The first pool of players are back in Icons of Darts action on Wednesday as the Modus run competition continues on Wednesday. Once again six players look to keep their competitive juices flowing and our entertainment intact while we wait for proper events to return.
There are some great names on show in the first pool of players and the standard when they started out the week was decent enough fayre so we would be right to expect a good standard to take us through Wednesday.
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
Congratulations to @RitchieEdhouse ?? pic.twitter.com/DyWVGJXQ13
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) June 9, 2020
Tuesday Recap
We got another competitive day of action on Tuesday and it was one which went with the form book as Ritchie Edhouse came out on top courtesy of four wins on the afternoon. He finished above the two world champions by a couple of points with Mark Webster in second ahead of Scott Mitchell on leg difference. There were a pair of wins for Adam Huckvale and Mike Warburton while once again Keelan Kay was left to bring up the rear.
After a disappointing day on Monday we got much of the losses back on Tuesday when Mark Webster proved far too good for Mike Warburton as we suggested he would be. Webster won the throw and went 3-0 up and while he stuttered a little in the middle of the match he did enough to get over the line 5-2 and eat into the deficit we have created for ourselves.
Wednesday Line Up
Martin Adams completed a clean sweep of this group on Monday and he will be out to dominate it again. With the 9 dart finish last week and his efforts on Monday he is in quite some form at the present time. Boris Koltsov was his closest challenger to start the week with and the bookmakers think that will be the case again on Wednesday. Mark Dudbridge offered up an encouraging debut in the event on Monday and he is back for a second crack here.
Jarred Cole flattered to deceive a little on Monday and he will be determined to finish better than he did then on Wednesday. He will need to if he is going to challenge for the group title honours. Diogo Portela improved as Monday went on so if that trend continues he could be a runner for a high position. Jose Justicia will be out to offer a lot more than he managed on his return to action.
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Outright Betting
The odds suggest this is a two horse race with Martin Adams and Boris Koltsov heavily fancied to deliver the goods. If I am honest I think this is all about Adams. If he plays like he has been doing then I don’t see him being stopped. I do think this pair are far enough clear of the rest though so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if we are kept waiting until the final match of the day before the title is decided.
Given that I think Koltsov is the only one who can beat Adams without help from the veteran, rather than taking the 6/4 on Adams to win the group I’m prepared to take the 5/1 that he wins all five matches. He faces Koltsov last so it could be that we end up on him at 5/1 to win that match. Although Mark Dudbridge was competitive on Monday he along with the other three still have plenty to find to get close to Adams. Adams averaged 4.5pts more than everyone else in the field on Monday which is an insane statistic. He was the only one who averaged over 90 for the day and that shows the dominance he could have over the rest. Not only did Adams win all five matches on Monday but he only lost eight legs in the process. The 5/1 on him clean sweeping an inferior bunch again is just too big.
Match Betting
I’ll go with a couple of match bets over the course of the day as well. The first of them comes in the first match of the day where I’m a little surprised Diogo Portela is as big as even money to beat Jose Justicia, a man he beat 5-1 on Monday, and cover a 1.5 leg handicap. Justicia was terrible on Monday and while you’ve got to think he will improve here on Wednesday, he has around seven points on find on the Brazilian in terms of their daily averages. In the match between the two Portela averaged nearly 13pts more than the Spaniard and that is a huge gap to bridge. Portela was only 5/12 on his doubles in that match so it wasn’t as though he took every chance that came his way. He might not need to take all his chances here either because his Spanish rival checked out at 20% on Monday – one every five darts at double. We’ve seen more from the Brazilian than we have Justicia in their recent outings in the Icons of Darts so I expect no worse than a 5-3 win for Portela here.
On Monday I took Jarred Cole to beat Mark Dudbridge and he lost in a deciding leg but I’m going to go the other way here. Dudbridge was quite impressive for a first go on Monday and I would imagine there is some natural improvement to come from the former PDC world finalist. Nobody hit more 180s than Dudbridge in that first group of the week and although his finishing was mixed, that is a part of the Cole armoury that is looking incredibly flimsy. Dudbridge’s checkout percentage over the piece on Monday was only 28.8% but that still outclassed the 24.4% of Cole. Even the heavy scoring I expected to see from Cole didn’t arrive on Monday and he went the whole day without a single 90+ average. Dudbridge saw off Cole 5-4 despite only being 5/25 on the doubles. If he is in any way competent on the outer ring here he should have a bit more in hand.
Tips
Back M.Adams to win all 5 matches for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back D.Portela (-1.5 legs) to beat J.Justicia for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back him here:
WON – Back M.Dudbridge to beat J.Cole for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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