We get to the halfway mark in another week of the Icons of Darts competition on Wednesday and seven players yet again take to their home oches for some competitive practice and a bid to entertain us during lockdown.
We expected the standard to go up a notch on Tuesday and we certainly weren’t disappointed in that regard, so there will be an ounce of pressure on the players on show on Wednesday to mark that quality.
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 @low6bet #IconsofDarts
Congratulations to @RitchieEdhouse ?? pic.twitter.com/j1mpJktx95
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) May 26, 2020
Tuesday Recap
Ritchie Edhouse was the slightly surprising first winner of the week from the second pool of players. His five wins was enough to see him top the table by a couple of points from Jarred Cole and Scott Mitchell who both won four of their six outings. Andy Jenkins and David Evans both won three games and then Mark Webster and Arron Monk pulled up the rear with a single win from their six matches on what was disappointing days for the pair.
To be fair to Monk, although our bet on him winning the group never got started, he ran into a bunch of monster performances with three of the men to beat him averaging 99 or more and another well over 95. That didn’t help our group bet though and our day was summed up with Scott Mitchell was able to beat Mark Webster but he didn’t do it quickly enough to cover the handicap annoyingly.
Wednesday Line Up
We are back with the majority of players who competed on Monday for the third day of action this week. Martin Adams was the winner on that occasion and he is back for more here, although it is Boris Koltsov who will start out the day as the favourite to win the group. Justin Smith was unable to compete on Monday due to technical issues but he is due back on show to get stuck in on Wednesday.
Fallon Sherrock competes for the first time this week and replaces Michael Warburton to do so. The other three players on show for us on Wednesday are all pretty well-known to us now. We have Paul Nicholson, who was close to winning himself on Monday, Keelan Kay, who delivered a better showing than was expected, and Darryl Fitton who will be looking to find a significant improvement on his last couple of outings.
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Outright Betting
I was prepared to go with Justin Smith on Monday and I didn’t see a whole lot over the course of the day that would put me off backing him here on Wednesday at a much bigger price. Of course there is the issue that everyone else has had a competitive run out this week but Smith is young enough that I can’t see him sat on his backside all day. He’ll either have played other games or thrown some practice darts and if he is in any way sharp he should be competitive here.
There doesn’t look like anyone in this group who will take control of it and there looks to be three players who can be ruled out straight away in Keelan Kay, Mark Webster and Darryl Fitton. They are what I would call the spoilers in the field which the other four have to avoid slipping up against. I’m still not convinced by Paul Nicholson whereas Boris Koltsov has been losing with some insane averages and he won’t always throw that well which puts me off him. Adams is only a fair price so Smith is where the value lies to me.
Match Betting
There isn’t a whole lot I like about the matches on Wednesday. They have all fallen at the wrong times for me to commit too much but there is one which I can’t ignore and that comes quite late in the day when Boris Koltsov takes on Keelan Kay. I can’t say I’m a big fan of Kay’s throw but to be fair to him the longer he has gone on in this competition without a rest, the better he is looking in the scoring part of the leg.
That makes me think the even money on there being more than 2.5 180s in this match is well worth taking. Kay actually hit nine 180s in his six matches on Monday, which isn’t too bad for a bloke who switches a lot. Koltsov has absolutely murdered the 60 over the last week or so. One day last week he hit 17 180s on his own in just six matches, and he hit 12 more on Monday. When these two played on Monday it was earlier in the day and they hit seven 180s between them. In the three matches they have played against each other since the change in format there has never been less than three 180s. The way Koltsov is bashing the 60 up I don’t see there being less than that here. I’ll take the over.
Tips
Back J.Smith to win Group 3 for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with 888sport
Back him here:
Back B.Koltsov vs K.Kay – Over 2.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back it here:
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