The PDC Home Tour III is back on Monday after a little break for the European Championship and it returns with seven players once again battling it out from their homes in the search for as many points as possible to put onto the league table.
We have played entering the competition for the first time on Monday and then there are others who will be playing their second group of three so it will be interesting to see if those men have an advantage here or not.
The Format
42 players will compete in PDC Home Tour III and they will all compete in three of the 18 groups in the first round where their results will be accumulated on one overall league table where the top seven at the end of the initial 18 days of action will form a Championship Group from which the overall champion will be crowned. All matches are the best of seven legs and the tournament will be broadcast on PDC.tv or the bookmaker streaming sites.
Group 3 Recap
Steve Beaton and Mickey Mansell both had good starts to their season on Wednesday when they picked up 10 of the 12 points that were available. Beaton topped the group on leg difference from Mansell with Gary Blades and Joe Murnan both making a decent start to events with three wins apiece. Alan Tabern took four points away from the group with him as did Richard North while there was a single win for Nathan Derry who will have plenty to do next time he is on show.
We didn’t preview or bet on Group 3 on Wednesday but we are off the mark for the tournament courtesy of Daniel Larsson cruising past Lisa Ashton the day before, which was our bet from the second group of the new season. That has got us almost back to level for the competition and with a whole bunch of groups left we’ll be looking to make a lot more cash between now and the end of the tournament.
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Group 4 Line Up
The Favourites
There is a standout player on show on Monday as the major tournament winner Simon Whitlock will be on show as he looks to continue his preparation for the World Cup which begins later in the week. He will be expected to win the group but two players who are competing in Home Tour III for the second time will be out to deny him a big day. James Wilson is one of those and he’ll start out the day on eight points and looking to at least double his tally. He is a second favourite to win the group.
The Outsiders
The other player who has already competed in the tournament is Krzysztof Kciuk, a player who will be joining Whitlock at the World Cup later in the week. Kai Fan Leung is also heading out to Austria for that tournament but not before he has competed in this group. The other three players on show are Martin Schindler, Richard North who is another who is playing in his second group of the three he is eligible for, and the former world finalist Kirk Shepherd.
Group Betting
There has been a late switch in this group I think as John Henderson was down to compete but now he isn’t and as a result there are only a few firms who have priced up the group outright. That puts me off getting involved although ordinarily I would have been looking to take Simon Whitlock on as I’m amazed he is playing this close to the World Cup. Admittedly he missed the European Championship last week but this doesn’t feel like brilliant preparation to me.
If I was going to bet on the group I might have taken a chance on the man from Hong Kong in Kai Fan Leung. He has offered enough in previous Home Tour’s to suggest that he is capable of upsetting the applecart here but I would have liked a little more juice on the price to get involved if I’m honest. Other than that nobody really stands out here so I’m happy enough to wait my turn when it comes to the group betting.
Match Betting
I’m keen to get after Richard North here and I’ll take him on fairly early in the day when he goes up against the former world finalist Kirk Shepherd. North only picked up a couple of wins when he featured on Wednesday and in two of the matches he lost he didn’t even average 80 so he isn’t exactly in the greatest touch right now and looks like he just has to be taken on here. He only averaged more than 90 once over the course of the day and in this company you wouldn’t want to be hitting less than that.
Kirk Shepherd has shown that he can compete with the best both on the pro tour and indeed in the Home Tour’s where he threw some decent averages in defeat, especially in Home Tour I. You get the feeling that with him starting from scratch here he’ll be a little more up for it as even this early North is going to struggle to qualify for the Championship group from here. In recent Home Tour’s, Shepherd has wins over Gabriel Clemens and Jeffrey de Zwaan while on the tour last month he beat Nathan Aspinall. Shepherd has the throw here and should be taken at 5/6 to use it to his advantage.
Tips
Back K.Shepherd to beat R.North for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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