Grand Prix DartsGreat tournament this, I really like the format, shorter format at the start combined with the double-in start adds a random factor which is thoroughly entertaining, no-one is safe from a headloss in this event!
The first an most disappointing thing to say about the outrights is the 12 1/3 and no 12 1/2 knocking about, that' going to kill a lot of potentiall great EW bets
As stated the top half is pretty tough with MVG and Gary on course to meet in the semi. MVG is actually (for once) kind of discussion worthy for the betting - he's as long as 6/5 in some places and that's as long as I ever remember him setting off for a major tournament in recent times. There is a few reasons why he should be a bit longer this time round, the first reason why he's setting off longer this weekend is because he is in what would be considered a "rough patch" of form at the moment. Now it's important to keep this in context, his 10 week off patch he's won 19/27 games, 2/9 tournaments, won over £100k in prize money and averaged 101.5 (higher than anyone else) so he's far from throwing spanners, what we have seen from him though is he's been getting beat in spots you wouldn't expect him to get in beat in a lot more often than usual, I think there's a couple of contributary factors, 1) perhaps first yr with a young family his practice routine and focus levels are a little below what they were in 2016 when he swept the board for TV titles pretty much. 2) despite his total dominance of the rankings his recent form on TV tournaments has not been anywhere near what it has been over the past 5 years, only winning 3/11 (excl world cup) TV tournaments this yr and going out 1st round in both open majors, only winning 1 WSOD event, failing again at the CL, I think he is really putting the pressure on himself and I think it is getting to him a little more than you'd have thought it would. 3) Just a natural dip in form, he's clearly the best player in the world but everyone has a little off patch form time to time, as we said he's not throwing trash he's just been giving peopel 3 chances a game where before you were lucky to get 1, and 4) he's run into some very good performances. Personally I don't follow the logic that the current off-patch affects his chances of winning this tournament - he's the best, a big purple patch is never far round the corner and it's this part of the year he typically puts the jets on.
The main reason he is longer here is because this is the one tournament he should be a little longer for, the spots he is truly streets ahead of anyone else in the world in are long format, matchplay games with multiple games in a day, no one else has the turbo stamina and can dominate like that, not even Gary (who hasn't struggled this year but doesn't handle multiple game days anywhere near as well as MVG) this format, shorter format (especially in the opening rounds) and set play with the double in random factor should theoretically be the tournament he'd be most venerable in. Having said that, he has won this tournament 3 form the last 6, and this was his first major 6 years ad 28 major titles later! The other reason why you'd think he would naturally drift for this event is the form of Gary Anderson...
Quick word on Gary's chances for this event, how could you not fancy him? He's in great form, he's won 3 major titles already, he's been on a run of sweeping up titles he's never won before this year with 3 new additions to his impressive trophy cabinet, this and the grand slam are the two glaring omissions from a glistening career. He has a pretty interesting draw full of people with points to prove, Johny Clayton in round 1 is a very dangerous spot for Gary, in this format if you start fucking about missing coming in on a leg or switch off at the wrong times you're toast, Gary doesn't always start as well as he'd hope and you got guys like Clayton who have 4-6 legs of 104 average in the locker you could very easily find yourself in big trouble. Most likely de Zwaan in the second round who has performed amazingly well on stage this year and gave Gary a decent game at the matchplay, had he not run into A+ Gary performance he might have made a proper game of that, he'll be hungry to build on his matchplay success and having already competed against Gary on the big stage I would expect him to be licking his chops to have another go at him in a format which should give him a much better chance. His quarter final will be between Hendo/Gurney/Cullen/Meulenkamp, no-one will have a bigger point to prove this week than gurney, who's really delivered very little since his breakthrough win here last yr, Hendo is a classic example of someone who the format will suit perfectly and Cullen and Ron have played consistently great on stage this year and both will be desperate to show something of that on TV. All this capped of by MVG, that's a really tough draw for Gary. For these reasons, neither Gary at 7/1 or MVG at 6/5 looks remotely appealing, but nonetheless the top half is incredibly interesting and lots going on - Cullen vs Meulkamp could be one of the games of the opening round!
No one else (bar one surprise pick, later!) even comes close to a bet in the top half for me, I'll be keen to see how Steve Lennon handles the home crowds, he's a vastly improved player over the last 12 months and from looking like a scared kitten on stage he seems to have built up some real confidence, the weight of expectation and the lack of form makes Gurney completely unbackable at 33/1 for me, and final route likely to include MVG and Gary rules out any each way thoughts. One game I'll be watching with great interest is Ricky Evans vs Barney, two guys in total opposite spots, Ricky finally having a year where he's putting some consistent form together and a recent Euro Tour final has got him into this event, Barney is really not showing anything right now, his rankings position is under real threat and he has only 3 tournaments to make up a lot of prize money. Ricky Evans will fancy this, and he'll really fancy Chizzy/Hopp next, which gives him a 1/4 final spin in a sky major vs MVG, could well be the surprise package of the tournament - all about rhythm for him, this rapid players are amazing on song but it can fall totally to pieces when the wheels come off.
So onto the bottom half - as suggested above the stand out player in this half for me, of this season really, is Mensur. I remember him being the most tilting guy to watch play darts, but since he become a champion he's fast become one of the most entertaining players to watch. Over a longer format he has just become a total animal and reasonably speaking I don't think anyone is a favourite over him bar MVG and Gary in a BO19+ matchplay game right now on current form(the 6/4 and 11/8 available over the weekend on him vs Wright and Cross was lovely!) The other big selling point for Mensur is his double 14 success rate is so high, and obviously that's his chosen starting double, he's hitting it on average 2/3 times and thats a phenomenal advantage in this format. If we're looking at negatives for Mensur in this tournament I think the stand out worry is the draw and the short format opening games, as much of a beast as he is in the long formats I think he's a bit venerable in the short formats and this is why he doesn't win anywhere near the tournaments he should, added to this his opening 3 matches are probably going to be Wade/White/Cross and that would worry me greatly. 22/1, hmmmm im really on the fence - I know I'd be leaving it for sure at 18s and firing in there at 25s.
Mensur's 1/4 is the toughest 1/4 there for sure, and has a really interesting opening game between White and Payne. Josh Payne is an interesting one, he's beaten all the big boys and even won 2 floor titles, seems to have the stones for stage darts and tons of talent, biggest issue is consistency and he's up against the flagship of consistency in Ian White. His recent euro tour win saw him play extremely well and finally winning stage competition will have lifted a big weight of his shoulder, as someone who does well in the shorter formats and is so reliable on the doubles you'd have to think this would be his best major shot. His draw however is really quite nasty, a route to victory that could look like payne/mensur/cross/wright/mvg who knows, 45/1 a working mans price for a man in rich form but I think it's a leave again. As far as Cross goes, his year has been a mix of utter brilliance mixed with utter mediocre, he's very beatable atm and everyone knows it, Beaton, Price, Mensur, White, Wade all potentially in his way, he's way way too short for this. We also can't ignore James Wade in this section, having a relatively solid year but failed to really make any impact to the extent that he needed too, whats really impressed me about Wade this year has been the attitude, he's really gotten stuck into defending his top 16 place and he's a different player to last year, if I cant get snap on board with mensur at 22s really there's no reason to look at Wadey at 50s im afraid
. I guess we should aso give Gerwyn Price a mention, recently won his first euro tour even though it was one of the poorest euro tours in memory, tough to completely write off a man who won his last stage tournament at 75/1 but worries over fitness, worries over mental state, not the worst bet you'll see but I think we can find better.
Now the most interesting guy to talk about as far as betting goes, Peter Wright. He cretes a bit of a minefield does old snakebite, the pundits praise his mental strength but I personally have big doubts of his state of mind, the uncertainty over his darts is also a tough one to call, in the champions league he played with (yet another) new set, up until the MVG game my thoughts were that he was shooting the lights out on the scoring with these but looked ropey on the doubles, then he put on a clinic of finishing vs MVG that was sublime (no other words) and then sort of petered out in the final against Gary. He also has a very, very tricky opener against Steve West who is in very good form himself of late, Steve West is a player with easy top 16 pedigree, but his doubling and bottle come into serious question, however in this format with the worries over PW doubling this is a serious banana skin potential for him. The next round vs Wattimena or King two guys really struggling a bit at the moment, but his quarter will be Lewis, Smith, Whitlock or Wilson, then Mensur, Cross, Wade etc in the semi before a Gary/MVG final. 8/1 not for me here, and i will almost certainly be betting west in that opener.
So Having ruled out pretty much everyone, we only have a few people left to consider, and given we've put crosses through most of the top 16 there's only a few guys left to talk about, most interesting first round fixture is probably Smith vs Lewis, Smith will be pretty annoyed he lost to Chizzy in the matchplay as it cost him his CL place AND cut him off being a seeded spot in this. What's really interesting is that Smith is predominantly 25/1 - 28/1 (a bit of 40/1 but I'll ignore it for now as Unitbet and 88 only) and Lewis is mostly 40/1 yet they are priced up for their match very closely. Lewis loves the stage and his form since getting back fit this year has largely been very promising, his performances on the floor have been consistently good and despite not playing all that great in euro tours has pulled off quite a few wins in tight games, Them both at 40/1 you take Smith of course, 28/1 Smith and 40/1 Lewis I think Lewis probably pips it, the final route isn't great but you could see him doing it, the shorter formats will suit him more than in the past as won't affect hit fitness, since having back surgery and changing his throw a little there is still some big worries over his doubling and he has had some famous blow-ups in this in the past. Really don't know what we're going to see from Micheal Smith, it's been a great year for him but he hasn't QUITE followed it in with anything huge, he's s strong on tops and tens as well as power scoring to match anyone, we didn't see the may-august we thought we would after his January-April, and not played since returning from Australia, big 6 months coming up for both of them.
Whitlock made the final last year and this format DEFO suits him, he's one guy who's game fits nicely with set-play, he just doesn't seem able to consistently compete with the big names and that makes it unappealing, I think Wilson/Smith or Lewis/Wright/Cross or Mensur/Gary or MVG is potentially one of the toughest paths to the trophy there is, there's a lot of reasons to fancy Whitlock in this comp but 66/1 too short given the draw, spreadex are ambitiously going 150/1 which if you could actually bet it would be lovely
So after pages of pure waffle, I've got two bets I defo like and one of them controversially comes from the top half, Ron Meulemkamp @ 250/1 - I know his path includes Gary and MVG but he's been playing so well and his scoring has been so powerful, he comes across as a guy who really enjoys stage darts and I think the crowd will really get behind him against both Gary and MVG, he's very reliable on his doubles too combined with some power scoring that can compete with almost anyone, he's a player who really rides on momentum so if he starts well against Joe Cullen who, despite playing really all year still has huge doubts over his ability to take it to the TV stage could cause some real problems. The second person I'm looking at is Steve West, another controversial pick because the questions over his bottle are real, but I really believe a big run in a major is coming and his form of late is good, he'll look at his run to the final and really, really fancy it, 150/1 to me EW looks decent.
That just leaves the question of Mensur @ 22/1 Smith 28/1 and Lewis 40/1 and I genuinely can't decide, I think none of them look like good each way shouts at 12 1/3 and taking into account Lewis' inconsistency and prone to headloss, smith's time off and Mensur's reliability on the double 14, I'm really close to backing Mensur but I think all three are a leave for me.
So to summarise, after blocks and blocks of text two hugely punty long shots is all we've settled on
West 150/1 EW
Meulenkamp 250/1
I think you could do a lot worse things with your money than give Mensur (or smith) a spin but I dont think the money is quite there for them, if you're looking for an outright punt from the big names it's Mensur for me.