Another week of the Icons of Darts event brought to us from the team at Modus Darts begins on Monday when a fresh batch of players take to their home oches once again to keep us entertained through another day of lockdown.
We saw some excellent darts in the new format of this competition last week, and while the cast list of the first pool of players doesn’t look as strong this week, there is nothing to suggest we will get anything other than a competitive day of darts.
The Format
Each day from Monday to Saturday seven players will battle it out for a daily title. There are two pools of players, one which plays on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other which toe the oche on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each day the seven players will play each other once over the best of seven legs with two points for a win. The daily winner is the player with the most points. If players are level on points it is determined on leg difference and then the record between the two. The entire event can be watched on various bookmaker websites, dartshop.tv or the Modus YouTube channel.
Saturday Recap
After a couple of efforts of knocking on the door, it was finally the day that Andy Jenkins got over the line. His four wins gave him the group title on leg difference from Scott Mitchell and Arron Monk, both of whom also picked up four wins on the day but by smaller margins than the ones Jenkins won by. It was a much improved day for Mark Webster who ended another stint in the competition with three wins, as did Jason Askew, while Wessel Nijman closed the week with a pair of wins and Mike Warburton went from first to last, coming out on top in just the one match.
We ended the week quietly in terms of betting with just the one bet but it was a good one as Arron Monk eased past Scott Mitchell for the third time in as many matches. His 4-1 margin of victory was more than enough to cover the handicap we needed him too which meant that we ended a decent week with another winner. We’ll be hoping to build on that over the week to come.
Monday Line Up
The first pool of players for the week looks a lot different to last week but the winner on Friday, Martin Adams, is still in it and he’ll be looking to come out on top for the second time in a row. Jarred Cole won the group last Monday and he’ll be out to replicate that success in what does look like a much weaker field than the one he conquered seven days ago. The other player who could be of note is Justin Smith, a man who has delivered better performances than he has results in his outings to date.
We have seen each of the other four players on show in the various guises of this event in the past. Boris Koltsov has a group win to his name and he’ll be looking to double his tally of those here while Diogo Portela returns from having last week off. The other two men to be doing battle throughout the course of the day are James Hubbard and Keelan Kay, both of whom have looked out of their depth in previous attempts but who might be better suited to this group.
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Outright Betting
When I saw the line up for this group I had it between Jarred Cole and Martin Adams, with Boris Koltsov the one to be on if he was a value price. I don’t really think he is at 9/2 to be fair, but I remember him beating Phil Taylor over this distance a couple of weeks ago so I’m certainly not going to write him off. Jarred Cole is only playing on Monday so you would think he would give it his all but he has an issue when it comes to beating Keelan Kay which puts me off.
Based on what we have seen from Keelan Kay, James Hubbard and Diogo Portela in the past it is hard to see them going well enough to win groups, but they can certainly be spoilers. We should respect Justin Smith but I’m not sure I like him as a favourite. It is Adams for me at 4/1 on the enhanced William Hill price. He won on Friday and deserved to do so with five wins from six, the only defeat being to David Evans who is well clear of anything he comes up against here. Adams played on Sunday and averaged over 90 in all three of his matches so he’s clearly in a groove right now. He’ll be tough to beat.
Match Betting
I’ll go with a couple of handicaps to get us up and running on Monday as I think there are three players who look worse than the other four and should be taken on. The first of those is Boris Koltsov to cover a 1.5 leg handicap against Keelan Kay. We saw Kay last week and he was actually a lot better than he was originally with a couple of 95+ averages but he lacks the scoring power we have seen from Koltsov in the times when he has featured in these tournaments. I think the Russian will be nicely suited by this format and if Kay has slipped up in his earlier two matches he’ll be under pressure here. I fancy Koltsov can get the job done with a bit in hand in this one.
Later in the day I’ll take Jarred Cole to cover the same handicap against James Hubbard. This is the only day that Cole plays this week so I don’t expect him to be taking it easy at any point and there is a good chance we could see James Hubbard struggle again. He struggled the first time round and there is even more pressure on players to cut out the mistakes over this shorter format. Cole is used to that, and he has actually embraced this format. We know his scoring power is right there so if he nails the doubles without too many issues he should run out a comfortable winner of this one.
Tips
Back M.Adams to win Group 1 for a 2/10 stake at 5.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back B.Koltsov (-1.5 legs) to beat K.Kay for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
Back J.Cole (-1.5 legs) to beat J.Hubbard for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back him here:
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