Both!

Cream always rises doesn't it

Will only get into the world cup if he is the second ranked Dutch player on the OOM before the WC starts.  Pretty sure its automatically the two highest ranked playerss at the time who play for the country.  Not sure where Barney will sit that way by the WC.

Yeh, although there has been occasions in the past where one of the players has declined to play for whatever reasons. Currently would be Jermaine Wattimena but he and Barney are by all accounts very close and JW has rep for being a nice bloke wouldn't be shocked if he passes it over so Barny have have a farewell World Cup. I assume any deal would privately involved JW getting all RVB's money from the event, JW when you're gridlocked in the ruthless 28-16 area cant really afford to pass up a poke at the GSOD with all the ranking money up for grabs there, as well as the not so insignificant matter of 30 bags each if you win!

Yeh i was up for betting 2/1 during his retirement, think he's odds on if he tries, it's a lot more of an ask for him to get to the grand prix or matchplay, I think he's gonna need a world cup entrance to get in the grand slam. If he grinds the PC's he doesn't even need that much, £6k the other day a big help, £15k from the PCs and £12k from the ETs and he sails into players & euros and thus into the worlds, he could prbs sack the ET's off and push it through on the PC circuit but stage darts on the continent should really be right up Barney's alley.

Think un-retired he's a slam dunk at even money to be there.  I think it'll be impossible for Barry to Wild Card him though, he's said like 300 times when asked about a Power WC that darts is a "meritocracy" and he'd "never allow someone who's earnt a place to lose it to a reputation - you get what you earn in PDC darts..." would be outrageous hypocrisy to go back on that and Barney shouldn't really accept either as it's a bit pathetic.

Fair play Barney - announce the retirement coming at the Worlds at the end of the year (even though anyone with a clue knows you're million to make it), collect the sympathy PL invitation cash, then knock it on the head.

One of my favourite ever sportsmen - Chapeau!

He probably needs about £25k on the pro tour over the rest of the year to qualify, given he'd snuck back into top 32 after pro tour final I reckon he'd have made the worlds.

I'd bet Barney to be in the worlds at 2/1.

Interestingly, if Phil still had his card he'd be world #11 !

So decided to bomb out to Rio for the PP millions thingymajiggy, haven't played a lot of poker, or poker tournaments in the past years but fancied this one, and had a business contact who lives in Rio I was anxious to meet in person so felt great about the trip, Rio been somewhere I always fancied going.

Had an absolutely amazing time, really really good. Didn't do too much poker, had a few bullets in the $1k "Rio Open" finished 7 or 8 off the money, on reflection my bust out hand was probably a little bit out of line but heh man's gotta follow his instincts in the poker tournaments played the $10k and busted very quickly into day 2, I did a Hellmuth and tried to induce someone to lose their head against me, which I think they did (I'm not really to know lol) and get sent to the beach I actually enjoyed playing, Brazil poker player seem to have rep for just being terrible but I didn't think they were terrible at all, just a little prone to wrecklessness perhaps but they certainly don't make it easy on you!!! I liked the overall pace of play too, fast game, competitive game, friendly game - just how it should be.

One thing I will say though, which I think is utterly unbearable, is the stare-downs, i mean just absolutely WHAT THE FUCK are those about, didn't see any of it in the $1k (not sure if it's a stakes thing?) but then in the $10k I found a few people doing this ridiculous stare-down stuff every hand, I've seen it a bit on TV didn't realise loads of people did it, I had one guy (one of Pad's horses) giving me this creepy stare-down every hand, I actually felt quite embarrassed for him, what on earth is he hoping to see, my throat starts gulping when I have a good hand? I played a LOT of live poker games over the years, I'm not about to start cracking under some kid starring me down, but if I was a less experienced player I might find it very intimidating and surely that's just terrible for the game. Seems to me the chances of these guys actually knowing a) what they are looking for, or b) being able to interpret it in any productive way whatsoever should they find it is incredibley slim and it's basically just wasting everyone's time and possibly irratating very casual players. Who want to come play poker and get starred down, if you get starred at for 2 minutes then called and lose you'll probably feel like a real mug and truth is it's just pot luck that the guy has picked right.

"live tells" are not people's eyes twitching or leg shaking, I think a few poker "pros" need to grow up a bit. Assume it's not a strategy Pads is inviting his players to use!

Anyway I didn't really care people can stare all they like at me, I thought the tournament was good fun and would play again, didn't cash but felt like I played competitively, sometimes feel really out of my depth in tournaments and couldn't have imagined playing 1 every yr or so will have helped much, guess the fact that busting was just going to = going to the beach or pool and drink cocktails helped.

There was however a final table performance from the camp, and that came from Laura (!) my fiance, who having never played poker before this week, to the point where she didn't know what the big blind was etc, watched some youtube videos, played a few micro stakes tourneys on party to practice and entered the Ladies event at Rio ($200 buyin) and amazingly came 6th (out of 22) with 4 getting paid, she got unlucky too, losing with KK vs 55 to bust was actually really proud and even turned down drinking to stay and rail!!!

Click to see full-size image.

(with the cap!)

She wasn't really too sure what to do post-flop (folded a few times when she could have checked etc) but played really disciplined/patient game preflop and just goes to show solid patient poker will always give you a chance! Well done Laura - 6th best Lady player in Rio!!!

Had tons of fun messing about, drinking, went to the Redeemer Jesus (very big) Trigg took us to the races where he had incredibly (INCREDIBLE) managed to get us some hot info on the Rio racetrack - the Rio Tote takes a healthy 40% juice but max bet is £50, so I persuaded (took a lot of persuading...) a friend of mine to cross-book us on the tickets and naturally fighting a 40% tote we did our bollocks, (took some carefully selected peruvian football to repair the damage  ) the race-track itself was delightful though one of the most pleasant tracks I've ever been too. It had a bar right on the finish line, water features, even a kids club so you can take the kids and go punting!! Shame it was basically empty, guess the 40% juice and gambley nature of Brazilians has killed off the horse punters    Outside of a bit of work and a bit of poker I just chilled out with Laura and had a great time catching up with the DTD/PP guys and the lineup of characters (middy, ludo, firaldo, flushy, etc) was pretty stellar. Had an extremely positive experience of party poker live.

South American jolly's aside (which was much needed after 6 weeks in thailand!) the year has been going very pleasantly so far, business in good shape, just about to move to a new house in Swiss Cottage (solid upgrade form Bermondsey) we are actually starting to plan some sort of wedding (heading to south of france in a couple of weeks to check out some venues) got a couple of weddings over the summer (Sweden and Barcelona) got a couple of stag do's over the summer (Vegas!) already got half an eye on ext years winter escape, enjoying the golf - summer coming so i'm thinking there'll be no shortage of people to play hoping to maybe get out for a game and a lesson every week!  Golf already turning into a massive dust, ad for some reason it makes me want to be insanely spewy, if someone told me there was a iten you could buy for £x that will add 5% to my golf ability I'd probably scare myself at how high that X could go until I dont snap it off

Move House/Golf/Master/Game of Thrones/Plan Wedding/Work

Nice quiet April ahead.

Poor Barney.

The big bookies are defo in some bother, imo. For years the strat has been not to employ proper traders and just stick someone in on a junior salary to sit there with a checklist of what they dont wanna see and ban anyone who touches the list, the guys who's job is it to primarily stop people who are making winning bets obviously will be quite nitty as they'll never get pulled in monday and asked, "why you ban this guy" but they'll defo get the "WTF how did you let this guy bet" chat, also when you add in the cost of processing money there's a lot of small losing punters the firms dont even want. It's probably been a prudent strategy over the years as top traders are expensive given they will always earn more punting themselves or working with the syndicates and that money could get pushed into the every present PR/Marketing war that rages between the big guns, hard to ever not make money running a huge bookie like this, and let the cash-cow of the retail element (FOBTS) pay all the bonuses.

Now the FOBT business is hit and the AML restrictions make it all the more difficult to actually attract the right punters, they probs need to re-asses the business model, this is me shooting from the hip but i seriously wonder if huge, now completely corporate businesses are even capable of the changes needed, might be they're actually just not good enough and maybe we'll see one of the big guns fade away at some point. Lads/Coral under the GVC umbrella could just get binned off if they can't turn the retail side round, betfred have the worst online software and no partnership, who knows, 10 years ago you'd have laughed anyone out of the room who said Billy Hills might go out of business. I'm not saying starting to take punters on properly is absolutely what they should be doing but I think they need to do something different.

I never been massively aggravated by bookies restricting people, just all part of the game, I wanna make bets, they don't wanna take my bets, like a sporting contest, they certainly aren't obligated to take my business just as a carpet fitter would be perfectly entitled to turn to me and say "Im not fitting your carpets because I don't like your face"

Who would have thought 10 years ago lolbrokes and jokals would have to merge to even remotely stay relevant and bf would have a sporttsbook and need to merge with paddy power to remotely stay relevant to Denise.  Skybet would be 'Britains biggest bookmaker.  Stan James 'the original in running firm' doesn't even exist anymore.  Hills and Bald have just stood still and ten years on from 2009 online poker is so irrelevant to any decision any gaming company makes it wouldn't have been beleived in 2009.

I wouldn't like to have had a market leading business with Denise and Co right up my arse about to swallow me up.

They haven't helped themselves though.  Unsurprising how the FOBT's were the huge cash cow but the three biggest firms in the uk now (apart from bf's small number of paddy shops) have zero exposure to fobts at all for a decade.  The arrogance and laziness fobt's caused in the firms that had them has ultimately killed them all off as serious players in the market place.  The key years for online growth and market share hoovering was the same years the fobt's were having it off.  Ultimately the FOBT firms have killed the goose that laid the golden egg by taking the easy money short term but losing out massively long term in market share in the online game where in 2020 that is all that matters.

agree Arb. Very well said, time for a 'proper bookie' to emerge perhaps, problem is starting today utterly suffocated by AML/RG/KYC means it's very difficult.

The big bookies are defo in some bother, imo. For years the strat has been not to employ proper traders and just stick someone in on a junior salary to sit there with a checklist of what they dont wanna see and ban anyone who touches the list, the guys who's job is it to primarily stop people who are making winning bets obviously will be quite nitty as they'll never get pulled in monday and asked, "why you ban this guy" but they'll defo get the "WTF how did you let this guy bet" chat, also when you add in the cost of processing money there's a lot of small losing punters the firms dont even want. It's probably been a prudent strategy over the years as top traders are expensive given they will always earn more punting themselves or working with the syndicates and that money could get pushed into the every present PR/Marketing war that rages between the big guns, hard to ever not make money running a huge bookie like this, and let the cash-cow of the retail element (FOBTS) pay all the bonuses.

Now the FOBT business is hit and the AML restrictions make it all the more difficult to actually attract the right punters, they probs need to re-asses the business model, this is me shooting from the hip but i seriously wonder if huge, now completely corporate businesses are even capable of the changes needed, might be they're actually just not good enough and maybe we'll see one of the big guns fade away at some point. Lads/Coral under the GVC umbrella could just get binned off if they can't turn the retail side round, betfred have the worst online software and no partnership, who knows, 10 years ago you'd have laughed anyone out of the room who said Billy Hills might go out of business. I'm not saying starting to take punters on properly is absolutely what they should be doing but I think they need to do something different.

I never been massively aggravated by bookies restricting people, just all part of the game, I wanna make bets, they don't wanna take my bets, like a sporting contest, they certainly aren't obligated to take my business just as a carpet fitter would be perfectly entitled to turn to me and say "Im not fitting your carpets because I don't like your face"

[lot]

it's heartwarming that no one is considering that the distance to the water could have been misjudged  

looked a lot further than 260 to me but my friend is a pretty accurate guy and we'll take him at his word

cant imagine many people been loving driving into the water as much as that in the history of golf!

played the other day, stood on the Tee I ask my mate how far that water is, he says it's about 260 yards but uphill. No problem for me to still hit a driver there, my sunday best drives landing about 220 right now so even if I absolutely blaze it cant see it reaching the water.

Pinged it right into the middle of the water didn't I 

Every so often I really get my body through these drives and can actually hit it decently far, usually body moves too slow and it ends up right. So hard this stuff.

Peter Wright clings on!!!

1   MVG            Nlands   £1,627,250
2   Rob Cross           England   £821,000
3   Peter Wright   Scotland   £554,250
4   Gary Anderson   Scotland   £554,250
5   Daryl Gurney   N.Ireland   £531,000
6   Michael Smith   England   £505,750
7   Gerwyn Price   Wales   £407,000
8   Mensur Suljovic   Austria   £395,750
9   James Wade   England   £343,000
10   Simon Whitlock   Australia   £314,500
11   Dave Chisnall   England   £298,750
12   Ian White           England   £270,500
13   Darren Webster   England   £253,000
14   Johnny Clayton   Wales   £250,000
15   Adrian Lewis   England   £247,500
16   Nathan Aspinall   England   £240,750
17   Joe Cullen           England   £240,250

Here's a list of what everyone is defending between now and the end of the worlds;

1   MvG                   Nlands   £624,750
2   Rob Cross           England   £588,500
3   Peter Wright   Scotland   £351,750
4   Daryl Gurney   N.Ireland   £276,750
5   Mensur Suljovic   Austria   £185,250
6   Simon Whitlock   Australia   £151,250
7   Michael Smith   England   £150,822
8   Darren Webster   England   £123,250
9   Dave Chisnall   England   £116,250
10   Gerwyn Price   Wales   £115,500
11   Gary Anderson   Scotland   £114,000
12   Ian White           England   £110,250
13   Joe Cullen           England   £106,250
14   Johnny Clayton   Wales   £99,000
15   Adrian Lewis   England   £83,750
16   James Wade   England   £75,000
17    Nathan Aspinall  England     £0

So MVG could take the rest of the year off and still almost certainly be over £400/£500k clear at the top of the rankings, Rob Cross sustaining his ranking points over the year will need to include a major win and a deep run at the worlds (final+) but Voltage has a much smaller amount to defend in 2020 so his objective should just be to hold into the top 10/8/6 - £150k between now and the worlds should keep him top 10, and go from there, good thing for Rob Cross is he is playing superbly right now, bad thing is he's going to be crazy busy and last year he suffered a bit to the back end of the year, he'll for sure be going to all the WSOD events etc so how he manages his schedule will be paramount to how his year goes, the dangers are he runs himself out of gas for the business end of the yer again and starts to brick major tournaments Sept-December when the big money is up for grabs.

Peter Wright's problems remain the same but he is starting to show better form, biggest unfortunate point for PW is all his money is coming off mid-way through the year, which means unless he can somehow keep himself in the top 5 by the end of the matchplay he's going to find himself with tougher draws for the big period of the year, complete opposite to RC who'd money all comes off at the end. I've said it before but he's schedule is way too big and he needs to find himself a better balance if he's going to cling onto the top 10 rankings. If he burns himself out and falls out of the top 10 he might really really struggle to find his way back. All it's going to take from Gary Anderson is £150k between now and the worlds and he's going to be a big fave to be world #2 by Xmas, he;s not under pressure now Gary but next year he's going to be defending a lot of money so he'll really want to finish the year with £200k clear of world #3, whoever that will be, so he should be looking at £250-£300k between now and the end of the year, not having to meet MVG till the WC final when its £200k for a final will be nice for him.

Gurney's big rankings hit is gonna come at the GP where he's got £100k to defend, he really needs to add some money to his rankings before then as he doesn't want to slip and end up ranked badly for the worlds where the big money is, he doesn't seem to have any drive for the floor and the only big money spot before then is the Matchplay, he might be under some pressure in Blackpool if he cant put £35k+ together from the ET's in the meantime. Gerwyn Price has £120k to make up on Gurney and £140k to make up on Wright and has £160k and £230k respectively less to defend and is playing a decent bit better than both of them, he'll be BANG up for that and with Micheal Smith looking to struggle a little, Gary's back still uncertain and Cross defending bombs at the worlds, Iceman can't be thinking finishing the year as world #2 is a too much of a pipe dream. Smith has a £100k headstart on Gerwyn with only £35k more to defend, so if he gets himself back into form he'll have the same designs.

Whitlock, Mensur and Darren Webster could be in a little bit of bother right now, Demolition man in particular is surrounded by people playing very well (Aspinall, Chizzy, Lewis, Clayton) and is defending more than all of them - his form has looked pretty horrible since a poor worlds and an very bad start to 2019 won't be helping his confidence. Whitlock another one who's form is not justifying his rankings and the guys around him are hunting, Mensur looks in miles better form and having £100k buffer over Chizzy in 11th is going to be plenty I think for Mensur.

James Wade with £75k to defend and playing as well as he's played in years should be relishing this chance, he's only £200k away from 3rd/4th and has way less to defend than anyone else above him, top 6 should be a great aim for Wadey and honestly from where he was in 2017 to be back here with a legit top 6 poke and back playing to his best is pretty staggering, he's only 35 too The Machine, already won 9 major titles - could be 15 more years of top flight darts for James Wade if he can continue to adapt and improve, might ell end up behind MVG and Phil as the 3rd most decorated player ever! Two years ago I was backing his opponent every game and cleaning up!

Adrian Lewis, Dave Chisnall, Johnny Clayton, all defending modest money and playing really well, you gotta think out of the three of them at least one is gonna poke up into the top 10. Clayton has £50k to defend right before the worlds so defo needs to be careful not to run flat of form prior and end up back in the dreaded 16th spot for the worlds. Lewis has been unlucky last 14 months really and its bound to change and he'll catch a bit of good fortune and go on a run at some stage, winning a pro tour the other week will boost confidence and just seems inevitable that a few decent major runs are coming for Aidey, he's defo one to watch out for at a decent price EW when he's out of MVG's half of the draw in upcoming majors. Chizzy has won 2 pro tours this year and overall has looked really, really good, hasn't really put it onto the stage yet this year but if he does then he's got a great shot at a surge back into the top 8.

Obviously the best shaped guy is current world #16 Nathan Aspinall, with nothing to defend for the rest of the year and only £65k away from #10 a mediocre set of results between now and the worlds will probs see him quite comfortably up to 13th, his big problem is he's still ranked 36th on the pro tour which he really needs to work on, as he might slip out of the top 16 and then miss out on the matchplay, needs to be in all the ET's and make sure he focuses and find his stage form on the floor, it's an amazing opportunity for Asp as he has until WC 2021 before any money comes off - big top 10 shout.

Poor Joe Cullen on the heels of the Top 16 but its going to be such a tough one to crack, with everyone above him defending similar/less and playing really well, he blew a few guilt edge chances of adding to his rankings last year which he's really paying the price for right now, the Euro's in particular was a huge blow for him. Even on the euro tour he blew some good chances at making finals and just picking up £4k here, £6k there etc when things are so tight at the 12-16 rankings could be the big difference.

10 pro tour events and 4 euros to go before the matchplay, not mega money but plenty of chances for things to happen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=148&v=WmIMHYmS_vk

skip to 1min10 for some typical marty-esque banter with him and Fintan Gavin, the characters just aren't like they were in poker these days as sad as it it.

Barney not done yet!

His PL race probably done but he's the kind of man who likes a miracle, HUGE night for barney next week - He plays Gurney, and Smith plays price, if he can beat DG 7-4 or better and Price beat smith he'll go 1 point clear of Bully and 1 point behind gurney with a better legs diff. Then, a win vs MVG and he's safe, lol. Or he'll be relying on Wade to beat Bully. Hopefully he beats Gurney and gives himself a chance of last night miracles, sport kinda wants it too, speshly in Rotterdam where he's been exceptional in the past, but cold hard truth is he just isn't playing as well as he was back then.

His pro tour final at the weekend has shot him back into the world top 32, and up about 60 places on the pro tour order of merit if he can put another £15k together on the pro tour it will probs get him into the matchplay - he's qualified for this first euro tour and even though has Rob Cross in rnd 2 it's still £2k ranking money and puts him 15% of the way there. So good to see some fighting spirit from Barney in his last year!

This Euro Tour is interesting, MVG 11/10 first time i've seen him be odds-against for one of these things in forever, getting v tempting, his draw is quite nasty really - King/Duzza/Price or Smith/Wade/Chizzy/Mensur route to the final. Amazing how tough these comps are there just isn't an easy draw going. Looking forward to seeing Duzza in the ET, he's averaging £5k a weekend on the Pro tour which is super steady and with £20k already shouldn't be any bother getting himself into the matchplay, if he can find himself a couple of deep ET runs then he'll be into the PT OOM top 16 pretty quickly and that's where you need to be.

James Wade @ 18/1 EW might not be the worst little poke going in this, he's got one of the smoother draws and even though he's due to an MVG meet in the semi he'll fancy it and a lot of danger for a supposedly out of form MVG to face before the semi final!

Gary made his return to the Pro Tour this previous weekend and only managed 1 (albeit resounding win) going out to Vincent VDV in the second round on the saturday and first round to conon whitehead on sunday, with low 90s averages. Doesn't look all that promising for Gary but this is a pretty decent time to be out really if you're not in the PL and if he thinks he's fit enough to play some pro tours then that's probably a good sign. Be interesting to see what his schedule looks like between now and Blackpool, 6 pro tour weekends, Vegas Master, German masters and the world cup in between now and then, you gotta think he'll play probably every one of the pro tour weekends not being in the PL, World cup with short format games and decent prize money seems like a great spot for some stage darts match practice and if he goes to Vegas that's probably a huge sign that he's feeling great about his back again. Some good news for Gary this weekend is that if Peter Wright doesn't make the semi-final at this ET then Gary will default move back to world #3 for the first time in a 16 months, all from the comfort of the massage table!