The first week of the second phase of the Icons of Darts competition comes to a close on Saturday with the later pool of players battling it out in their own homes to keep us entertained during another weekend day of lockdown.
Both days of this pool so far have seen three players separated by leg difference only so if that continues into Saturday, we are going to get an extremely competitive day of darts with which to finish off the week.
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 #IconsofDarts
Congratulations to @wolfiedarts ?? pic.twitter.com/bE99kl2iIP
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) May 8, 2020
Friday Recap
We had a sort of shock in the action on Friday. Once again leg difference was the separator to determine the winner and it was Martin Adams who came out on top by a solitary leg from David Evans, after both men had won five of their six matches over the course of the day. Paul Nicholson and Ritchie Edhouse found three wins each to finish third and fourth respectively while there were a couple of wins for Jarred Cole and Jose Justicia. Fallon Sherrock finished off her week with a single win.
We ended this pool of action with a perfect day betting wise as both our two bets landed relatively safely. We started off with the daily winner Martin Adams coming through against Ritchie Edhouse with more than a bit in hand and then around 30 minutes later the second winner was confirmed as Jarred Cole saw off a dogged effort by Paul Nicholson to round off what has been a decent three days overall in this pool.
Saturday Line Up
That all means we are back with the men who have treated us to some entertainment on Tuesday and Thursday which means all eyes will be on Mike Warburton to see if his win on Thursday was a fluke, or whether he can back it up here. Tuesday champion Arron Monk will be out to get the better of him, as will Wessel Nijman, the man who was closest to him in what was a really tight league group on Thursday.
Jason Askew was disappointing on Thursday and I’m sure he’ll be looking to improve here. Andy Jenkins has 10 wins for the week so far but has come up dry in terms of group wins. He has one last chance to pick that up here, while Scott Mitchell and Mark Webster will both be out to be a lot more competitive than they have been over the course of the week thus far.
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Outright Betting
I got involved in this group on Thursday when I thought Wessel Nijman had an advantage with the fixture list but he came up a leg shy however it is a different kettle of fish on Saturday because of the way the matches come. I think it is fair to say there are four players who are more realistic contenders than the other three. They are Arron Monk, Jason Askew, Wessel Nijman and Andy Jenkins and those four men compete against each other in the first six games of the day.
That may well mean that by the time the other three come into play someone has three wins and is well set while a couple of others could be without a win and going nowhere. If there is one thing we’ve seen this week it is when there is little to play for the enthusiasm wanes quickly. It is hard to decipher who is likely to come through the early part of the day with a solid record intact. My hunch is that Andy Jenkins is a bit big at 6/1 but the fixtures might have gone against him. I’m happy to sit out the group betting.
Match Betting
This really isn’t an easy group to bet on because the stronger players face each other early doors and the weaker players just can’t be trusted to be consistent enough and by the time those stronger players meet the weaker ones they might not be playing for anything, and this group probably more than the other one has highlighted how disinterested players become when the intensity of having a focus to play for disappears.
I have found one bet I’m willing to take though and that is for Arron Monk to cover a 1.5 leg handicap against Scott Mitchell. I think Monk is good enough to still be in with a chance of topping the table by the time he has come out of that early part of the day so he should have something on this and the way the two men have played this week Monk should have the upper hand. Monk has beaten Mitchell 4-0 and 4-1 and it is that sort of scoreline I expect him to win by here too.
Tips
WON – Back A.Monk (-1.5 legs) to beat S.Mitchell for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
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