Another week of action in the Icons of Darts brought to us by the team at Modus Darts begins on Monday and it does so with seven players once again taking to their home oches to keep us entertained during what is left of lockdown.
We saw some really competitive darts last week and some excellent groups throughout the six days and hopefully we get much more of the same to get us through another bank holiday with a restricted sporting schedule.
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
It was not the best week for favourite backers but they were rewarded on Saturday when Jason Askew landed the final group of the week. His five wins were enough to give him the group on leg difference from Martin Adams with Scott Mitchell a win back on four successes. There was three wins for Mark Webster who continues to offer signs of an improvement, while Andy Jenkins came away with a couple of wins. There were single successes for Keelan Kay and Darryl Fitton to round off their week.
It was a positive end to the week for us betting wise as well with our sole match bet landing as Martin Adams saw off Mark Webster 4-2 to cover the 1.5 leg handicap we took him to do. Unfortunately Andy Jenkins couldn’t maintain his form and so that group bet never came in but it was a profitable day to finish what was an up and down week for us from a betting standpoint.
Monday Line Up
The biggest name on show is the world champion Martin Adams. He saw off Phil Taylor and others to win the Champions event on Sunday and will be looking to deliver the goods here too. The bookmakers believe his closest challenger will be Justin Smith, the young Welshman who returns after a week off. Boris Koltsov ended last week throwing 100+ averages for fun and if he is in that form he will be a danger too.
Mike Warburton only has one game day this week and it comes on Monday so he will be giving it his all to be competitive while Keelan Kay gets another outing to try and show he can be more competitive than he has been so far. The Monday pool of players are concluded with a couple of veterans in the form of Paul Nicholson and Darryl Fitton.
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Outright Betting
I think Boris Koltsov is the likely winner of this group but there is enough competition in it that I’m not massively keen on jumping on quotes shorter than 2/1. Koltsov was in ridiculous scoring nick on Friday but he still only won four of his six matches and that is enough to make me wary about backing him. In truth though there are only a couple of players who you can take him on with which is a bit of a concern.
You can make a case for Justin Smith and Martin Adams in particular but they are probably priced fair rather than anything which jumps out as value. I guess given that he won a group last week we shouldn’t ignore Mike Warburton and at a double figure price if you like him you’ll be suitably rewarded if he comes in but he isn’t really for me. Nicholson, Kay and Fitton aren’t either so I’ll leave the group betting alone.
Match Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the day. They are a little late in the day which is a bit of a concern and not something I like but for me the odds are just all wrong. The first of them comes in the match between Mike Warburton and Justin Smith. This is the final match of the day for Smith which is a worry but hopefully he will be competitive by then because some bookmakers can’t split these two players but I have Smith as a warm favourite here, all things being equal. Warburton just doesn’t convince me on the doubles and I’m not convinced he has the scoring power to dominate Smith either. Generally Smith’s checkout percentages when he has played the Modus events have been good and he’s a pretty solid scorer. He should be a much bigger favourite than he is.
Another man who should be a lot shorter for a match than he is, is Martin Adams in his clash with Paul Nicholson. This is the final match of the day but at least with this one we know both men are competitive enough and at the stage in their careers where all wins are useful to them so we don’t need to worry about towels being thrown in with lack of motivation and things like that. I keep repeating myself about it all being a grind for Nicholson and although it has been a week since he’s taken to the oche I just don’t see much changing. Adams has put in some excellent performances over the last couple of weeks and is beginning to find a real consistency in his scoring and an improvement in his doubling. I like the three time world champion here.
Tips
VOID – Back J.Smith to beat M.Warburton for a 3/10 stake at 1.88 with 888sport
WON – Back M.Adams to beat P.Nicholson for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with 888sport
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