We continue to move towards the end of the first round of the PDC Home Tour play-offs on Sunday evening, when four more players battle it out looking to come out on top in the group to progress to the semi-final stage of the event.
The standard continues to go through the roof in these play-offs so the four gentleman who toe their home oches on Sunday have plenty to live up to as we career towards the business end of the competition.
The Format
The 32 group winners from the first round of groups have been redrawn into eight groups for the second stage of the event. Each winner moves into one of two semi-final groups with the top two from those two groups progressing to form the Championship group which will take place on June 5 where the overall winner will be crowned. Each match from here on in is the best of 11 legs rather than the best of 9 of the first round. Two points are 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.
Saturday Recap
It was an entertaining and competitive group on Saturday evening and for the second time in this competition Rob Cross took advantage of missed doubles to come through despite not being anywhere near his best. He edged out Ryan Searle on leg difference with his win over ‘Heavy Metal’ the real difference on the night. Daniel Larsson and Luke Woodhouse both picked up a win each, Woodhouse’s coming in the final match against Cross but the former world champion had already booked his passage into the semi-final by then.
It was a losing night for us on Saturday as Searle missed out on the group victory. He missed a couple of darts to go 4-4 against Cross when he was just building a head of steam and if he had got those then it could have been a different story. He didn’t and that really put paid to the group bet and obviously the match win. Searle did recoup most of the losses when he beat Larsson and outmaxed him so it wasn’t the worst night ever despite being two points down from it.
Play-Offs Group 6 Line Up
Joe Cullen is the leading player on show on Sunday evening as far as the world rankings are concerned and although it was at the second time of asking, he actually put in the pick of the performances in the first round when he absolutely went berserk to come through the penultimate group of the opening stage. He averaged 106.65 across the night with nine 180s and some excellent finishing to blow away the likes of Keegan Brown, Gerwyn Price and then Bradley Brooks. If he has that sort of form on him here he is going to take a heck of a lot of beating.
Chris Dobey will be looking to deny him the spot in the semi-final group. Dobey is certainly no stranger to home darts. He played in the test event for this tournament and in the first round group and his name has regularly popped up in online competitions so he certainly won’t have rust or a dislike of the setup as an excuse. Dobey is a heavy scorer and so if he hits his doubles crisply he is also entitled to be tough to beat. Dobey averaged 97.80 in coming through his first group and that sort of form makes him a real live runner here.
Jeff Smith wasn’t at his very best in his first round group but he was still too good for Christian Bunse, Martin Atkins and Ricky Evans over the course of the night. His 90 average won’t get it done here but he can score a lot better than he did that night and if this group comes down to finishing he is entitled to be right in the mix. The Canadian is one of the outsiders to progress, but he has made a Players Championship final this year already so he shouldn’t be counted out.
The final man in the group is Martijn Kleermaker, the man who overcame the threat of Michael Smith to win this initial group. It has been a month since we saw him toe his home oche so it is open to debate just how much work he has done in that time but he is a player who won his Tour card back in January and is making progress in his career. He showed his capabilities in that first group but he also gave us a look at some of his vulnerabilities too. If he has more of the former than the latter here he might yet surprise.
Special Offer
BET ON THE PDC HOME TOUR AT BOYLESPORTS AND GET DOUBLE WINNINGS AS A FREE BET IF THE FINAL CHECKOUT OF THE MATCH IS 100 OR MORE! ALL MARKETS. ALL CUSTOMERS! CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO BET. 18+ T&Cs APPLY. GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY.
Outright Betting
The bookmakers have this between Chris Dobey and Joe Cullen and it is hard to disagree with that. If Cullen is in the kind of form he was a couple of weeks ago when he played his second group there may be no stopping him, especially as he has the throw in two of his three matches, including the big one against Dobey. In saying that I don’t think Dobey is here just to make up the numbers and he definitely isn’t going to suffer from rust or a lack of competitive action.
As outsiders go, Jeff Smith and Martijn Kleermaker should be respected but we are talking top 20 players in the world that they are up against so one or both of those is going to have to play badly in order to allow one of these in and I’m not sure that is going to happen. Before Cullen delivered that performance at the second time of asking I would have had Dobey has a warm favourite in this group. I’m not so sure now though so I’ll leave this group alone.
Match Betting
We’ve had to wait a while but we finally have one of those matches where the competitors look evenly matched but the player throwing first is the outsider. We have capitalised on this occurrence regularly throughout the competition so far and we’ll look to do that again here. It comes in the third match of the evening where Martijn Kleermaker takes on Jeff Smith, with the Dutchman being the player with the advantage of throw.
Smith is no stranger to online darts but it isn’t as though Kleermaker looked in difficulties with the situation in his first group. He averaged comfortably over 95 in two of his matches and despite all his online experience, Smith didn’t really score all that well and although his finishing is always dangerous he’ll have to time everything well if he is to win this match. I’m a big fan of Smith but I like the Dutchman too and that advantage of throw and his extra scoring power is enough to make me take him at evens.
Tips
Back M.Kleermaker to beat J.Smith for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2020
