The PDC world champion has been crowned and it is now time to find the BDO equivalent as a revamped tournament begins at a new venue on Saturday afternoon. Gone is the Lakeside Country Club and the even embarks on the Indigo at the o2 for the first time. It will be interesting to see how that affects the action.
Glen Durrant won the final tournament at the Lakeside last year but having established himself in the PDC since then, he is not returning to defend the title, so this famous trophy will be in the hands of someone else when the tournament is won.
Recent Winners
2019 – Glen Durrant
2018 – Glen Durrant
2017 – Glen Durrant
2016 – Scott Waites
2015 – Scott Mitchell
2014 – Stephen Bunting
2013 – Scott Waites
2012 – Christian Kist
2011 – Martin Adams
2010 – Martin Adams
The Format
As with the PDC version of the World Championship, the tournament is played over set play. 40 men will start out in the tournament with 16 players playing off in a preliminary round to join the other 24 players in the first round. Both sets of games are over the best of five sets with the last 16 becoming the best of seven. The quarter finals go up again to the best of nine sets with the semi-finals the best of 11 ahead of the champion being crowned on the second Sunday of the tournament over the best of 13 sets. Each final set must be won by two clear legs unless it gets to 5-5 in which case leg 11 will be the final one.
Top Half
Wesley Harms heads up the seedings in the tournament and he occupies the top spot in the first half of the draw. Considering he is ranked the best he has a bitch of a draw it must be said. In his quarter alone are former champions Scott Waites, Martin Adams and Scott Mitchell, not to mention the extremely talented Leighton Bennett who everyone is talking about. Michael Unterbuchner is no mug either.
The other quarter in the top half is not quite as loaded but darts fans will be all too aware of the pedigree that Andy Hamilton has, while Wayne Warren has the sort of style that should take him a long way in this tournament as well. We saw Dave Parletti at the Grand Slam and he’ll be aiming to show more here than he did there while the veteran of the event Gary Robson will be looking for a deep run on the Indigo at the o2 stage.
Bottom Half
The tournament favourites both lie in the bottom half so we should see some competitive action in this section as the outright favourite Jim Williams is joined by Richard Veenstra, a man who has threatened to land this thing in the past only to continually run into decent performances. Veterans Ross Montgomery and Paul Hogan will look to have big runs here but the fact that they need to come through a preliminary match to make it into the main draw highlights how poor their form has been or how out of the system they’ve been.
Nick Kenny has had a decent reputation since he made the semi-finals of the BDO World Trophy a few years ago and he has the draw to go well here. World Masters semi-finalist Mario Vandenbogaerde is another who could make hay from a favourable spot in the draw while Adam Smith-Neale might feel like he had a point to prove. He is also in this bottom half which outside the main two looks wide open.
Betting
I’ll take two outright bets for this tournament, one in each half. In the bottom half I’ll go with the World Masters semi-finalist Mario Vandenbogaerde. I often think there is something in that tournament when betting on this one with it being set play. It wasn’t so much his run to the semi-final that caught my eye that weekend but more his averages. He played four matches on the stage that weekend and his averages were 90.65, 95.93, 90.82 and 90.04. That is consistent enough to suggest he can carry that form here but if we needed more big stage evidence his two matches in the World Trophy yielded averages of 94.57 and 99.83. Those numbers take you a long way at this level. He’s in the tougher of the two halves according to the market but that doesn’t matter if he is playing like that. Those numbers make him a massive runner at 20/1.
Wayne Warren is another who is capable of big averages and he is in the second quarter which looks like the weakest of the lot by far. He is a former quarter finalist in this tournament when he went down in a deciding set and was thought of enough by the BDO to represent them in the Grand Slam towards the end of last year. The second half of 2019 was good for the Welshman with him winning a tournament and reaching the final of three others and that is decent enough form. He will be disappointed with his Grand Slam displays so he might well have a point to prove here. He looks the standout player in the second quarter and 28/1 is enough of a price to merit outright interest.
Tips
Back M.Vandenbogaerde to win BDO World Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with 888sport (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
WON – Back W.Warren to win BDO World Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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