The PDC Home Tour is back for a second staging but this time the stars of the game are exempt and the lower ranked players are the ones eligible for some match practice in a competition which takes place over the next six weeks.
The competition comes back with a new format with 70 players entered all looking to navigate their way through a series of groups in order to take their place at a final group where the overall title will be won.
The Format
Each day seven players will be in action on their home oches in a group stage format looking to progress. In every group in the tournament the seven players will each play each other once. In the first round the top three players in each group and the five best fourth-placed players go through to the second stage. Five groups are played out in the second phase with the top four in each making it through to the third stage along with the best fifth-placed player. The final stage begins with three more groups with the top two in each and the best third-placed player qualifying for the Championship Group where the champion is crowned. Each match throughout is the best of nine legs and the tournament will be streamed live on PDCTV or the consoles on the bookmaker websites.
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Group 1 Line Up
The Favourites
Mike De Decker made it through to the semi-final group in Hone Tour I and he had a couple of decent enough runs to the last 16 in the Summer Series but whether he is in form now remains to be seen. He is 3/1 to win the group. Andy Boulton and Geert Nentjes are the 4/1 second favourites and both will be hoping to go better here than they did first time around when Boulton was eliminated in the first round while Nentjes was knocked out on leg difference in the second stage.
The Outsiders
Joe Murnan and David Pallett didn’t have particularly great Home Tour I campaigns with both men going out rather tamely in the opening group stage. They can both be backed at 15/2 to win this group but they will need an improvement on their previous showing. Conan Whitehead was actually in a group with De Decker in the first Home Tour but he didn’t come out of it. He is 9/1 to win this group while Adrian Gray is the other player in the field and is a 16/1 shot to win the group having lost all three of his first group matches in Home Tour I.
Outright Betting
If I was going to bet on the outright market for this group I would probably take a punt on Geert Nentjes but I’m going to watch this group and observe how it plays out because I have a suspicion that when a player has sealed his spot in the three of the table their motivation will disappear and there is no guarantee they will go on and win the group. If that isn’t how it plays out then I might get involved later in the week but this is a watching brief.
The one thing we can do is assess the seven runners and riders and I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near Conan Whitehead, David Pallett, Joe Murnan or Adrian Gray. Not only did they not fare that well in Home Tour I but they didn’t follow it up with much of a performance at the Summer Series. This tournament has been hastily arranged so I’m not expecting a lot of practice to have been done with a lot of these players having jobs other than darts.
Match Betting
It is going to be a quiet day on the match betting front as well while I assess the state of play in the group and the format. It feels wrong to be offered up 21 matches and only take one bet in them but this is the first of 19 groups so there is plenty of time to get stuck into the competition after this one so I am going to take just the one bet which comes early in the afternoon when Mike De Decker takes on Adrian Gray.
I’ve not seen much from Gray in recent times to suggest he is going to be competitive in this group. In his three matches in Home Tour I he averaged 88.14, 90.84 and 89.68 and lost in the first round of all five events at the Summer Series. De Decker had a much better time of it in the Home Tour and at the Summer Series and is a player on the up in his career. I expect him to not only win this match but to do it with a bit in hand.
Tips
WON – Back M.De Decker (-1.5 legs) to beat A.Gray for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
Back him here:
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