The second day of the new look Icons of Darts league brought to us by the team at Modus Darts who have served us well throughout lockdown sees seven different players taking to their home oches on Tuesday to continue to keep us entertained.
Monday was a day of seeing how the change in format would affect things but in truth the darts were good, the league phase was competitive and a huge number of matches mattered. It will be interesting to see if Tuesday delivers the same.
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 pic.twitter.com/HmWzTpEHTW
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) May 4, 2020
Monday Recap
It was Jarred Cole who came out in front for the second Monday in succession. Having won the initial phase event last Monday he won the new format competition this time round, seeing off Ritchie Edhouse on leg difference courtesy of picking up five wins from his six matches. Edhouse had a chance of winning all six of his games but a defeat to Fallon Sherrock in his final match put paid to his chances. Elsewhere David Evans could only manage four wins from his six outings and then the other four players were a fair way back. Martin Adams won the final two matches of the day to finish with three wins while there were two victories for Jose Justicia and solitary wins for Paul Nicholson and Fallon Sherrock.
The day was almost perfect for us betting wise. It began very well with Jarred Cole once again seeing off Jose Justicia by a decent enough margin. That was obviously one of the five wins we needed from Cole to secure top spot at a juicy 9/1 and he duly obliged in that regard too and David Evans was far too good for Paul Nicholson. The only betting blemish on the day came in the last bet when Fallon Sherrock went down in a deciding leg to Martin Adams. Nevertheless, we’ll take a 11.7pt profit for the opening day!
Tuesday Line Up
It was a decent looking field for the first pool of group players this week and the second one isn’t too far behind either. We have two very talented ‘youngsters’ if Arron Monk can still be called that at the age of 30. Wessel Nijman certainly can and it will be interesting to see how they both go at it this week having dominated various weeks of the earlier events. Jason Askew was another who showcased his talents to good effect in the first stage of the Modus tournaments and after having last week off he’s back for more here.
We also have a couple of capable veterans in the form of the former world champion Scott Mitchell and PDC ace Andy Jenkins. The other two men in the field look like they could be up against it based on how they have gone previously in the Modus tournaments. They are the BDO star Mike Warburton and the second former world champion in the field in Mark Webster.
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 (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Outright Betting
We saw on Monday that those who come out of the blocks over the longer distance but didn’t quite maintain their form for the duration of the match did very well. Ritchie Edhouse and Jarred Cole fell into that category and I’ve a feeling that trend is no fluke. If a player can come out firing and score big and even break then there is less time to have to maintain their best darts. That could well play into the hands of Jason Askew.
Clearly it would be daft to think that Wessel Nijman and Arron Monk would be massively inconvenienced by the shortened format but if others are better suited to it their odds may not be as attractive as they might seem. I can’t be having Mike Warburton just yet and Mark Webster offers little interest. I would want to see Scott Mitchell and Andy Jenkins after a week off but I respect them. That said, Askew is a heavy scorer and if the doubles go right he could well steal a march on these at a 5/1 price which is a point or so bigger than I have him at.
Match Betting
I took three match bets on Monday and I’m going to line up the same number on Tuesday as well. Taking on Scott Mitchell is my early modus operandi and the first man I’ll do it with is Andy Jenkins. Mitchell wasn’t really at the races in the last week that he played the A Night At The Darts event and throughout all his time in the Modus competitions, he has taken a while to get up and running and I suspect that could happen here too. You would have to suggest that Jenkins was the same in his final week of the Icons of Darts that he played but to be fair to him he had a lengthy stint in that and was competitive for large periods. There isn’t a huge amount between these two but if Jenkins is sharper on the doubles he can win this.
The second man I’ll take Mitchell on with is Jason Askew, a player who beat him four times in a row when they faced off in the evening event a couple of weeks ago. I expect Askew to go the better of the two when fresh so that is an advantage and he’s just a much heavier scorer than Mitchell, and as we saw on Monday that is a big thing. Askew’s wins over Mitchell was 5-1, 5-1, 5-3 and 5-1. They are all pretty significant wins so the 4/5 on Askew winning again is just a little bit too big. Askew should be much shorter based on previous meetings so I’ll take him accordingly.
We have to wait until the penultimate match of the day for the all-Welsh clash between Mike Warburton and Mark Webster, a match I’m surprised that Warburton is not a much stronger favourite for. He is very much still a player in the game. He is one of the better ranked BDO players who made the World Masters semi-finals not long ago, whereas Webster has hung his competitive arrers up for the time being, and based on what we saw when he was in action over the first week or two of lockdown, rightly so. Warburton took an age to come to the party on his debut week last week but eventually he did so and if he has maintained that form he should ease past his inferior Welsh compatriot.
Tips
Back J.Askew to win Group 2 for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with William Hill
WON – Back A.Jenkins to beat S.Mitchell for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back them here:
WON – Back J.Askew to beat S.Mitchell for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back M.Warburton to beat M.Webster for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2020
