The Icons of Darts event continues on Thursday with the second pool of players back for their middle day of action for the week, as six players once again pick up some competitive practice when they take to their home oches again.
This pool delivered a competitive day on Tuesday and although the standard wasn’t always the highest, interest was retained for much of the day and with the schedule flipped we should get something similar here.
The Format
Each day from Monday to Saturday six 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 six players will play each other once over the best of nine 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
2/2 for @wolfiedarts so far this week ?? pic.twitter.com/CKfGMCMdOT
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) June 10, 2020
Wednesday Recap
Martin Adams picked up the group for the second time this week when he saw off Boris Koltsov in the final match of the day to overhaul Diogo Portela and claim the honours on leg difference. Koltsov could have won the group had he won that last match by a decent margin. In the end he came third with three wins while there were a pair of wins for Jose Justicia. Mark Dudbridge and Jarred Cole ended up with a single victory to their names.
It was a frustrating betting day for us on Wednesday with it starting with Diogo Portela missing a dart at D18 to see off Jose Justicia 5-3 which would have covered the handicap. He missed it and went on to lose 5-4 having been 4-1 up. It got worse when Martin Adams surrendered a 3-0 lead to lose 5-3 to Portela in what was the only loss of the day for Wolfie. He should really have delivered on the five wins bet. Thankfully we got some solace from the day as the one win Mark Dudbridge picked up came against Jarred Cole as we wanted.
Thursday Line Up
Ritchie Edhouse was the man who took down this group on their opening day of action this week and he is considered the favourite to back that up with another win much like Martin Adams managed in the other pool. He is likely to be challenged by the two world champions in this group – Scott Mitchell and Mark Webster, both of whom will be eyeing up another group title to their name over the course of the day.
The other three players will need to be at their best if they are going to mount a serious challenge. To be fair though, Mike Warburton has previously won groups in the Icons of Darts competition so it wouldn’t be a massive surprise if he comes good on Thursday after shaking off some rust on Tuesday. There might be some improvement in Adam Huckvale for the same reason but Keelan Kay needs to show a lot more than he has thus far.
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Outright Betting
Betting on the outright market in this group is going to be difficult this week I fancy because there are three players who look on a different level to the other three. That in itself isn’t an issue but unfortunately the bookmakers are well aware of that as well and those three are priced no better than fair. Ritchie Edhouse is the favourite and I think that is justified but he only averaged 87.29 for the day on Tuesday which would be a concern.
Scott Mitchell and Mark Webster are the other two I would consider threats. They are 11/4 and 5/1 respectively and I think they are probably only fair prices. There might be an ounce of value in Webster after he won arguably a better group on Saturday but even then that might be a little tight. I can’t be having the other three and I’m not really in any rush to get involved here so I’m happy to sit this one out.
Match Betting
The way the matches have fallen there isn’t a great deal I like on the match coupon either but there is one which looks attractively priced right at the end of the day. It comes in the match between Adam Huckvale and Mark Webster which is the final game on Thursday. Webster is favoured to win and priced accordingly but rather than back him at a short price to beat Huckvale, the best bet could be to take the former Lakeside winner to hit the most 180s.
Huckvale hit one 180 in the entirety of play on Tuesday, over the course of his five matches, and looking back through his Icons of Darts record, he hasn’t really been prolific at any stage. Webster actually hit nine 180s over his five matches on Tuesday and the recent trend with him is that he tends to get stronger the longer the day goes on so he could be at his best in this match. If recent evidence is anything to go by then Huckvale is likely to be out of the group winning scene by this time. Webster might not be so he might be taking this more seriously or competitively. The Welshman was all over the 60 bed on Tuesday and the 6/4 on him landing the most maximums here looks a shade too big.
Tips
Back M.Webster Most 180s vs A.Huckvale for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Sky Bet
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