The second running of the PDC Home Tour continues on Tuesday as we head towards the conclusion of the first stage of the competition. Once again seven players will be in action from their own oches in a bid to make it through to the next stage.
We have some players playing for the first time in this group while others are returning for a second shot at making it through. If there is one thing we’ve seen throughout this competition so far it is that the format is set up for competitive days of darts.
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.
Group 7 Recap
We had the most competitive group so far on Monday when four players finished with eight points from their six matches. They will all make it through to the next stage but it was Jonny Clayton who topped the table on leg difference from the Dutch pair of Jermaine Wattimena and Jeffrey de Zwaan. Ron Meulenkamp hasn’t automatically qualified but his eight points will be enough for him to go through. Nick Kenny was the unfortunate man whose six points wasn’t good enough. Stephen Bunting and William Borland were disappointing and could only pick up one win each.
It was a mixed betting day for us on Monday. It started terribly when Stephen Bunting missed all eight darts he had at a double against Jonny Clayton and persevered to lose 5-0 but thankfully most of the losses were recovered when Jeffrey de Zwaan produced a near perfect final leg to make the most of the advantage we are keen to pick up on and see off Jermaine Wattimena in a deciding leg.
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Group 8 Line Up
The Favourites
We have a mixture of new and returning players to the competition and it is one of the players playing in it for the first time who is the favourite to win the group at 6/4 in Luke Humphries. The talent of Humphries is known by all and it will be interesting to see if that shines through here. Jamie Hughes is the second favourite to win the group and he’ll be hoping to go a lot better than he did first time around where he was very ordinary. Martin Schindler has his first go at making it through and is 7/1 to top the table while Kai Fan Leung is the other player at a single figure price.
The Outsiders
The three remaining players in the group are all a double figure price. Lisa Ashton showed good form in the Autumn Series recently and wasn’t disgraced in her first group in Home Tour II so there might be some takers on her at 20/1. The other two players looked out of their depth in the first groups they played and are big prices to win this group. They are Gary Blades and Adrian Gray who are both 33/1 to win the group
Group Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I fancy in this group. I would be surprised if Luke Humphries doesn’t have it about him to qualify but whether that translates into winning the group remains to be seen. The others all have a lot of question marks about them, not least that with the exception of Martin Schindler, they have all played in one of these groups and failed to make it through to the next stage. I’d argue the groups are getting stronger not weaker too.
Schindler doesn’t do much to convince me that he’ll win the group so I think this is between four players – Humphries, Hughes, Leung and Ashton. You would think of those four that Humphries is the player who will come out on top but at 6/4 he’s pretty restrictive and we’ve not been seeing too many favourites winning their groups thus far. With that in mind I’m happy to sit out the group winning market.
Match Betting
There is only one bet I like among the matches on Tuesday. This isn’t a great where the matches have fallen kind in terms players having the throw and being a nice price to use that advantage. With that in mind I’m going with the other way of using the throw to our advantage and taking a player who has it who is expected to win well to cover a 2.5 leg handicap, which we know involves just the one break of throw to result in a 5-2 win.
That player is Jamie Hughes in his match against Gary Blades. Hughes took an age to get going in the opening group that he played in but when he did start firing he was playing nicely. It was similar at the Autumn Series recently and he should have a fair bit of confidence about him as a result. It was a tough Autumn Series for Blades. He only won one leg in the first three tournaments and while it got better towards the end of the week it is hard to ignore the start to that week. These two met in a Players Championship event earlier in the year and Hughes won 6-0. It is hard to see Hughes not winning this 5-2 or better.
Tips
WON – Back J.Hughes (-2.5 legs) to beat G.Blades for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with William Hill
Back him here:
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