They are rattling along in the PDC Home Tour and on Thursday night we complete the first week of the event with Group 7 of the tournament, one which lacks a high ranked player, but which looks very competitive.
We saw some terrific darts on Wednesday as well as some funny moments, not least when Adrian Gray tripped over his phone charger lead and brought his whole setup crashing down! It will be interesting to see what Thursday has in store for us.
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 always had the makings of a good night of darts on Wednesday, with four very competent arrow chuckers in action and that is how it proved. It was a particularly good night for Ryan Searle as he produced a barrage of scoring that matched the quality of his stream to dominate the group from start to finish. Andy Boulton saw off James Wade in the closing match of the night to come second with Adrian Gray finishing last even though he was by no means disgraced by his performances.
It was a fourth successive decent night for us in this tournament betting wise. We attacked the group with just the one bet which was in the total 180s market in the big clash of the night between James Wade and Ryan Searle and they didn’t let us down. We only needed four from them but between them they delivered seven as we kept up our winning run of recent times.
Group 7 Line Up
The rankings tell us that it is the German Giant himself Gabriel Clemens who is the best player in this group. He is beginning to establish himself as a leading light in the sport and nights like this give him the chance to show what he can do once again. This will be a different environment to what he is used to but he has been as good as most on the pro tour over the last 18 months or so, so it would be folly to think he isn’t capable of winning this. He’s a 6/4 shot to do exactly that.
Jelle Klaasen has the advantage, if indeed it is one, of having played in this format before. He took part in the second test event where he was edged out by Nathan Aspinall on leg difference, but he beat Aspinall and produced some ridiculous checkouts in his home set up. He took a few legs to get going then but he has a winnable game up first and if he hits top speed again he could easily take this down at 2/1.
Ryan Meikle is making his way on the tour having come through the Development Tour. I always say if you come through that you have to be half decent and now that he is showing his colours in the professional ranks he could be the spoiler of the party at around the 9/2 mark. Meikle was a semi-finalist in the World Youth Championship last year so like all youngsters expect some decent scoring from him.
It is the Northern Ireland player Gavin Carlin who is the outsider in the group but he is another who knows how way to the 60 bed and if he is given the opportunity to be dangerous then he very well could be. Things have gone a bit quiet for Carlin in recent times through and that has to be considered a concern. It will be interesting to see what the 7/1 shot can offer but there has been a little bit of money for him in the lead up to the event which could be significant.
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Outright Betting
Gabriel Clemens is the outright favourite for the group and I’m actually a big fan of his but this has the name of Jelle Klaasen written all over it as far as I’m concerned. He is a brilliant counter which is a big help here and his rhythm isn’t going to be affected by anyone or anything in this event. The longer his warm up event went the better he looked. He probably didn’t score like he could in that event but that will come.
Not having English as his native tongue might go against Clemens a little here because there is always a bit of banter flying around and if you are not used to the format being able to understand someone would surely help. It wasn’t too long ago that Ryan Meikle won a couple of tournaments on the Development Tour in the same day but this looks a step up from that. I just can’t see beyond Klaasen here at 2/1.
Match Betting
There isn’t a whole lot that catches my eye in the match betting on Thursday night. There isn’t what you would call a renowned monotonous 180 hitter like we’ve had in the last three nights so we are restricted to the match markets if we were going to have a bet but this group looks a little too straightforward in that to get anything resembling an attractive price at any stage.
If a gun was put to my head I would probably have taken Gabriel Clemens to cover the 1.5 leg handicap in his opener against Gavin Carlin but I’m wary of this money for Carlin and equally I’m in no rush to take an 8/11 shot which isn’t a certainty. There isn’t anything else on the card at the outset which catches my eye so I’ll stick to a bet on Klaasen to land the group as my only betting interest in the night.
Tips
WON – Back J.Klaasen to win Group 7 for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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