No pro has more than 50% of themselves. That was stated publically

I'm just trying to clarify if the pros had to pay their own entry or if the businessmen paid for their invited pros.

Pros had to pay themselves.

Pros divulged the % they had to the organisers,  biggest piece was 50%, in theory a pro could have had 100% I believe,  don't believe there was any stipulation.

I suspect that the businessman who invited them would have had first option for a sizeable chunk of action in practice.

Matchplay another great event Just a break for some tin-pot WSOD events before majors majors majors

As we head into major season, the rankings are shaping up to make things interesting, enormous win for Rob Cross with £613k to defend this year with his incredible WC win 18 months ago, he hasn't exactly started the year lighting the ranking events up despite playing very well in TV events, but this puts him on ~£240k for the year with bombs of prize money up for grabs between now and the worlds and fortunes up for grabs at the ally pally. 40% if the way there is an amazing result, I think realistically given he'd have been looking at this year and thought, if I cashed for £400k this year hold my top 6-7 spot and on we go to 2020 with 1/3 of the money to defend and that looks a certainty now - the big danger for anyone with a massive portion of their money to defend in a calendar year is they have a bad one, slip down towards the bottom end of the top 16 start drawing Gary and Micheal early in tournaments get used to losing games early in tournaments and end up in the 20s where it's a proper scrap to get out. He's already put that to bed so it's onwards and upwards for Cross now and he's got a real shot of keeping his #2 spot now.

2   Rob Cross   England   £964,250
3   Daryl Gurney   Northern Ireland   £545,750
4   Michael Smith   England   £536,000
5   Gary Anderson   Scotland   £533,250
6   Peter Wright   Scotland   £466,000
7   Gerwyn Price   Wales   £424,750

In recent times the race for the worlds rankings wise has always been about the difference between 3rd and 4th/5th in the rankings, playing MVG in the final as opposed to the semi could potentially be a difference in £100,000 in prize money which is the same as the winner of most of the Majors this year will receive, and it's a pretty tense race now following Cross' result yesterday...

Rob Cross   England   £532,500
Daryl Gurney   N Ireland   £185,500
Peter Wright   Scotland   £150,750
Michael Smith   England   £76,250
Gerwyn Price   Wales   £74,750
Gary Anderson   Scotland   £73,500

Here's what each of them are defending between now and the end of the World Championships, and here's how it looks would the worlds begin tomorrow.

=2 Gary Anderson £459,750
=2 Micheal Smith £459,750
4. Rob Cross £431,750
5. Daryl Gurney £360,250
6. Gerwyn Price £350,000
7. Peter Wright £315,250

So Gary and Micheal are creepily in a straight shoot-out for their ranking position and Cross exactly £25k behind them, with MVG seemingly out of form and lots of £££ up for grabs could see any kind of movements in the rankings, a major win for Price or Gurney and there could be a 4th man in the fight.

Couple of mid table guys will be pretty steaming at their matchplay performances, Ian White will be utterly livid as he's just entered the top 10 after a 4 month spell of form where you'd e hard pressed not to have him in the top 5 but could only manage a second round, he really should be at the tail end of these tournaments where the ranking money really is, he effectively maintains his rankings purely on floor/euro events and its amazing how consistent he is but you simply cannot get yourself into the top 6 like this, and without TV credentials and rankings weight the premier league (for which he's ideally suited imo) will continue to allude him. Nathan Aspinall will be a little annoyed he couldn'y put a run here, with 0 money to defend every major that comes he's a real threat on the top 10, I guess after best part of £300k since regaining his card we can let him off one off-day vs a pretty inspired Mervyn King. Jonny Clayton has plenty to defend this year as he slides to towards the danger end of the top 16 and fell foul to a pretty average Keegan Brown, Adrian Lewis (who got a v bad draw admittedly) really needs to put some runs together but just cant as he and Cullen (who blew more chances than he'll get in the next couple of years) slip out of the top 16 again and the wilderness threatens anyone in that part of the rankings who starts to lose form.

You have to ask yourself how people like Dimitri Van Den Bergh, Jamie Lewis, Luke Humprhies cant get themselves into this tournament, it's a real who's who of darts this event and if you're not here then you're not really a big player for me, goes to show the competitive nature of the sport when these guys cant get into a 32 runner field. Barney obviously a sad ommission from the event on his swansong year, despite some fleeting promise throughout the year it looks like we'll likely not see him at the majority of the grand slams this year, the grandstand departure more of a timid extinction, the WSOD events are likely his platform to  wave goodbye now.

Nice month off then its non stop euros and floor events which give the guys on the edge a chance to make a move in!

ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba OI  OI OI

[SOME]

They all talking stone cold nonsense but I'm slightly less offended by the pair of them given the job they'll be tasked with is going to be pretty dam impossible. They'd both make horrible PM's i'm sure off it, but picking a leader from the Tory leadership race is basically the same as picking an STD, I mean fucking hell are we really here.

Lets just get Boris in there hope whoever advises him advises him well and we can ping 2 years of anything better than a total bloodbath and maybe someone more capable will finally come along who we can actually enjoy being PM, with a fait hope they might be able to do a good job. Blair and Cameron weren't especially popular but at least SOME people liked them!

Does Sam Trickett still go to these things these days, or has he made so much he can’t be arsed?

Sold his house in Mansfield and moved to Ibiza if you read his twitter page.  Probably realised James Bord is long gone and the glory days are over after marrying his page 3 barbie doll.  WP sir.

Does he still play poker or not? Or just decided to sit and live on what he made? Don’t blame him if he did, I’d probably do the same and be risk averse to keep a good lifestyle.....

He still rocks up in the big cash games that Party stream, and I assume he is coming to Vegas when the Party Millions is on.  Guess he has no desire to be over here for the whole series, and not sure he ever did.   He seems to have a pretty expensive lifestyle, so don't think he has gone all risk averse either.

WSOP too small.

so funny that Boris called Putin "dobbie the house elf" then went on to be foreign secretary, and now he's going to be Prime Minister

I'm not associating with the "do-gooder remainers" or the "stuffy right wing leavers" but surely no one can be satisfied with the current state of UK politics or the people involved??

I'm not saying Brexit is a good or bad thing, I personally voted to remain but I see the reasons to vote leave and think the chances of brexit being completed and in 5+yrs things being better than they were i the EU is not a long price, however surely no one can argue that it's been easily the biggest political disaster in recent times for the UK? I mean its been utter chaos, Tighty said there is no "good" brext news being reported ITT because there isn't any is absolutely right, there hasn't been a remotely positive brexit breakthrough basically since it started, I'm not one for these statements but if you don't think Brexit has been a disaster up to now then I mean... come on. (And this is no reflection on the principle of brexit or whether it will ultimately be worth it)

Theresa May completely in-effective during her tenure-ship, no support in the commons, no support in europe, barely any support in her own cabinet, total waste of time, Corbyn will be the same, cant even unite his own party, Boris very well might be the best option for UK leadership right now but SURELY no one thinks he'll be a "good" prime minister?

The whole thing is a joke, complete mess and the stuffy old left-vs-right debate is one for the 20th century I'm afraid, I think people, not just politicians need to realise that that political pigeon-holing just isn't relevant these days, one of the party's needs to build a more central political perspective and find a leader who can actually lead. Cameron wasn't well liked on the left wing side and Blair not particularly well liked on the right wing side of political opinion but they both understood you cant win elections with far right/left policy and there's no point governing if you cant win an election. Need to put a stop to this left vs right nonsense and let the way for a liberal-but-realistic party or politician to come through.

Ain't happening though is it. 

Hello BTC <3

If you're looking for historical examples to raise serious question marks over Boris' character you're not lacking in options there! However I think having an argument with his Mrs doesn't really count and even if it did count as a blemish on your character it's not like it's getting into the top 5 or even top 10 with Boris lol. These stories conveniently pop up but never seem to really hurt anyone, Trump survived the "grab 'em by the pussy" scandal without too much problems and I think we'd all agree that's a fairly unacceptable thing for a future president to be recorded saying (I know L.O.L context).

I feel there has been an idle threat that Boris will become PM for ages, given his relentless goofishness and seemingly criminal lack of self awareness he has remained relatively popular across a wide spectrum of political opinion, perhaps no one ever thought he would really be PM and that's he's quite a jovial character, that guy everyone thinks is a bit of tosser but he's decent drinking company so always invited on a night out. Now it looks like he is certain to be PM and I think that generally forgiving opinion of him will be tested pretty dam hard. Personally I'm not hating the Boris for PM line, obviously I dont think he'll be a good PM, and I don't think he'll do a good job on brexit but given brexit is impossible and there were no other options with any real stand out attributes I think fuck it let Boris have a bash why not, also one day there might be a 3-way meeting between Boris, Trump and Putin and lets be honest who the fuck doesn't wanna see that photograph

Pretty brainless stuff from the Poles to put Ratajski up against MVG.

Complete madness, MVG is 95%+ to be going first too, easiest strategic match - up in sporting history that, you're never trying to beat the netherlands 2-0, your strat is get to the pairs and see what happens, put wattimena under pressure.

Canada have done the same thing, although it's less relevant given they are such massive under-dogs, but Dawson Murchell has been playing well enough so far to give Wattimena again, who's yet to put to any sort of real test in the tournament, and Jim Long can have some warm up darts vs MVG. BO7 game in the pairs you never know what can happen, it's really poor thinking. Was close to a gimme anyway but it's even more of a gimme now, 1.11 Holland looks big to me.

Irish boys look lively, that's not going to be an easy tie for the dutch at all.

Scotland looking a bit unbeatable to me if they maintain the form they've shown so far its extremely hard to see anyone beating them

just goes to show how deep darts quality is these days, if you dont turn up you get Ironed out pretty quickly these days.

I've taken decent lay positions on England and Netherlands, Jermaine Wattimena was brilliant in the first round and Australia's inevitable fall leaves them with a pretty easy (on paper) 1/4 final, and MVG playing vs Ratajski certainly the desireable match-up for the dutch. Gary's back seems to be fine and PW keeping to the same set of darts bodes v well for the Scotts, they looking good for faves right now.

Still not convinced by England, they have another potential tricky one vs Rep.Ireland tonight and a probable 1/4 final vs Austria for whom Zoran Lerchbacher player great in rnd 1, I probably under-estimated just how good morale it must be playing alongside Mensur!

So that's round $96,500 for the first 7 days.

The mind truly boggles.

Pretty sure he will have sold substantial amounts. Wasn’t there a post a while back that detailed his policy on this? He maybe only has 15-20% of a $50k.

Think Pads takes 100% on $10k and proportionate on anything bigger.

If we're thinking about the same post.

I remember reading a detailed post from Pads where he explained some system he had for selling % late on based on his equity, found it interesting actually, quite clever. Buyins for this WSOP can run into huge money super fast cant they!

[World Cup]

World Cup

I really like this tournament, and I'm really excited for this one, feels way more open than previous years. Think we MIGHT see some wacky results, the short formats always lend themselves to some unpredictable results!! The format really lends itself to teams with composed players in them and the format being doubles only in rnd1 we are DEFO going to see an upset.

Running through the betting, I see a lot of potential banana skins for the seeds for this tournament.

England - Top seeds for this and it does seem like the most likely winners on paper, however I just can't bring myself to fancy them actually winning it, Rob Cross has been superb on TV so far this year and thoroughly under-whelming on the floor. Micheal Smith been pretty inconsistent all year, if the two of them turn up they'll be too much for anyone bar scotland and wales to handle and should blast through, I can see them being put in a venreable spot at least once or twice on the way through this tournament. They have an extremely lose-able game in round 1 vs the Philippines. Noel Malicdem and Laurence Ilagan are both very dangerous players who have performed well on big TV stages before, they have also played pairs games in sot-tip with each other in asia, a race to 9 match vs two players who have it in them to be inconsistent, I wouldn't wanna be betting them for that game at on. The format round 2+ will suit these two better but they gonna run into two more tricky players in round 2 in Willie O'Connor and Steve Lennon.  For me, not close to a bet even at top price 3/1.

Netherlands Seeded 4th.  I saw an article which asked if MVG could win this tournament on his own, I think that's extremely unfair on Jermaine Wattimena who is capable of giving anyone a proper game if he plays well, he is unfortunately very inconsistent, and being alongside MVG will either get him going or over-whelm him. You know what you're gonna get from MVG, so Wattimena's performance is going to be paramount, if he plays really well then the dutch will very likely win the tournament, they do have a bit of a nasty draw though. Spain in the doubles is certainly losable, Poland are surefire dark horses for this in round 2, Australia with a resurgent Whitlock in round 3, England in the Semis. 11/4 a tempter when the MVG factor is there, think Jermaine Wattimena is just going to be too weak vs the big dogs if they have to play an in form England/Scotland/Wales.

Scotland Seeded 2nd here, a real head-scratcher... The big question for the Scots is going to be GARY'S BACK barely played a competitive game since being turned over by MVG in the world semis (8 games, won 3, averaged ~95, he was filled in 6-0 by PW last time he played) however it's just a matter of fitness for Gary, he's never going to lack confidence or be rusty on the big stage. Peter Wright has been pretty poor this year really however he does have a knack of grafting results out and so much experience, the changing darts nonsense keeps popping back up and you cant massively trust his mental game. They have a pretty safe passage to the 1/4s and if Gary is fit then I would probably make them favourites, if Gary struggles then I cant see how they get past the Welsh or an in form England. Best price 7/2 with perhaps the best draw, I would just be so concerned about Gary's fitness, he has barely played and that despite Gary's lowish volume in general is not a good sign and therefore I'd be steering clear.

Wales Seeded 3rd and I would say serious contenders for this one, I would say over the course of this year these two are probs the most consistent team between them, they are mates and to me feel like the strongest team in this competition, Gerwyn Price has turned himself into a legit rockstar and Johny Clayton is making a big charge for the top 10. I think they're almost guaranteed to play well and have the firey spirit that defo suits team play, but unfortunately for the Welsh lads they seem to have gotten themselves the worst draw going.  Singapore filled Scotland in round 1 two years ago and with Paul Lim at the helm they are guarenteed to be a tough game, Japan are another dark horse with Siego Asada and Haruki Muramatsu who have both played well on TV before (you'll remember Siego from the "I did it for my country" shenangians with Wadey at the worlds) he's beaten lots of top pros, and again these two are friends who will be comfortable playing together. Northern Ireland in the quarters, scotland (probs) in the semi's its a tough route for these two but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them winAt best price 7/1 I would fancy this team.

Northern Ireland #6 seeds, of course all about Daryl Gurney who's turned himself into a real warrior these days, alongside Brendon Dolan who himself has been playing pretty well for the past year without and real moves, he'll benefit massively from playing alongside DG who's scoring power can match anyones on it's day, Dolan's always been a real steady doubler and this partnership should work well. Reasonably nice path into the 1/4s for a probable showdown with the Welsh, which will be an enormous test for them, if scotland dont turn up for the semi's I wouldn't be overly shocked if they trundle themselves into the final, most likely for the N.I lads though is a 1/4 final send off from Price and Clayton, they just have too much to over-come and when they're gonna need the extra firepower Brendon Dolan just probably isn't going to find it. 14/1 just tooooo skinny.

Australia The 5th seeds here, not a massively positive outlook for this Ozzies here, Whitlock, having dropped off a bit towards the back end of last year has put a few good performances together later and looks to be back playing much better. What he really needs is a solid playing partner and a good draw and unfortunately he has neither. Naughty little opener vs the Fins round 1, fairly easy 2nd round vs Canada or Italy then likely Netherlands, then England before they get to the final, Kyle Anderson has just been way out of for lately, having troubles with his glasses, darts, changed his throw. Dont fancy them at all, wouldn't be surprised if the Finnish turned them over and whereas in short formats they could be a proper match for anyone, not going to be an easy game for the Netherlands, I just cant see them putting up any challenge for this and even at 22/1, not for me.

Belguim Ranked 7th, on paper Kim and Dimi shouldn't pose much threats in this, neither of them have had any real form this year and Dimitri has looked really hit and miss, with a string of 80 averages thrown in. However...they are good friends, lots of respect there, played great last year together and both absolutely love TV darts and have a habbit of bringing it for big games, tricky draw and a bit of a lack of form but at 25/1 I could be tempted in there....

Austria Seeded 8th, as good as mensur is he's going to get no help whatsover from Zoran in this and I think they are going to need help form the draw, mensur alone should get them into the 1/4s but whoever they find from this point I cant see them beating, even at 33/1 wouldn't be for me.

Outside of the seeded teams,

Poland - 66/1 - Krystof Ratajski & Tytus Kanik two players massively on the up and up, both full of confidence, they have a pretty easy opener and then a really testing 2nd round vs Netherlands, but that is a game I can just really see them winning, Ratajski is just so solid and a proven winner on the tour now, these two should make a great team. I think they're a fantastic easy way poke and unless something drastic happens I think I'll be betting them vs Holland in the second round.

Germany 33/1 - In what is undoubtedly the weakest quarter of the draw, and with big question marks over scotland, some fairly serious question marks over Belguim, looking for a serious contender for this quarter there is not really anyone else to look at bar the germans. Good friends, played together many times, both absolutely love playing for German crowds and both capable of firing in big averages.

Philippines -250/1 - As mentioned earlier, two extremely dangerous players who've performed well on TV before, they have a horrible opener vs England but after that it's not looking too bad for these two, Ireland will put up a fight but they're not top tier, Austria are half a team, Australia are out of form, we have doubts of Netherlands...as a 250/1 EW nod they look great to me, I can see the waves parting for them and they might just cause some upsets!

New Zealand 300/1 - Cody Harris is vastly improving and Haupai Puha put in a really good display in the world series events, I think they're going to find themselves falling short too often to mount a challenge for this but I wouldn't be hating taking them at a big price vs N.I

Japan - 125/1 - As I said, really like this pair and I could see them causing some upsets, the draw for them is really tough though so I wouldn't be betting them at 125/1, the sprinkling of 200/1 though could really tempt me EW/


For me, I would be looking at;

Medium Bet Wales 7/1 WIN
Small Bet Germany 33/1 WIN
Medium Bet Poland 66/1 EW
Small Bet Philippines 250/1 EW

The first round will provide a lot of options to oppose big favourites, with the unpredictable format I cant see wanting to be on any team at 1/5 there.

Patriotically though, I guess we gotta cheer for England  

Premier league was really exciting for the group stages, one of the most open/exciting I can remember and the fact the top spot wasn't even decided till the last night was cool as well. The final sort of petered out into zzzzzzzz though Rob Cross has a real weakness I think for multi-game days these days, hence why he seems incapable of consistently performing on the euro tour. His dominance over this tournament is pretty indicative of ultimately how hard he dominates the game overall. The only real weak spot you could say is he only currently holds 2x majors (worlds and grand prix) but then he has won 30 major titles in 7 years and is besrt part of a million quid clear in the rankings, so....

Wonder where Gary is, and what he's doing with his back.... Big rankings chance opening up for him here, Peter Wrights slump down the rankings continues and he has another £100k to lose between now and the matchplay, Gurney has £150k to defend between now and the grand prix, Cross nealry £500k to defend between now and the worlds, Smith out of form, Price has slipped off a bit and is a long way back, there's really no opposition to Gary rolling into world #2 for end of the year unless of course he doesn't play!! Hope to see him back asap, the World Cup would be good to see, short games and fairly easy format with decent prize money, if he doesn't turn up to that then we've probs got to assume the worst for Gary....

bang me down ronnnnnnie