Another week of Icons of Darts action gets underway on Monday as the first pool of players line up on their home oches to continue to bring us our darting fix and to provide competitive practice for those who are involved.
We saw some really good groups last week and the line ups this week look very good indeed. That should mean that the quality and the competitiveness is there throughout so we should have plenty to enjoy.
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.
Saturday Recap
We got another group that went right the way down to the last match of the day on Saturday and it was Martin Adams who came out on top courtesy of a 5-4 win over Stephen Burton in the final game. Had Burton won 5-2 it would have been he who would have topped the table. As it was it was Scott Mitchell and Boris Koltsov who came second and third on six points, two points below Adams. Burton ended fourth with four points, the same tally that Keane Barry picked up while Mike Warburton finished last with one win.
It wasn’t a good end to the week for us betting wise. We only went in with the one bet which was for Martin Adams to see off Boris Koltsov but in an annoying stoke of events it was actually the only match of the day that he lost. A raft of missed doubles at the wrong time proved costly so that took away a little of the good work we had put in for the week but it still wasn’t a bad one overall.
Monday Line Up
There is a little bit of confusion over the exact line up on Monday. We know five of the men for definite and we have a return to action for David Evans who will be looking to resume winning group titles once again. He might have his work cut out though because he will be up against two men who both picked up two group wins last week. Martin Adams is the second favourite for the group while Scott Marsh has turned himself into a winning machine.
Keane Barry didn’t have anything like his best darts with him last week but he gets another chance to showcase his skills here while Diogo Portela will be looking to put a pretty rough week behind him. The confusion comes in the remaining player in the field. The caption released by Modus Darts suggests that Jose Justicia is that player but a number of the betting websites have Ritchie Edhouse in their odds.
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Outright Betting
Given that we don’t know the official make up of the group and if it is Justicia who is in it very few bookies have him in the line up, we can’t really get involved in the outright betting. You would think that David Evans would be a worthy favourite but winning momentum seems to mean a lot in the Icons of Darts so Martin Adams and Scott Marsh certainly shouldn’t be disrespected that is for sure. It is probably too early to write Keane Barry off as well it should be said.
The other thing to consider would have been the order of the fixtures. We saw most of last week that players who posted a total ended up winning the group. That might not be much help on Monday though because the three big guns – Evans, Adams and Barry are the first three off at the start of the day. Even if we could bet on the group I probably wouldn’t for that very reason.
Match Betting
Given all the uncertainty that is around the day I’ll go with the one bet which comes relatively late in the day as David Evans takes on Diogo Portela in a match I expect Evans to dominate from the start to the finish. I mentioned last week how Portela was struggling and a lot of his averages were below 80. He certainly isn’t going to trouble Evans if his averages in this match are in that range that is for sure so I have to take him on.
I’ll take the 6/4 that Evans completes the full house of winning the match, hitting the most 180s and having the highest checkout. Portela has only hit six 180s in his last 10 matches so he is not a heavy scorer by any stretch of the imagination and his highest checkout in those 10 matches has been just 96. I don’t expect Portela to win many legs in this match so it makes sense that Evans is likely to have the highest checkout so that 6/4 on him Evans King of the Oche will do me.
Tips
WON – Back D.Evans ‘King of the Oche’ vs D.Portela for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with 888sport
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