The third day of action in the Icons of Darts event this week sees us back with the first pool of players, who compete for the middle group of the three they line up for as our darting fix continues to be provided by the team at Modus Darts.
This is the pool of players that has the heavyweight names in it and they delivered a wonderfully entertaining group on Monday. Those who needed to shake off some cobwebs will have done so which means we should be in for a cracking day of darts.
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.
Confirmation of today’s final league table ✅ @reddragondarts #IconsofDarts
A clean sweep for Jenks ?? pic.twitter.com/ygp4VHanzN
— MODUS Sports (@ModusDarts180) August 4, 2020
Tuesday Recap
It was a brilliant start to the week for Andy Jenkins as he won all five of the matches that he played which was quite some effort when this was his first outing since before the World Matchplay. Mark Webster had a much better showing than the last time we saw him when he won three matches to come second on leg difference Keelan Kay and Scott Marsh both won three matches to come third and fourth respectively but it was a day to forget for two big names. Boris Koltsov was the favourite to win the group but could only register one win and Scott Mitchell couldn’t even do that well as he lost all five games.
It wasn’t a great day for us betting wise as the missed doubles that can plague Boris Koltsov from time to time came back when we needed it the least. He didn’t just fail to cover the 1.5 leg handicap against Mark Webster but actually lost the match so that undid some of the work we did to get the week off to a good start on Monday. Hopefully we get back to winning ways on Wednesday.
Wednesday Line Up
We go back to the players who were on show on Monday which means that it will be Martin Adams who will be defending the title and going for a fourth group win in a row. He isn’t going to have it all his own way though, as he didn’t on Monday, as David Evans represents a stiff opponent. He only lost out on leg difference on Monday so he’ll be looking to go one better here. Keane Barry showed improvement on Monday but there is still a lot to come from him and he could make this very competitive.
Scott Marsh can have no complaints about his sharpness because he has been involved in both groups to date this week and gets another go in the limelight on Wednesday. The other two players on show on Wednesday both need to offer a lot more than they have done recently if they are going to be involved in the business end. They are Diogo Portela, whose game looks to have completely left him, and Jose Justicia.
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Outright Betting
When the line up of players was announced for this week I thought I would be loading up on the group bets in this pool but then they fixtures came out and the big three are all in the same little section of fixtures so none of them have the chance to post a score separately that can last home. That is good for us watching, but it doesn’t help from a betting point of view, unless you think one of the outsiders can post a challenging number of points.
I don’t see that happening though and would be amazed if Scott Marsh, Diogo Portela or Jose Justicia offer up enough points to possibly win this group. I have the winner coming from the other three but because they compete against each other in the final three matches of the day, knowing who needs what and everything else will make such a difference, and of course we don’t have that luxury in advance. With that in mind I’ll sit the group out.
Match Betting
I’ll go with one in the match betting though and that comes in the form of the match between Martin Adams and Scott Marsh which takes place midway through the day and it is a match I expect Adams to come out on top in. We’ve seen Adams close to his best if not actually there over the last three days that he has competed and while I like Marsh and have seen good things from him, the simple truth of it is he isn’t as good as Adams.
That is borne out in their results too. Adams has won their last six meetings, five of those have been by a 5-2 score and the other was 5-3 so he isn’t just beating Marsh but he has a good bit in hand when he does so. I suspect one of the reasons for that is that Marsh’s scoring can be inconsistent. The other reason is his doubling can be erratic and he can often leave himself on some weird doubles. Whatever the reason is, six wins on the trot can’t be a coincidence and it must be starting to have an impact on Marsh. I’ll take Adams -1.5 legs.
Tips
WON – Back M.Adams (-1.5 legs) to beat S.Marsh for a 3/10 stake at 1.79 with 888sport
Back him here:
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