Another four players look to make full use of their second life in the PDC Home Tour on Thursday night when Group 28 of the competition is played out, as we are kept entertained in our homes throughout the lockdown.
Four exciting players make up the group here so we should be treated to another good night of action, in keeping with the pattern of the last few evenings. The cast is so good that this could be the best of the groups to date, especially with the format for the next stage now announced.
The Format
Each night four players will battle it out in a round robin format with the group winner progressing to the next stage of the tournament. All six matches in each group will be the best of nine legs with two points awarded for a win. If players finish level on points then leg difference will decide the outcome. If that cannot separate players then the head to head will settle the group winner. Were three players to be tied on points and leg difference the player with the highest overall average goes through. The entire tournament is being streamed live on PDC.tv, the Sky Sports App and various bookmaker sites.
Wednesday Recap
It looked like being a competitive group on Wednesday and in the main that is how it played out with a couple of matches going to a deciding leg and another being won 5-3. It was Scott Waites who controlled proceedings. He won all three of his matches and had the group won before the final match. Ross Smith was the man who provided his closest challenge with him picking up a couple of wins. Ron Meulenkamp was the other player who won a match leaving Steve Beaton without a win.
It was a perfect night for us betting wise as Waites completely dominated the group to land our 3/1 punt on him doing so. That was bettered in the final game of the night, which although it was a dead rubber, was rounded off superbly by Meulenkamp who finished off 341 in six darts in the deciding leg to overcome Steve Beaton 5-4. That led to a very strong profit on the night.
Group 28 Line Up
The headline attraction over the course of the night is the world number five Michael Smith. When this event was announced I expected Smith to be very tough to beat and to be fair he didn’t do a lot wrong on his first night but could not sustain a superb burst of darts by Martijn Kleermaker in his opening match. Smith averaged 97.50 and hit 11 180s in his three games in his first group and if he is anything close to that level you would think his second chance of progressing will be a successful one.
Luke Humphries is certainly no stranger to home darts on our streams. He was involved in the initial test event and then he took part in Group 5 of the competition but he is yet to come out on top in those. He went into his PDC Home Tour group as the favourite to progress but defeat to eventual winner Nick Kenny in his first match all but ended his chances of going through. He has a second go here but this looks a much tougher assignment so his 89.67 average from earlier in the event will need a significant improvement if he is to make it into the next phase.
At 68 in the world, Andy Boulton is the third highest ranked player on show on the night. The Scot is probably an underachiever on the PDC tour and showed signs of that in his first group when he averaged over 95 for the night and defeated Adrian Gray and James Wade. His loss to Ryan Searle denied him a path through in that group but there was no shame in that as ‘Heavy Metal’ was unstoppable that evening. If Boulton pins the doubles like he did in Group 6 he could be a danger here.
Mike van Duijvenbode might be the lowest ranked player in the group but he certainly isn’t here just to make up the numbers. He was involved in a high quality group that featured Simon Whitlock, Alan Tabern and Kirk Shepherd and while he couldn’t get the better of the St Helens man, he beat the other two with averages of 97.05 and 94.79. A repeat of those sort of performances are entitled to have the Dutch newcomer to the tour in a position to be more than competitive in this group.
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Outright Betting
Michael Smith will be all the rage for this group and rightly so but on paper at least, this looks like a stronger group than the one he failed to come out of earlier in the tournament, so I’m a little reluctant to get involved in him at odds on. If I was going to take him on the logical man would be to do it with Luke Humphries but he hasn’t really impressed in his two outings in this setup to date. The other two could be dangerous but winning the group could be beyond them.
I will instead focus on the 180s for an outright bet in the group. The line is 19.5 which is fairly generous when you consider that these four hit 22 180s in their first showings in the competition. Andy Boulton only hit one in three matches that night and you’ve got to think that he’ll contribute more to the pot here. Michael Smith and Luke Humphries are both relentless 180 hitters and Mike van Duivenbode has a nine dart leg on the tour this year. When you level it out it is just over three 180s a match and that is within range for the way this lot score.
Match Betting
I’ll go with a couple of match bets as well across the evening. In the third match of the night we have one of those 50:50 matches where the home player is a decent price based on his advantage of the throw in a final leg. That is the one between Mike van Duivenbode and Andy Boulton and while the Scot is an underrated player, he isn’t likely to break out with a barrage of amazing scoring and he can sometimes go missing on the doubles. MvD should be more than capable of hanging with Boulton on the scoring side of things, if not better him, so as long as he finishes well he can use the throw to his advantage to win this.
The big match of the night is Michael Smith against Luke Humphries. They have met on five previous occasions so will know all about each other. Interestingly Humphries won their last meeting earlier in the season so he won’t fear ‘Bully Boy’ which makes me think we’re in for a cracking match. I wouldn’t normally look at a 180 line as high as 4.5 in this format but the odds are generous enough to give it a go because we only need a couple from each player and one on top.
Tips
WON – Back Over 19.5 180s in the group for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Coral
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Back M.van Duivenbode to beat A.Boulton for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Sky Bet
WON – Back M.Smith vs L.Humphries – Over 4.5 180s for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with 888sport
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