PDC World Championships Day 10 Review Day 11 Preview

Posted: 23.12.18 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

Tactics or pure darts, what is your preference?

It has been a gruelling 11 days! Trying to write a blog each day, climbing the hill and all the emotional energy supporting Diogo, it must have been tough for all the players too 

Seriously though, what a show it has been, it has had everything, well except that but there is still time for the ultimate leg.

There are two kinds of darts matches that stick in the mind. The first of these are the “controversial” games. These often bring the best and the worst out in the players. Nathan Aspinall for example had a game plan to tackle Price’s celebrations. Cleverly he just laughed every time Gerwyn struck a pose and slowly but surely, and with the help of the crowd Price faded away and the rest is history.

Another clever player is Keegan Brown. He slowed Klassen right down when Jelle went off like a train in their game. Klassen then took to Twitter to moan about Keegan’s tactics. It is unbelievable that a former BDO World Champion with all that experience can still fall for these tactics. I don’t need to tell Jelle that actually, his Twitter followers explained more than adequately that maybe silence is golden after a bruising defeat.

 The other type of match that sticks on the memory is one when there are no tactics, no side to either player, just pure darting action. Anderson and Wattimena provided that for us last night in the stand out game of the day! It was magic to watch but to keep the sport interesting both the tactical matches and the fast tempo pure darts games are equally as important.

Photo Lawrence Ludwig/PDC

Afternoon Session (1230)
Vincent Van der Voort 19/17 v Chris Dobey 5/6 (R3)
Brendan Dolan 10/9 v Mervyn King 5/6 (R3)
James Wade 4/11 v Keegan Brown 14/5 (R3)

Evening Session (1900)
Adrian Lewis 1/3 v Darius Labanauskas 14/5 (R3)
Nathan Aspinall 6/4 v Kyle Anderson 8/13(R3)
Rob Cross 3/13 v Cristo Reyes 4/1 (R3)

There are six round 3 games today to take us into the Christmas break. The afternoon session looks like it is a great example of what we have been talking about. Vincent and Chris Dobey will play without tactics, Dolan and King will definitely have some deliberate slow play and Wade and Brown could go off like a box of fireworks. Great, looking forward to it.

In the evening it is Jackpot v Darius. It is weird seeing Labanauskas playing on the PDC side as he has been a BDO player for a long time. Hugely under-rated and a cracking player on his day. He is a big price to defeat Adrian and this may look high depending on which Jackpot takes to the stage today.

Another big price is Cristo Reyes at 4/1 to beat Cross. Rob was written off by many at the start of the tournamnet but put in an excellent performance. He will need another one to get past Cristo Reyes.

To finish we should have some more pure darts with Aspinall, Anderson, Cross and Reyes in action.

Super Sunday Dabble

Dobey 5/6 Dolan/King Over 5.5 sets 8/15 Cross/Reyes Over 5.5 sets 11/10 at just over 4/1

Super Sunday Gamble

Reyes to beat Cross 4/1