good numbers, and particularly if he can get a win here, which he is perfectly capable of doing and ought to be favoured to do, will have given himself a great platform to hold his card into 2027 and maybe beyond.

Ritchie Edhouse I think it's fair to say hasn't really capitalised on a fabulous 2024 which saw him reach the difficult majors for the first time, as well as obviously win the European Championship. It's fine to expect some level of regression, but he's fallen off quite a lot I think it's fair to say. His floor record has been pretty darned average - he had a good run fairly early in the season with a five event spell of three straight board finals, followed by a board win and then a season's best run of a quarter final, but he would follow that up with a run of eight first round defeats in the next ten Pro Tours he played. He picked things up a little bit towards the end of the season, but it was nothing spectacular at all, the upshot being that he was one of the last few people into the Players Championship field and drew Stephen Bunting in round one with the expected reverse for Ritchie. Edhouse was still holding a high enough Pro Tour ranking to get invites to most of the European Tour events, and he would get past seeds three times while he was in that pack by beating Aspinall, Chisnall and Noppert, but wouldn't get past round three in any of those. He did qualify three times later on, getting relatively tough draws in all of them, but he got past Wessel Nijman in Switzerland and then get a second round bye, only to be whitewashed by Raymond van Barneveld. Edhouse wasn't ranked high enough to get a direct path into the World Masters and lost his first game to Darius Labanauskas, and drawing Jermaine Wattimena in round four of the UK Open was maybe a tad unfortunate. Hopefully 2024 doesn't end up being a massive fluke, but it's been aa disappointing year.

Jnnny Tata will make his first Alexandra Palace appearance, having previously been a WDF quarter finalist where he lost a relatively close game to eventual champion Andy Baetens. Tata is here on account of winning the DPNZ Pro Tour, where he won five of the twelve events, including the last three of the season, enough to finish top of the standings with good wins and good performances over the likes of Ben Robb and Haupai Puha. This result would also get him into the ANZ Premier League, where he won one night and finalled another night, getting to the finals day where he would lose out at the semi final stage to Simon Whitlock. Jonny had the option of playing in the ADA tour, which accepts New Zealanders unlike the DPA tour apparently, but chose not to go down that route, but he has been doing good work on the WDF circuit, winning the gold ranked New Zealand Open along with two other tournaments in the season, which sadly weren't on Dart Connect to give us any data. That would have booked him a return to Lakeside, either through the golden ticket or just through the rankings in general, but he got here instead. Tata did take a creditable three legs off Luke Humphries in the Australian leg of the World Series, and go one better against Gerwyn Price in New Zealand, which looks a good game on paper, These would get him through to the World Series Finals, where he lost 6-4 to Ross Smith. So doesn't appear a bad player at all with some world championship experience, Edhouse can't be taking any liberties here.

Ryan Meikle will return for a sixth appearance here, twelve months after being in an explosive second round game with Luke Littler. Ryan, yet to turn 30 despite seemingly being around forever, did just enough on the Pro Tour to book a return, which ought to see him have enough ranking points to retain his card for another season. The Pro Tour was fairly middle of the road - as a top 64 player, he won more first round games than he lost, which is what you'd expect, but couldn't get any really deep runs started, only having made the one semi final ever which was three years ago now. He would get to one quarter final late in the season, notably beating Stephen Bunting there before coming up a touch short against Ross Smith, and did have back to back board wins either side of the World Matchplay. It's steady, but not the spectacular sort of thing that we know he has in him given the peak game we have seen in the past, which is kind of what is needed to push out of the lower ends of the top 64. He made a couple of Euro Tours and beat Joe Cullen in Rosmalen prior to losing to Ryan Searle, but would just win a couple of legs in Kiel against Dirk van Duijvenbode. The upshot is he only played in the two Minehead majors along with the Masters. There he got out of a group and beat Scott Williams before losing to Richard Veenstra, at the UK Open he couldn't repeat last year's run to Saturday, losing his first game to Madars Razma, while the Players Championship Finals only saw him enter as an alternate after Niko Springer withdrew. This didn't give him the top seed as the draw was already done, but it gave him Ross Smith, which amounts to the kind of same thing and Meikle lost 6-1, averaging down in the 70's to show he still has a wildly inconsistent game. It's odd that someone with such variance between his zenith and nadir hasn't fluked even a Pro Tour final yet, it's what he needs to do, and how far he can get here will depend entirely on which Ryan shows up.

Jesus Salate will make his debut here and be the first Argentinian to make his appearance here, and I assume on any World Championship stage. We've had players from South America here before, probably the most well known being Diogo Portela, but Salate is the first from his country. He got here by winning the CDLC tour - a still somewhat fledgling circuit which expanded this season to a grand total of six whole events. Jesus won four of the six, beating former worlds contender Norman Madhoo in three of them for the loss of just one leg, and edged out Sudesh Fitzgerald in the first one of the season. Rashad Sweeting won the other two, but Salate had the points, and looked to be the clear best player on that circuit, averaging a clear five points ahead of Sweeting and eight ahead of anyone else. This was done despite only averaging 82 overall, but you always need to consider the quality of opponent, and he did push up to the high eighties and low nineties on a few occasions, the general overall number looking like it was dragged down by the occasional really bad leg still being enough against opponents that can't finish him off before he gets to a double. Argentina did make their World Cup debut, and surprised a lot of people by getting out of the group stages, defeating both Finland and New Zealand, although against Australia in the last sixteen they would win just one leg. The WDF doesn't seem to have a presence in South America, so this is about all we can go off - against a Meikle on form he should lose and lose fairly comfortably, but we don't really have ridiculously bad players making the field any more even in an expanded format, so if Ryan is on an off day, there's definitely enough here to stand some chance.

This is Noppert's section to lose and that doesn't seem remotely controversial. Jurjen being here is cool but he isn't at Noppert's level. The other three first round games are pretty interesting. Hood I think has been playing the better stuff than Kenny, but Nick's got the experience on the stage, so while I'll take Justin it'll be tight. Then we've got two seeded players who have been really up, down and often not in great form against two steady international qualifiers. I think both the Englishmen will be fine, but either of them losing or at least being pushed into some final set shenanigans wouldn't shock me in the slightest. Danny ought to deal with Justin,  Hood's got enough to take a set but three seems too much of an ask, then I'll take Ryan to beat Ritchie. I think he will just recognise this is a great chance to move up the rankings and bring a good game, and that'll be enough. It wouldn't be enough against the Freeze, but not much is in 2025. Winner - Danny Noppert

It's been a real big breakthrough season for Josh, the only real surprise being that he's not actually in the top ten in the world yet, as he is quite clearly a Premier League quality player statistically. He won his first TV title in the World Cup, defeating a very strong Welsh team with Daryl Gurney, overcoming the disappointment of missing several match darts to win the decider with an 11 darter. In singles, Rock's also made strong progression and you feel that 2026 could be the year that he finally wins a major, heck, it could be very early in 2026, that's just how good he is. Rock would run into Luke Humphries early in the World Masters, but reach the semi final of the UK Open, notably winning a decider against Ross Smith, beating Rob Cross and then Nathan Aspinall, before seemingly running out of steam against James Wade. That stage would be repeated in Blackpool, knocking out Ross Smith, Michael van Gerwen in overtime and then Gerwyn Price, before losing a narrow semi final against Luke Littler. Rock would go out early at both Leicester and Dortmund, losing to Gerwyn Price heavily and then a real surprise against Ricardo Pietreczko respectively, but recover with a quarter final run in the last two events, running Littler close again in Wolverhampton, while at Minehead it'd be Nathan Aspinall who would do the damage. Josh made a pair of European Tour finals in consecutive weeks, losing a deciding leg to Littler in Antwerp and then 8-5 to Humphries in Prague, while on the Pro Tour he got what is a bit surprisingly his only (singles) title of the season when he beat Cameron Menzies in April. He would make another two finals, going all fifteen legs in both and averaging over 110 against Gerwyn Price in the first one. Make no mistake, Rock being hyped as he was three years ago was, in retrospect, a tad on the early side, but he is absolutely a contender here and for my money the best player in this quarter of the draw.

Gemma Hayter might be a contender for most improved player of the season, making it here for a debut despite not actually winning a Women's Series event in 2025 compared to a brace in 2024. Granted, she did claim the last spot here, and it is a bit hard to win titles if Greaves is winning 13 in a row, but Hayter would be one of only three players on that circuit to break the 80 average, did get to a trio of finals, two in the first weekend pushing Beau to a decider in the second one with a 90 average, and losing to Ashton in the other before a last weekend defeat to Greaves again. It would typically take someone good to stop her - of the 24 events, Greaves knocked her out of ten of them, and only on three occasions would she lose to someone who I didn't instantly recognise. Gemma also made her debut at Blackpool, going out in a deciding leg to Fallon Sherrock in the first round, missing a match dart to complete a comeback from 3-0 down, and she also played some WDF events, winning a pair in October where she would beat Aileen de Graaf twice, Lakeside semi finalist Priscilla Steenbergen twice, plus wins over the likes of O'Sullivan, Zijlstra and Wajer across the two events, averaging steadily in the 80's there and notably winning the English Classic for the loss of just one leg. It's kind of a shame she's got one of the hardest draws possible really.

Niko Springer is another player that's made huge breakthroughs in 2025 after generating some buzz in 2024, there he won multiple Development Tour titles to book his tour card for the first time, and he's already up into the top 64 in the world in his first season. This is primarily down to the European Tour, and in particular the event in Hungary, where he'd claim the title with wins over Gian van Veen (how the hell was that a first round match that late in the season), Damon Heta, Rob Cross, Luke Humphries, before winning deciding legs against Josh Rock and Danny Noppert to claim the crown. It's a huge jump to go from basically zero senior events to winning a Euro Tour in the first season, but Niko managed it. There were signs that this was on earlier in the season though, as he made a first final back in May in Rosmalen. Narrowly losing to Jonny Clayton in the final, Springer would beat Wattimena, Bunting, Schindler, Pietreczko and Nijman to get that far, those last three wins all being with ton plus averages. These results came just too late for him to get into the Matchplay, but just early enough to get into the Grand Prix, not really threatening Stephen Bunting in the opening round, and obviously got him to Dortmund, where he'd get a tricky draw against Jermaine Wattimena who was almost unplayable. Niko won a couple of games at the UK Open, beating card holders Cor Dekker and Patrick Geeraets, but would surprisingly lose in round three to Dylan Slevin, missing out on a very winnable section of the draw as a result. Springer beat Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen to get out of his group at the Grand Slam, but it was another case of what could have been with a last sixteen loss to Lukas Wenig. The floor was a bit less explosive, only getting a pair of board wins and only doing just enough to make Minehead - which he then withdrew from due to illness. Let's hope that's properly cleared up at this stage, as it would be a huge shame to miss out on someone with his talent and potential.

Joe Comito made his debut here twelve months ago just like Springer did, and was the first match on stage in a pretty low quality tussle with Thibault Tricole, going out 3-1 in sets but it being a match that played a lot closer than the scoreline indicated. He makes his return for a second year, this being on account of winning the DPA Pro Tour. In a weird set up which looks like he had two wins from the last weekend of the previous season carry forward into this one, Joe won one event in each of the last two weekends, but come fairly close to getting more, losing in five finals, the ones in April being particularly close where he lost in a deciding leg to Stuart Coburn twice, then a deciding set to James Bailey. This got Joe into the ANZ Premier League as well, finishing clear bottom, not making a final all season and looking like he lost six of his seven opening round games. Comito didn't play the ADA events, or any WDF events that I can see, and just played the Australian stop on the World Series where he lost to Gerwyn Price, needing more than that to make the finals weekend. We kind of have an idea as to what we're going to be get - he's not going to be bad, but he's not going to be good enough to really threaten someone with real quality, and that's what he's drawn here.

Daryl Gurney remains in the top 32 of the worlds on merit, and ironically is in the same section of the draw as his partner for his third TV title. Gurney, twice a major winner in singles events in the late teens, of course claimed the World Cup which we've gone over already, so I won't repeat myself. On TV outside of that, it's not been great but it's not been awful either. Being the first man on the rankings to not get a straight berth to the main stages of the World Masters, Gurney needed to qualify and lost to Dylan Slevin in the second round, and would follow up that early exit with two others - losing to Danny Noppert in the UK Open (tough draw, we'll allow it, but 10-2 is not brilliant) and while he'd play alright against Price in Blackpool, only losing by the one break, it's still a first game defeat. The back end of the season would be better, so good timing at least - comfortably beating Ross Smith in Leicester before the reverse happened against Dirk van Duijvenbode, while at Dortmund he'd go a round further with wins over Gerwyn Price and Ross Smith again, before running into MvG. That World Cup win got Daryl a first Grand Slam appearance in six years, but in a group which, Littler aside, was tricky but not horrendous, he'd lose all three pool games, before a good recovery at Minehead with a second quarter final of the year, notably beating Stephen Bunting before just about surviving in round three, losing to Price in the quarters. Gurney wasn't bad in Europe, picking up quite a few final day appearances and peaking at a semi final, coming through a couple of very tight games and demolishing Danny Noppert to get up to Littler who returned the favour, while it remains some time since he has won a Pro Tour event, typically not losing early but only reaching a single quarter final for his worst return in over a decade. Suppose the good thing is that the TV form isn't bad and is coming at the right time, as he's going to need it.

Beau Greaves will make a second appearance here, which would have been four in a row but for a silly ruling that playing in the PDC (open) worlds and the WDF (women's) worlds at the same time is verboten, but three years after losing in straight sets to Willie O'Connor (I was there!) she is back having won her tour card and deciding now is the time to move over to the PDC system. Beau qualified for this event through what seems like 27 different ways, the one they actually used being the Development Tour, where Greaves finished second, only behind Cam Crabtree but a lot closer to him than Owen Bates in third. Greaves won three of the first six events to more or less have the worlds spot in the bag by March. She wouldn't add any more and would just make the one further final, but plenty of semi and quarter final runs kept enough distance between her and the chasing pack. The Challenge Tour was also very good, Beau winning the first and third events to get her into quite a few Pro Tour events, peaking with a third round run there in August, only being stopped 6-5 by Luke Littler. Beau would dominate the women's game, currently being on an enormous winning streak in the Women's Series, the only real disappointment being not retaining the Matchplay having lost to Lisa Ashton in the final. She pretty much put the WDF on the back burner after winning the third world title, only showing up on their ranking points table with a Dutch Open semi final, but on the PDC stage there was more - she got through to the last 64 of the UK Open, notably beating Mickey Mansell and ending up on the main stage at that fourth round stage against Luke Humphries, who she would run relatively close but end up the 10-7 second best. Greaves returned to the Grand Slam again, and was moderately close to getting out of the group, losing 5-4 to each of Gary Anderson and Michael van Gerwen, beating potential third round opponent Niko Springer albeit at a stage where the game was a dead rubber, and getting all the way to the world youth finals - sweeping her group, beating Danny Jansen and Liam Maendl-Lawrance in the knockout stages to get to a semi where she would cause huge headlines by knocking out Luke Littler to reach the final. She couldn't beat Gian van Veen, but if anyone needed a sign to say that she's legit on the open stage, that was it.

Callan Rydz has always had a bit of an up and down feel to him, but twelve months after matching his best run of this stage of a quarter final, it's hard to say whether 2025 has been up or down, ending in the top quarter of the Pro Tour qualifiers seemingly without really doing a huge amount to get there. The floor form I think was the best - only losing his first game ten times all season (along with a couple of DNP's), and he started well with an early semi final run in event three, really showing the best of what he had to offer with every game bar one being a 99 or better average (the first round game being "only" 94). However, he'd manage just four more board wins all season, none of which went past the last sixteen stage - not terrible, but you'd like a bit more from someone with three Pro Tour titles. He got into half a dozen Euro Tour events, but would struggle somewhat, losing his first five games and only breaking his duck in Switzerland where he'd beat Connor Scutt, only to draw Luke Humphries in round two. The first round losses were a bit of a mix of tough draws and ones he'd like back, so again, maybe there could have been a bit more there. That was clearly not enough to get him into the tricky majors, and in the easier to qualify for ones, he couldn't make much progress either. He'd lose his first game at the Masters to Jimmy van Schie despite a hundred average, lose his first game at the UK Open to Alan Soutar 6-0, but he would pick up a win at the Minehead return against similarly ranked Kevin Doets, prior to a very narrow defeat to Ryan Searle where he was only just shy of a ton average again and forced it all the way. Last year wasn't his first quarter final at this venue, so he clearly likes the stage, but a repeat, or anything close to it, seems unlikely.

Finally we have Patrik Kovacs, the relatively young Hungarian making his debut here after a pair of appearances in the last two seasons on the WDF stage, where he lost in the first round on both occasions. Patrik is here having won the Hungarian Super League - an event which isn't easily found on Dart Connect given it's seemingly not in the PDC section, but it is there with a bit of digging and in the ten event series, Kovacs reached six finals, winning two and losing four and ending up second in the averages table, ending up with 82 for the tour and only being behind Andras Borbely in that table. This got him to the finals stages, where he'd beat Borbely in a deciding set in the semi after doing the same to World Series qualifier Gyorgy Jehirszki. In the final, Kovacs would again average in the low 80's, winning in straight sets against relative unknown Peter Kelemen to claim an Ally Pally debut. Patrik did try to qualify for the Hungarian Euro Tour stop but lost 6-0 to Nandor Major in the final round with a woeful average down in the 60's, and didn't do much else, not being in the World Cup team, not doing anything in the WDF circuit (or at least not getting deep enough to get any points, their 2024 worlds being the only thing still on his ranking), and while he's still relatively young, he's not been Development Tour levels of young for a few years now, nor did he play any of the Challenge Tour. Hungary's a weird country - it's getting a lot of interest from the PDC despite the players still being somewhat off the level where you feel any of them could legitimately compete with someone on this stage, and that includes Kovacs.

Pretty easy one to pick the winner, but some of the intermediate games are a bit more tricky. Rock over Hayter is obvious, and assuming Springer is close to 100% Niko over Comito is obvious, and while Springer obviously has some talent, I don't see him keeping that close to Rock on this stage. Gurney against Greaves is a fascinating one to call. The numbers are very similar, and while Gurney seems to be gaining form at the right time, you have to think the crowd will be behind Greaves, at least after Daryl's walk on merchant song is done. I think whoever wins that will beat Rydz, who should destroy Kovacs, and then that's another one that'll be close in round two whoever comes through round one. I think that Greaves has a break out party and wins both of them - beat Gurney and I don't think she would have too much to be concerned with in Rydz, the first round game is for me clearly harder even if the averages I quote suggest otherwise. Nobody in that section is touching Rock though - if anyone beats Rock early it will be Springer in a first to three and not whoever in a first to four. But I can't see it. Winner - Josh Rock

And that's the lot. I've given sixteen names - next post will be trying to navigate the last sixteen onwards, then we'll have a look at some projections.