Duzza....

How you reckon he'll do yr 1 pdc?

ha well tough to beat 5 years of utter headloss capped off with a restaurant purchase

Sure, il post a few big / funny hands when im not on my phone...

Just looked on the last page and its bragz about last thailand trip, ppl will think its all i do!!!

When there's no darts to bet on though what can we do

Sup everyone,

I am currently in thailand where i been since Dec 27th with Franky, his GF and Laura, we have a nice Villa in Phuket and i basically been doing nothing since i got here which is amazing. Actually not nothing at all... I been getting into golf, which is basically like a full time job, so far I learned that golf is ridiculously difficult, just grinding my way through terrible hole after terrible hole and dusting golf balls like no-ones business to get to a good shot/good hole and dining out on that

I'm also working on my beard.

2018 was a really manic year, i worked pretty much non stop, to the point I actually made myself quite ill and pissed Laura off quite often but had some really fun/big moments, was a successful year in the end. I played some HUGE poker games and broke all records for biggest pot won/lost, most money won/lost, biggest bluff etc was a lot of fun/got my juices flowing again after basically not playing for 16 months i jumped back into the biggest stakes. Had some fun sports betting projects, bet on a lot of darts matches, messed around with bitcoin, I had a once-in-a-lifetime bet win which didnt get paid out for decent 6 figures which was the years real low-point. Was a bit of a busy fool though spent a lot of time on nonsesne and didnt spend much time with Laura so going to try be better this year, the january off-work in the thai villa is a good start

Life's good, lot more boring than it used to be, might try repost some old blogs from the glory days

I love Micheal Smith, his new found aggressive attitude is great gonna do very well, but seriously saying MVG isn't the best player in the world is kind of a joke and it makes him just look a bit pathetic, i don't know what metric Smith wants to measure "the best player in the world" against but;

2018 "average" average

Gary : 99.16
MVG : 102.08 (#1 overall 5+ matches)

2018 Checkout %

Gary : 41.85%
MVG : 44.33% (#1 overal 100+ attempts)

Highest World Ranking 2018

Gary : 4
MVG : 1

Prize Money (Ranking Only / Total)

Gary : £437,750 / £695,000
MVG : £963,750 / £1,411,250

Tournament Wins 2018

Gary : 8
MVG : 19 (to give context, #3 = 3, #4 = 3, #5 = 2, so MVG has won 2.4x second, 6.5x third and 9.5x 5th place tourney wins!)

He wins more tournaments than anyone else (by a mile) wins more money than anyone else, has been basically untouchable at world #1 for 4 years and is £750k ahead as of today, averages higher, checks out doubles better I mean come on Smith show some class lad, he's decently the best player in the world and its basically only Gary Anderson who's been able to compete with him A-Game for A-Game for a while now. Not only this but he's been doing it for 4 years and has over 75 ranking tournament wins in that period so you can't even say he's fluked it!

dont really like Devon here vs Asp  - he's just broke first game here but mostly he's been gifted a LOT so far this tournament and I think in Aspinall he's gonna face a much stiffer challenge than he's had so far and not actually seen anything that can suggest he can stand it. Think Asp wins and it's priced in pretty decent

I am still flabbergasted that taking your darts out of the board slowly could upset a professional player, certainly don't think it bothered Wade at all today, I think he was SLIGHTLY rattled by the crowd (fair enough, 7000 people screaming and jeering at you is tough no matter how experienced you are) and then just had a bit of an off-day on the doubling first few sets.

Klaasen complained about it, im sure it's poor ettiquette but come on mate jesus you're a pro player if someone taking their darts slowly out of the board puts you off you need to take a long hard look at yourself! I suspect Keegan just thought, well it worked great against Jelle im not doing anything wrong il keep doing it.

Truthfully quite a few of these guys are simpletons and doesn't take much to rattle them, I thought Keegan today put in a decent effort and just wasn't quite good enough vs a grizzled old warrior in Wadey.

Big shift in darts happening - the new guys aren't afraid and if you play world #50 and dont show up you are likely getting ironed out.

Cullen has blown some big chances this year, the Euros he'll still be kicking himself over, wont be dream draw every time need to book something. You get 50 bags for making a 1/4 final here and really he needs to put that on the board.

Ian White another one who never capitalises on this type of spot, his draw is a fair bit tougher but he should think it winnable. Steve West/Gerwyn Price/one of the aforementioned 1/4 finalists then a likely semi vs Mensur/Smith/Cross.  This is to make a world final after all, I think the biggest concern is long formats and set play, just doen't seem to work for him/

Don't fancy Gerwyn Price, just don't think set play suits his game.

Don't agree with the Schindler/Harris tip much, i think they made a few blind assumptions on the stats without really looking at the players specifically

I should have said.

THEY ALL USELESS C***S

Regards

LD

(p.s who do anyone think will win? Im kinda lost)

Every year people say the standard is terrible and they only get idiots on because it's good for TV etc, and whereas I cannot disagree with either of those sentiments (people are largely idiots, and with guys like Kurran it would be worse!) I think though people are forgetting a crucial part of the makeup of the show. £250k is not actually a massive investment in the grand scheme of business, I think (and i might be completely wrong!!) that if you're a strong candidate with a strong idea and relevant credibility and experience - the apprentice isn't really for you IMO, you'd probably wanna structure your own deal, retain a bigger share of the equity and you'd likely not have too much trouble raising the money, certainly wouldn't need to complete 10 tasks, face 4 gruelling interveiws and make a pitch to a room full of people whilst living in a house away from home for 6 weeks - only to get a yes/no from 1 potential investor.

This show is for really undeveloped candidates, who most likely dont have capital to contribute themselves, who don't have the credibility to go down institutional money raising routes or the contacts to raise privately, also they win Lord Sugar's mentorship which given this is for people who are very early in business careers is a huge plus, and why they give away such a big % of the end business. The fact that it's a genuine life changing opportunity for most of them and not just another pitch for some investment money (like it was for Jackie, who would likely get funded by a host of different platforms) is what makes it such good TV (for me) and whereas they do come across as highly incompetent a lot of the time, and Sugar not instantly firing them all seems unfathomable, it's because the premise of the show is they are basically challenging amateurs with the prize of a life changing prize.

It's billed as "scouring the nation for hottest business talent" it's not really what's doing, they looking for enthusiastic, inexperienced guys with a good idea that Sugar can turn into business wizard to show the country enterprise still works! If it was 10 slick polished business people with shit hot idea's all 10 of which Sugar could profitably invest in (which they could find im sure) would make a boring TV show.

Roll on tonight!

great post dave.  Agree with everything apart from IW!!!

Yeh, i have a blind spot for IW, every major he gets a half decent draw I say proudly on here "This looks like the time for the diamond!" and every time he gets ironed in the second round by some journeyman averaging 95, he's gonna average 106 in his first game and not lose a leg, then he;l average 88 vs Steve West and get beat.

I watched all the non TV stuff and he just plays SO good lol, why on earth after all this time he can't bring it to the TV i just don't know, the fact he;s never been past the 1/4 of a PDC major is the biggest anomaly going.

Im sure i'll learn one day, not today though need more time

I got a theory behind it tbh.  I think he knows if he went deep in a tv major his step daughter would get so much coverage she would be offered a babestation contract!

Haha, nailed it - she already on BS!

Is she?  i was taking the piss saying that!  I genuinely didn't know. 

haha no i was ment to say "looks like she's" - Iw making a few quid these days keeping her honest

great post dave.  Agree with everything apart from IW!!!

Yeh, i have a blind spot for IW, every major he gets a half decent draw I say proudly on here "This looks like the time for the diamond!" and every time he gets ironed in the second round by some journeyman averaging 95, he's gonna average 106 in his first game and not lose a leg, then he;l average 88 vs Steve West and get beat.

I watched all the non TV stuff and he just plays SO good lol, why on earth after all this time he can't bring it to the TV i just don't know, the fact he;s never been past the 1/4 of a PDC major is the biggest anomaly going.

Im sure i'll learn one day, not today though need more time

I got a theory behind it tbh.  I think he knows if he went deep in a tv major his step daughter would get so much coverage she would be offered a babestation contract!

Haha, nailed it - she already on BS!

great post dave.  Agree with everything apart from IW!!!

Yeh, i have a blind spot for IW, every major he gets a half decent draw I say proudly on here "This looks like the time for the diamond!" and every time he gets ironed in the second round by some journeyman averaging 95, he's gonna average 106 in his first game and not lose a leg, then he;l average 88 vs Steve West and get beat.

I watched all the non TV stuff and he just plays SO good lol, why on earth after all this time he can't bring it to the TV i just don't know, the fact he;s never been past the 1/4 of a PDC major is the biggest anomaly going.

Im sure i'll learn one day, not today though need more time

when i was running my restaurant, where people are generally quite poorly paid as an industry standard (but tips innit - which every one quickly forgets!) you get a lot of payrise requests.

i decided one day to leave everyones payslips open "accidentally" so everyone could see how much everyone got paid, pretty much everyone in the bottom half of pay came in asking why they got paid X and this guy got paid X+some.

one guy, 18yrs old came in and said "Ive seen Ben gets *some amount* more than me - what can i do to get paid the samr as him.

i thought that was a terrific attitude and i gave him a rise.

Omm attitude looks good, I dont know much about corporate life but it seems to me the price you pay for the structure and resources of a big corporate business is less flexibility for this type of thing.  I never had budgets, resources, departments for any project ever but always had flexibility over money. Gotta puck your side i guess.

hmm i think the atmosphere for a tournament is a lot better with people around, getting rid of railers just because of a veiw he has about poker seems a little miserable. There's a reasonable chance there wasn't a great deal of room and was concerned about some collusive or cheating behaviour and juat didn't wanna say that so used his spectator line.

without seeing the cards its pretty boring unless you're actively interested in one/a few of the players specifically.