Another week of Icons of Darts action gets underway on Monday with the players who were in action in the truncated last week getting another chance to showcase their talents and maintain competitive practice for our entertainment.
We have the World Matchplay to look forward to at the end of the week, but prior to that two pools of players will battle it out for the daily titles. We saw a decent enough day of darts last Monday and that’s hopefully what we’ll get here too.
The Format
Each day from Monday to Saturday six players will battle it out for a daily title. There are two pools of players, one which plays on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other which toe the oche on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each day the six players will play each other once over the best of nine legs with two points for a win. The daily winner is the player with the most points. If players are level on points it is determined on leg difference and then the record between the two. The entire event can be watched on various bookmaker websites, dartshop.tv or the Modus YouTube channel.
Tuesday Recap
There were only two days of competition last week due to the PDC Summer Series and the second of the two groups was dominated by Ritchie Edhouse who won four of his five matches to land the only title he competed for on the week. That was enough to finish two points above Mark Webster, Andy Jenkins and David Evans who all had three wins to their name. Stephen Burton and John Brown didn’t have their best days and could only register solitary successes.
We were never going to get massively involved in a two day week and we decided to play Tuesday’s action with just the one bet, which was for Mark Webster to beat Stephen Burton. The former world champion obliged as he won 5-3 despite averaging less than 85 for the match. That made it two profitable days for the week and hopefully we can pick up where we left off this week.
Monday Line Up
So we have the same pool of players that featured last Monday. Scott Marsh won all five of his matches on the day to land the title and he is back to attempt to defend it. Jarred Cole was the man who gave him the most to think about over the course of the day and it is he who opens the week as the favourite to come away with the first title with most of the bookmakers. Diogo Portela is respected by bookmakers but will have to up his game a little if he is to win the group.
The other three players look a little bit out of their depth it has to be said. Probably the best of them is likely to be Adam Huckvale although he hasn’t really ever threatened a group win. Keelan Kay has been seen regularly in the Icons of Darts but he isn’t consistent enough to challenge this sort of company while Dave Parletti just doesn’t seem to be able to put pairs of wins together to get himself into the mix.
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Outright Betting
The day went almost exactly as I expected it to last Monday with the only blemish being Jarred Cole losing to Scott Marsh but to be fair to Cole, Marsh averaged 103 and he isn’t going to run into those kind of performances very often it has to be said. The fact that Cole only lost three legs in his other four matches makes me think that I got the call right on that occasion but that the luck wasn’t with me but I’m prepared to go with him again even at 2/1.
I’m pretty certain that Marsh is the only one who can handle him over the course of the day so it might just be that the determining factor in deciding who comes out on top is the order of play. That is in favour of Cole on Monday as he has the early shift so if he can be as dominant as expected, he could be in a wonderful position by the time he takes on Marsh in his final match of the day. Marsh still has two matches to come after that so even if Cole hasn’t won the group by then, he could really pile the pressure on Marsh and come out on top anyway. I’ll take Cole again here.
Match Betting
It is Scott Marsh I’m going to side with in the match betting. I took him to cover a 1.5 leg handicap against Dave Parletti last Monday and I’ll back him to cover the same handicap against Adam Huckvale this Monday. Huckvale is a solid enough opponent but he doesn’t have the scoring ability that Marsh has and I think that will be the difference. Marsh always seems to score well in the Icons of Darts and that scoring pressure could be important here.
When Marsh is beaten it is generally by top class opponents and a lot of the time it is because he misses doubles against them but I expect him to be ok against Huckvale. When these two met last Monday, Marsh won 5-1 with an almost 90 average while Huckvale really struggled. In fact Huckvale struggled all day. His highest average was 85.30 and that was the only time all day he averaged more than 81. Unless he improves significantly I expect him to be emphatically beaten again here. Even if he does improve, Marsh has more in him so I like Marsh to cover a 1.5 leg handicap.
Tips
WON – Back J.Cole to win Group 1 for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with 888sport
Back him here:
Back S.Marsh (-1.5 legs) to beat A.Huckvale for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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