The first Saturday of a New Year means the Lakeside Country Club opens its doors to some of the biggest and best darts players in the world as the BDO World Championship gets underway.
This year’s tournament begins with a bang with the number one seed in action in one of the two sessions of play as well as the defending ladies champion and a people’s champion.
The afternoon session on Saturday begins with a tasty looking clash between Jim Williams and everyone’s hero Tony O’Shea before Craig Caldwell and Alan Soutar do battle in a preliminary round match. Darryl Fitton then takes on Dennis Harbour in the first round.
The Bald Eagle himself Larry Butler opens up the evening session when he looks to make it into the first round proper at the expense of James Hurrell. After that last year’s semi-finalist Jeff Smith takes on the Dutch player Matthew Medhurst for the right to face Wolfie in round one before the match of the day sees Glen Durrant taking on the talented youngster Dean Reynolds.
In the women’s competition the defending champion Lisa Ashton begins her title defence in the afternoon ahead of the former winner Anastasia Dobromyslova looking to make the quarter finals in the evening so a packed first day awaits us.
I often play the Lakeside differently to the PDC tournament. I restrict myself to few bets in the opening round at the Lakeside building up an idea of how everyone has settled in ahead of bigger and better things later in the week.
There are a couple I like in the afternoon though and the first is on Williams to see off O’Shea. Welshman Williams is a dark horse for this tournament as I highlighted in my outright preview and I think he’s getting O’Shea at the right time.
It will be one of sports travesties if O’Shea doesn’t get his hands on this title but sadly that looks like being the case now as he is a shadow of his past. In fairness to Silverback he did show he can still cut it here last year when he ran eventual winner Scott Mitchell as close as anyone but whether he can repeat that remains to be seen.
Confidence is everything in this game and after two wins and two semi-finals in the last couple of months it is Jim Wililams who has that and he has my money behind him here too.
In the next match Scotland’s Alan Soutar will be looking to overcome the New Zealand player Craig Caldwell but I’m not so sure he will manage it.
Soutar hasn’t really been much of a fixture on the tour for a while and although he was part of Scotland’s World Cup winning team in 2013 he’s very much on his own here.
Caldwell might not be the best player going around but he’s shared a stage with Phil Taylor a couple of times in 2015 and James Wade and that is good experience and he put up a fair showing on all three occasions.
Nerves is likely to play a big part in this match but if Caldwell can settle down early doors and get into his work he might quickly find that he doesn’t have a lot to beat here and I can see him coming through with a bit in hand.
That is it for betting on the opening day for me. I’m not tempted by Darryl Fitton just yet. He has given me many virtual heart attacks down the years with his doubling so him at short prices isn’t for me.
I’m not sure I can take Larry Butler at a short price either albeit I expect him to win. Jeff Smith was a different proposition until his flight problems and I’ll sit and watch what could be either a classic between Durrant and Reynolds or a blowout with the youngster struggling with the occasion.
In the women’s draw it is hard to see anything but cruises for Ashton and Anastasia. They should be on easy street throughout and probably won’t lose more than a couple of legs between them if they are on their games.
Back J.Williams to beat T.O’Shea for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Ladbrokes
Back C.Caldwell to beat A.Soutar for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Ladbrokes
