PDC Premier League

Posted: 26.03.18 in Darts Performance Centre Blog category

Premier League Darts is an annual darts competition which is organised and run by the Professional Darts Corporation in the United Kingdom. The tournament is comprised of ten players which includes the current top four players in the order of merit. The other six players are wildcards and are chosen jointly by the PDC and Sky Sports, who broadcast the tournament.

Each set of matches is played in a different location and most of these are located in cities around the United Kingdom. The exception to this are the matches that are played in Berlin and Rotterdam. The final is played at the O2 Arena in London.

The first phase of the tournament sees every player face each other once with the results being recorded in a league table. At the end of this stage then the two players that are ranked lowest in the table are removed from the competition. This is the stage of the tournament that we are currently at so two players will leave the competition imminently. If it is your favourite player that has left then you may want to cheer yourself up by discovering some of the top new slot sites where you may find some dart themed games.

When there are only eight players left in the competition it moves to the second stage. The players will then play everyone else that is left in the competition once with the results being added to the league table. Once this phase has been completed then the top four players will progress to the final stage of the competition. Two semi finals will be played with the winner of each going through to the final. This match will then decide which player will be the winner and which will be the runner up. The total prize money for the competition is £825,000 and the winner will receive £250,000.

The competition has been running for fourteen years and has followed the current format since 2013. This year will be the first time in the history of the tournament that Phil Taylor has not been among the ten players competing. Although he had a place in the order of merit, he announced his retirement before the competition began. Michael Van Gerwen is among the favourites to win this year’s competition. If he is successful then this will be fourth time he has won the tournament overall and he would also become the first player to win three successive titles.

Premier League Darts is well known for the number of new players that qualify for the tournament every year. It is very unlikely that the same ten players would compete in consecutive seasons. There are only four players this year that competed in the previous competition. This is in large part due to the fact that the majority of the places are chosen by wild card. However, these places are still awarded to players that have impressed through the rest of the darts season and so a lot of hard work is required to get to this tournament.