The final tournament before the PDC World Championship is the Players Championship Finals and that take place in Minehead this weekend.
The best 32 players across the PDC Tour in 2015 have qualified for this event and each will head to the south west looking for both a confidence boost and a decent payday ahead of the World Championship.
The quirky nature of this event means that instead of the seeds being done on world rankings they are instead formed by where a player finished in the Pro Tour order of merit. That is why we get some first round matches such as Gary Anderson versus Phil Taylor which is the headline match in the first round this year.
Michael van Gerwen is totally dominant in the world of darts at the minute and it is no surprise to see him installed as the 7/4 favourite to win another big TV event. Despite the Dutchman’s dominance it is Gary Anderson who is the defending champion this weekend. He is 10/1 to defend it successfully.
Anderson and Taylor are both in the same half of the draw as Van Gerwen so one of them is going to have to play exceptionally well to come through that. Rather than guess who it is who will come through the safest thing to do is to look at the bottom half of the draw for an outright punt.
Whoever we take in the bottom half will begin the weekend safe on the knowledge that he can not face any of the big 3 until the final. Although the big names are in the top half of the draw that doesn’t mean the bottom half isn’t competitive.
It still contains players such as Peter Wright who narrowly lost in the final of the World Series to Van Gerwen last weekend. He’s in good form but that run in Glasgow has restricted his price. We should remember he had the crowd on his side in Scotland and he may not have that here.
Raymond Barneveld, Adrian Lewis and Jelle Klaasen are former world champions in the bottom half of the draw and all three are perfectly capable of landing this tournament. We also have seasoned campaigners at this level in the form of Ian White, Mervyn King and Terry Jenkins who could come through if the draw opens up.
I’m going to take a chance on an improving youngster who I feel has big tournaments in him and that is Michael Smith. We have seen on the Pro Tour all year how good Smith is. So much so that he is the number two seed this weekend ahead of the likes of Anderson and Taylor. He hasn’t yet fulfilled his potential in the really big events but we saw in the Grand Slam how much quality he has.
These weekend long events are often dominated by players who score particularly well and Smith certainly does that. There isn’t an easy part of the draw these days but Smith’s section is maybe easier than some so with that in mind he looks a natural bet this weekend.
Back M.Smith to win Players Championship Finals (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with Skybet (1/2 1-2)
