Another week of Icons of Darts concludes on Saturday as the second pool of players grace us with their presence for the third and final time, which means that we get to see the likes of David Evans, Arron Monk and Scott Mitchell on show once again.
This has probably been the most competitive week of darts of the lot since lockdown began and based on the first two days this pool of players have been involved in, we are unlikely to get anything different to end the week with.
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.
Confirmation of today’s final league table ✅? @reddragondarts @low6bet #IconsofDarts
Congratulations to @BorisKoltsov180 ?? pic.twitter.com/oxwnSsLQfp
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) May 29, 2020
Friday Recap
We probably saw the most competitive day of the lot on Friday, one where nobody recorded five wins which is extremely rare. The group title came down to the last match as well as Martin Adams has the chance to overhaul Boris Koltsov on leg difference but he was unable to make the most of his opportunity. That meant the Russian picked up the group victory ahead of no fewer than five players who were locked on six points. Somewhat surprisingly it was Keelan Kay who finished second while Paul Nicholson was third. Adams then came fourth ahead of Fallon Sherrock and Justin Smith. Mike Warburton picked up two wins on the day but wasn’t enough to keep him off bottom spot.
We took a chance on Warburton winning the group on Friday but that never really got up and running even though he won his first match. He could only find one more victory which was never going to be enough. More annoyingly we lost our match bet too as even though he had nothing to play for, and his best average on the day to that point was 90.45, Paul Nicholson put in a performance with an average of 106.30 from nowhere to beat Adams when we wanted the veteran to win that match.
Saturday Line Up
We are back to the second pool of players on Saturday where all eyes will be on David Evans to see if he has got his best form back after a disappointing couple of outings. The same can also be said about Arron Monk, who has fared very poorly so far this week, a record which probably won’t sit well with him. Tuesday’s winner Ritchie Edhouse will be looking to get back into the winning enclosure after a disappointing day on Thursday.
Mark Webster shocked the group to come away with the title on Thursday and so he is the ‘defending champion’ here. Fellow world champion Scott Mitchell was narrowly edged out by the Welshman on Thursday and he’ll be out to go slightly better here. The other two players in the group have both shown they can be competitive. They are Andy Jenkins and Jarred Cole.
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Outright Betting
Scott Mitchell has won nine matches this week without walking away with a group title but he is going well enough to be overpriced at 6/1 here. I’m not saying he is a certainty or anything like that, but there is enough in the weaker form of the favourites to suggest that the 2015 world champion is better than a 6/1 shot. Nobody has won more matches than him this week in this pool so that has to count for something I believe.
It wouldn’t be the biggest surprise if the world if David Evans shows what he is made of or if Arron Monk comes good but you would be taking a leap of faith at a short price based on what we’ve seen from the pair this week. I don’t see Mark Webster being that competitive again so really and truly Mitchell has every chance. What I like about Mitchell is he rarely gets thrashed so that means his leg difference is usually in good order. That could end up being the difference between winning or not at an acceptable price.
Match Betting
I’ll go with one bet in the match betting on Saturday. It comes relatively early in the day between Andy Jenkins and Arron Monk in what you could call the Hampshire derby with both men being from that part of the world. This will be their third meeting this week and Jenkins is looking to complete the clean sweep having beaten his rival 4-2 and 4-3 already over the first couple of encounters they have battled it out in.
The positive for Jenkins from those two wins is that Monk has played well in both those matches. Although Monk hasn’t shown us his best overall this week, he hasn’t let up against Jenkins, so if the elder statesman does get Monk in good nick he knows he has him covered. Jenkins has the early shift on Saturday so he’ll be nicely into his work whereas it is the first game for Monk so he might need to build into his best darts. Monk has lost both of his opening games this week, the first of which coming against Jenkins, so the 6/5 on Jenkins to win this is a little too big.
Tips
Back S.Mitchell to win Group 6 for a 1/10 stake at 7.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back A.Jenkins to beat A.Monk for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with 888sport
Back him here:
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