Home darts is really becoming quite a thing at the minute and while the main attraction on Thursday is the clash between Phil Taylor and Raymond Barneveld, before they meet we have Group 4 of the Modus Icons of Darts event.
Everyone is getting used to the format now and there has been a clear improvement in the quality on show as we have gone along this week, and therefore it will be interesting to see if that remains the case on Thursday.
The Format
Each day from Monday to Saturday five men will battle it out in a round robin group with the overall champion being determined on Saturday May 2. Matches will see the players compete over the best of 9 legs with each of them at home in front of a webcam throwing at their own individual dartboards. Scores can be found on Dart Connect and the tournament will be streamed on the bookmaker live streaming consoles and hopefully one of Modus’ social media sites.
Here’s how the overall league table shapes up after Day Three ?@reddragondarts #IconsofDarts pic.twitter.com/sazO93RdMY
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) April 8, 2020
Wednesday Recap
It was the best group yet for standard on Wednesday and as I suspected might be the case, it was David Evans who came out on top on leg difference with three wins from his four matches. There were 95+ averages galore on a really good day of darts and it will be interesting to see if that gets maintained from now on. Wessel Nijman continues to lead the way overall but his lead has been significantly reduced.
Unfortunately one of the reasons for that was him losing to Andy Jenkins which scuppered one of the two bets we had on Wednesday. David Evans thrashed Mark Webster later in proceedings though to get the majority of the losses back from the day. We’ll look to build on that over the course of Thursday.
Thursday Line Up
We know the players on show this week by now. Paul Nicholson comes back in after his day off and he replaces Raymond van Barneveld who has time to get ready for his showdown against Phil Taylor later in the evening. Wessel Nijman has the chance to extend his lead at the top while David Evans and Andy Jenkins will be looking to chase him down further. Mark Webster completes the quintet on show on the day and he needs to get his winning boots on soon if he is to do anything.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply Gamble Aware.
Outright Betting
Bookmakers have clearly been paying attention to the tournament and the two best players are now pretty short to win the group with Wessel Nijman 9/4 and David Evans, arguably the best player on show on Thursday, 11/4. Paul Nicholson comes back in as a 4/1 poke with Andy Jenkins potentially offering some sort of value at 9/2. You can get 11/2 on Mark Webster winning the group but you’d need a huge leap of faith in him improving dramatically to get involved in that.
If I was betting on this market I’d go with Jenkins I think. He won three matches on Wednesday and has been averaging in the 90s throughout those games which is a decent enough standard. There probably won’t be a lot between the top few here though so I’m not mad keen to get involved in what I do expect to be a three horse race.
Match Betting
I will however get stuck into Andy Jenkins in the match betting front. He has already played Paul Nicholson once in this tournament, in what was his opening match of the competition, and beat him 5-4 and since then he has gotten better and better. Nicholson was just beginning to fade when his day off came and it might be that he needs a day to get back up to speed and up to the standard that this group has suddenly reached. Jenkins’ averages on Wednesday were 98.5, 90, 96.2 and 87.2 which is a good standard, the latter was only due to a bunch of missed doubles. His only defeat came against David Evans who has really surged to the forefront in terms of standard this week. I expect this will be fairly close but I do believe that it will be Jenkins who comes out on top against a Nicholson who might need a couple of matches before he gets into groove again.
The other bet I like is for David Evans to see off Mark Webster with a bit in hand in the final match of the day. Evans won 5-1 on Wednesday and there were 14pts between the averages on that occasion, which highlights just how much Webster has to improve. Evans also won their meeting on Monday too, and although that was only 5-4 it was his first match of the entire event whereas Webster had already played a match. To highlight how much Evans needed the match he threw his lowest average of the tournament so far in that match. The Manchester man averaged into the 90s in all four matches on Thursday. If he does that here he should have too much for Webster once again.
Tips
WON – Back A.Jenkins to beat P.Nicholson for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back D.Evans (-1.5 legs) to beat M.Webster for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betway
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2020
