End of tournament thoughts and end of year FRH rankings

So, Littler wins to nobody's surprise. That he won the final quite that easily might have been a bit of a surprise, while it's no secret that I'm much more bullish on Littler than most, Gian only winning the first set did come as a bit of a shock. In any case, the tournament is in the book and we rush straight to Q-School tomorrow, no rest for the wicked. New FRH rankings, I did just note that I didn't put any new ones up after the Players Championship Finals, probably just rushing to start on worlds previews not knowing how long they would take with the expanded field, so changes are since the Slam:

1 Luke Littler

2 Gian van Veen (UP 2)

3 Luke Humphries (DOWN 1)

4 Jonny Clayton (UP 2)

5 Gary Anderson (UP 13)

6 Ryan Searle (UP 14)

7 Michael van Gerwen (DOWN 4)

8 Josh Rock (UP 2)

9 James Wade (DOWN 1)

10 Stephen Bunting (DOWN 5)

11 Danny Noppert (DOWN 4)

12 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 3)

13 Nathan Aspinall (UP 2)

14 Chris Dobey (DOWN 3)

15 Jermaine Wattimena (UP 1)

16 Martin Schindler (DOWN 2)

17 Damon Heta (DOWN 4)

18 Ross Smith (DOWN 6)

19 Luke Woodhouse (NEW)

20 Mike de Decker (DOWN 3)

Only Nijman to drop out from there, if you will go out early then what can you do. As an added bonus, here's the year on year changes:

Rank	Player	Points	Last Year	Change
1	Luke Littler	2.23m	2	1
2	Gian van Veen	780k	27	25
3	Luke Humphries	722k	1	-2
4	Jonny Clayton	463k	9	5
5	Gary Anderson	438k	12	7
6	Ryan Searle	418k	18	12
7	Michael van Gerwen	412k	3	-4
8	Josh Rock	405k	17	9
9	James Wade	404k	10	1
10	Stephen Bunting	401k	4	-6
11	Danny Noppert	399k	13	2
12	Gerwyn Price	395k	16	4
13	Nathan Aspinall	354k	23	10
14	Chris Dobey	337k	5	-9
15	Jermaine Wattimena	307k	30	15
16	Martin Schindler	299k	22	6
17	Damon Heta	289k	8	-9
18	Ross Smith	282k	14	-4
19	Luke Woodhouse	275k	31	12
20	Mike de Decker	253k	11	-9
21	Krzysztof Ratajski	252k	34	13
22	Wessel Nijman	250k	43	21
23	Rob Cross	246k	6	-17
24	Daryl Gurney	235k	24	0
25	Ryan Joyce	233k	25	0
26	Dirk van Duijvenbode	230k	32	6
27	Cameron Menzies	225k	38	11
28	Dave Chisnall	218k	7	-21
29	Andrew Gilding	207k	29	0
30	Peter Wright	201k	15	-15
31	Ricardo Pietreczko	199k	28	-3
32	Joe Cullen	184k	26	-6
33	Michael Smith	178k	21	-12
34	Ritchie Edhouse	175k	20	-14
35	Raymond van Barneveld	154k	33	-2
36	Kevin Doets	153k	42	6
37	Justin Hood	137k	NEW	NEW
38	Dimitri van den Bergh	136k	19	-19
39	Willie O'Connor	135k	57	18
40	Martin Lukeman	130k	36	-4
41	Niels Zonneveld	130k	48	7
42	Niko Springer	126k	NEW	NEW
43	Callan Rydz	123k	40	-3
44	Ricky Evans	122k	45	1
45	Scott Williams	114k	37	-8
46	James Hurrell	113k	74	28
47	Madars Razma	110k	44	-3
48	Brendan Dolan	110k	35	-13
49	Gabriel Clemens	101k	39	-10
50	Michael Mansell	101k	41	-9
51	Connor Scutt	98.5k	46	-5
52	Wesley Plaisier	94.2k	54	2
53	Jeffrey de Graaf	93.5k	47	-6
54	Karel Sedlacek	91.9k	66	12
55	Ian White	89.7k	51	-4
56	Mensur Suljovic	88.7k	65	9
57	Ryan Meikle	86.4k	64	7
58	Alan Soutar	83.4k	60	2
59	Lukas Wenig	82.2k	NEW	NEW
60	Keane Barry	78.2k	53	-7
61	Andreas Harrysson	76.1k	NEW	NEW
62	Richard Veenstra	75.7k	50	-12
63	Nick Kenny	72.9k	62	-1
64	Dom Taylor	72.6k	76	12
65	Bradley Brooks	72.1k	NEW	NEW
66	Kim Huybrechts	70.4k	49	-17
67	Cameron Crabtree	70.4k	NEW	NEW
68	Mario Vandenbogaerde	68.4k	68	0
69	Thibault Tricole	67.3k	59	-10
70	Darren Beveridge	63.8k	NEW	NEW
71	Charlie Manby	62.5k	NEW	NEW
72	Sebastian Bialecki	59.2k	NEW	NEW
73	Stephen Burton	57.1k	63	-10
74	Matt Campbell	57.0k	61	-13
75	Max Hopp	54.9k	NEW	NEW
76	Robert Owen	54.9k	58	-18
77	Chris Landman	54.6k	72	-5
78	Adam Lipscombe	50.1k	NEW	NEW
79	Matthew Dennant	49.0k	NEW	NEW
80	Steve Lennon	48.9k	73	-7
81	Stefan Bellmont	48.5k	100	19
82	Darius Labanauskas	46.1k	NEW	NEW
83	Andy Baetens	44.4k	96	13
84	Florian Hempel	42.5k	52	-32
85	Owen Bates	42.4k	95	10
86	Adam Hunt	42.0k	NEW	NEW
87	Cor Dekker	41.2k	NEW	NEW
88	Dominik Gruellich	39.7k	NEW	NEW
89	Dylan Slevin	37.8k	67	-22
90	Jose de Sousa	37.6k	56	-34
91	Arno Merk	37.6k	NEW	NEW
92	Leonard Gates	37.5k	90	-2
93	Mervyn King	37.3k	77	-16
94	Jurjen van der Velde	34.9k	NEW	NEW
95	Beau Greaves	32.0k	NEW	NEW
96	Haupai Puha	31.8k	NEW	NEW
97	Jamai van den Herik	31.5k	NEW	NEW
98	Maik Kuivenhoven	31.2k	79	-19
99	Alexis Toylo	31.1k	NEW	NEW
100	David Davies	31.0k	NEW	NEW

23 players out, which is a lot more than last year relatively speaking, seems to be a lot less churn in the top 50, think that's somewhat down to the Euro Tour but not entirely sure. Jim Williams is the biggest casualty from 55, but then you need to go down to last year's #69 to see anyone else drop, 18 of the 23 players we lost were from the bottom 25. Clearly a lot of those were either players who got into the worlds and did nothing else, or those that were doing so-so on the tour but lost their card. One thing to note is how much the points tally has increased year on year. Number 100 is up over 50%, #75 nearly 40%, #50 is up about a third, but the top 32 and 16 tallies have not changed much at all. How much of that is Littler getting ALL the cake is unclear.

Betting went well, we ended up punting on nearly half the matches and grew the bankroll by 44%, which is pretty solid. Some games were slip ups for sure, but we're never going to go perfect and I can't complain with how things went in the slightest.

The Q-School entry list is out, it looks like it's going to be a moderately even split, so I'm going to pick 12 names from each - more than what will get cards, but as it looks fairly close as to the exact breakdown then I'll not pick a full list. So:

UK - Charlie Manby, Darren Beveridge, Steve Lennon, Adam Hunt, George Killington, Stephen Burton, David Davies, Conor Heneghan, Shane McGuirk, Stephen Rosney, Martin Thomas, Graham Usher

EU - Jamai van den Herik, Andreas Harrysson, Florian Hempel, Andy Baetens, Mario Vandenbogaerde, Teemu Harju, Krzysztof Kciuk, Benjamin Pratnemer, Brian Raman, Franz Roetzsch, Jeffrey Sparidaans, Jimmy van Schie

We'll see how that goes. Usually it does not go well. Will be back tomorrow to confirm the 2nd/3rd Division lineups for 2026 once the PL announcement is in the bank. Really not sure where they're going to go with that, with quite a few players possibly playing themselves out of spots at the worlds, but we'll see. I just hope they don't snub Rock, that's the main one for me.

Final thoughts

Well, the semis kind of went how we thought, Littler winning super comfortably, then Gary was probably not as big a dog as the market thought, and but for some critical missed doubles, we might have been at 5-5, but we weren't, so oh well. As such, we go into a final where the projection is as follows:

72/84/80/79

This puts Littler at a near 4-1 on favourite. He is nowhere near a 4-1 on favourite in the market. This is EXACTLY what we saw last year against MvG. GvV is one of the few players that might be able to pressure Luke, but over this sort of game, it is just not happening anywhere near as often as the market thinks it will happen. Which is a shame, as I want Gian to win the match, but even in the form sample, Luke would be a bet. So we will bet the favourite, and expect to collect in 24 hours from now.

Semi final thoughts

Firstly, PRAISE THE SUN in that the PDC will finally be doing the thing where they top up stage 2 of Q-School on the second and subsequent days with people who just missed out from stage 1 so we get a full 128. This is long overdue and a change that makes a lot of sense. There's a few other small things which I might get into in another post, but credit where it's due. Now, into the penultimate day - I'll be updating the Second/Third Division Darts page with anything that might have happened (I know that, at a minimum, we had Schindler play Barry), there's one last potential game if we get a Searle/Ando final, but...

Littler/Searle - Luke into the semi finals as easily as expected. Krzysztof didn't play badly, he was just outclassed, as frankly all but maybe one or two players in the field would be. Searle looked confident, but he certainly wasn't harmed by Clayton starting off atrociously on the doubles, and really not getting much better later in the game. This one might not be as one sided as the other Littler games we've had, but it should still be incredibly straight forward. Projections - 88/90/85/88

van Veen/Anderson - We thought Gian would win that quarter final. We didn't think he would win it quite as comfortably as he did. Ando's was also very comfortable, Hood didn't even win a leg on the sets where Anderson had the throw, and were it not for a little bit of sloppy finishing/scoring in set four, this one could have ended just as quick. Projections - 59/49/49/52

So in terms of value, I think we need to look at Ando. I'm seeing it as a lot closer to 50/50 than the market is which has got Gary at longer than 6/4. I'm toning down the percentage play given that the short form number is clearly the one that favours Gian the most, and given yesterday's performances, but it's not going to take me off Anderson completely. After all, there is the intangible that he has been here before. Gian hasn't. It might not make a difference but it is still a thing to be considered (that, and post-Luke win hangover ideals that we often saw after someone beat Phil back in the day).

Quarter final thoughts

Searle/Clayton - Been a really comfortable couple of rounds for Ryan, taking out Schindler and then Hurrell without dropping a set, and not really being in a position where he was looking like dropping a set either. Clayton has had to work a lot more, being forced all the way by Zonneveld and nearly having Harrysson doing the same, so if Searle having more in the tank is actually a thing in darts, it might be a thing. Projection - 55/44/47/49

Anderson/Hood - Ando's been the only player forced into overtime in rounds three or four with what looked like a probable close one with Wattimena ending up being just that, while the next round against van Gerwen was a bit closer than what the scoreline showed but still a lot more comfortable than the previous round. Hood's run has been remarkable, comfortably beating Meikle as expected, then even more comfortably beating Rock, not as expected. Projection - 72/78/83/78

Littler/Ratajski - Luke had no problems with Suljovic much as we thought. Cross made him work a bit more but it never felt like Luke was in trouble, Krzsyztof needed everything to get through Plaisier, and then a fair bit to get through Woodhouse, this of course after not having everything his own way in round two either. Big step up, and likely not going to happen. Projection - 98/98/94/97

Humphries/van Veen - Luke was made to work a bit against Clemens, although only after he was already 3-0 up so had plenty in hand to work with, while Doets couldn't really do much after getting the first set. Gian meanwhile had fairly comfortable games against Razma and Manby, not really being pressured and likely being able to put in more like he did in round two if needed, which it wasn't. Projection - 44/53/56/51

So we've got two where things rate extremely tightly, one which doesn't and then one which really, really doesn't. That last game is the clear highlight.

Round four projections

Tomorrow's will come in later tonight at some point after the Rock game, but for now I'll just put out projections for the Littler and Hurrell games:

Hurrell/Searle - 18/26/23/22

Littler/Cross - 96/89/84/90

Edit to put in the 30th games:

Woodhouse/Ratajski - 60/59/45/55

Clayton/Harrysson - 94/89/90/91

Hood/Rock - 32/17/16/22

Manby/van Veen - 14/21/15/17

van Gerwen/Anderson - 51/44/47/47

Humphries/Doets - 83/79/87/83

Round three projections

We're now at the stage where everyone has very good levels of data, except for Merk, who remains extremely limited short term and limited otherwise, so take that one under advisement, otherwise, here we go:

Plaisier/Ratajski - 69/68/44/60

Gilding/Woodhouse - 48/63/57/56

Clayton/Zonneveld - 63/70/69/67

Harrysson/Pietreczko - 39/49/39/42

Bunting/Hurrell - 89/87/84/87

Littler/Suljovic - 97/96/95/96

Schindler/Searle - 19/31/33/28

Heta/Cross - 64/43/39/49

Anderson/Wattimena - 73/67/68/69

van Veen/Razma - 94/90/82/89

Humphries/Clemens - 96/95/91/94

van Gerwen/Merk - 90/99/100/96

Hood/Meikle - 80/75/72/76

Evans/Manby - 55/48/53/52

Aspinall/Doets - 79/74/72/75

Rock/Rydz - 70/82/74/75

I suppose the ones that immediately look odd are the Plaisier game, given he's currently the underdog on the market, I think that one can be tempered somewhat given consistency numbers, Wesley's pretty much at database average since June, but Ratajski is barely over one point, which is an extremely low number, as such while Plaisier is scoring more per turn, overall it's only by half a point, made up of two better on winning legs but two worse on losing legs. The other one is Schindler being that much of a dog to Searle. This one I think is harder to explain - Schindler's more consistent but there's only about a point and a quarter between the two, it's just a combination of year long Searle scoring a point and a half per turn more than Schindler does, and that goes to over two when you look at winning legs, which is how I derive these numbers. Searle's in the top ten in the world in the percentage of legs he finishes in four visits, at 16% compared to Schindler's 12%, while his five visit percent is 65% against Schindler being just under 60%, and he has a small edge in six visit percentage as well. Over what's now first to four sets, that edge in every leg being played over and over is going to be hard to overcome. I think maybe we chuck out that short term data sample - Searle's inconsistency number is very high there at over 9 (Schindler is just under 3), so maybe we just use the two longer samples and say the shortest one should really be around where the other two are. Even then, that still points to him being a fair price of around 1.5 when he's 1.8 right now. Have a good Christmas all, I'll probably just post a round 4 projections post after the first two days are in the book, and not write up until the 31st as it's going to be manic.

Worlds round two day four thoughts

Tata/Meikle - Yikes. First set was scruffy. Second set was a bit better, third set maybe regressed a tad from there, fourth set might have been worse again especially with Tata forgetting how to hit a double in the first leg, and while the fifth set at least wasn't terrible, it wasn't anything to write home about. On paper it's a great comeback but both were such much of a muchness that it seems to me to be just variance that Jonny got up two nil rather than things going another way, nobody had a grip on that match at any point.

Gurney/Rydz - Now this one was a bit better, although still back and forth. First set was kind of a mix of missed opportunities, second and third sets Callan couldn't really get close to Gurney, but he couldn't continue it into set four, Callan playing his best stuff to date there. Then of course the first leg is a dumpster fire, could have avoided a whole string of holds where nobody got really close to breaking, until Rydz found an eleven darter in overtime, Gurney then giving him all the time in the world to kill the match off, not that he needed it.

Wattimena/Williams - This one was decidedly odd. Scott missed a bunch of doubles to go two legs down, does well to level but then runs into an eleven from Jermaine. Next set is kind of the same - except here it's more the scoring that saw Williams down 2-0. Third could easily have been a repeat except this time Jermaine missed the double for 2-0, and Scott claims it 3-1 instead. Williams then made it six straight legs to take us to a decider, only for Wattimena to sweep the decider. Solid set from Jermaine, but fuck knows what the hell Williams was thinking when, on 80 to save the match, he goes straight for double double, but on the VERY NEXT VISIT needing 10, he opts to split seconds after thinking going for the adjacent double twice is the optimal play? If you genuinely think you're good at D20 but shit at D5 then head's gone.

Wright/Merk - Don't think I'll go into this one too much. Merk was fine, but more or less anyone in the field would have won this one. Just sad to see Peter playing like this. But not surprising.

Noppert/Hood - Match of the year contender. I'll say nothing more. If you have not seen it, go away and watch it right now. It's that good.

Anderson/Scutt - Good to see Gary putting in a solid TV performance, and I think Connor putting him under a bit of early pressure with a fine start to take the opening set helped to some degree. After that, Ando looked really, really good. Even the legs Connor did take, Gary was scoring real heavily and forcing Scutt to take the chances he did take. Very promising going into what will be a tough third round match.

van Gerwen/O'Connor - This one had a fair bit of build up, especially given the players' respective first round matches, but this more or less got decided quickly after Willie missed the shot to take the first set quickly himself, proceeding to lose the next six legs and be two nil down in sets. In some he was close (was on 16 after nine in one ffs), others not so much. A set was pulled back, two good holds and then a maybe slightly fortunate break to avoid needing to serve it out, but would still need to break in the fourth and he couldn't find it. Maybe if Willie had have gone 1-0 up, this plays out a fair bit differently, but we'll never know.

Rock/Comito - Not a great deal to say in this one - much like yesterday, this one was just a big mismatch, Rock posting a ton average without ever really getting out of second gear. Which is a good sign for him. Joe wasn't bad but just couldn't score heavily enough by comparison.

Might have round three projections up later. Might be tomorrow. Might be Friday. It'll be in time to punt though.