It's Lakeside Eve

Posted: 04.01.19 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

Here is our preview of the 2019 Lakeside World Pro!

It’s Lakeside Eve and after many months of the event being shrouded in uncertainty about whether it was going ahead or not the BDO is back at the Home of World Darts, The Lakeside!

Some of you will know I was lucky enough to be the voice of the BDO Twitter and Facebook at Lakeside since the 2014 event. That event is a bit of a blur now (each year is in fact J). It was won by Stephen Bunting who made a fool of me by proclaiming he was going to come back to defend his title only to change his mind and shoot off to the PDC. My tweet announcing his plans to defend his title got tweeted back at me many times when he made the switch.

It was great fun running the social media, I wasn’t given a brief or anything, I just kind of made it up as I went along. It seemed to go well! Each year though the social media side was slowly given the respect it deserves and became a little more “corporate”. I decided that at the end of the 2018 event I would call it a day. I was becoming a bit stale and 5 events with my jokes is enough for anyone. It has been great to see the BDO social media go from strength to strength over the past 12 months.

So, this year I will be taking on a new role at Lakeside. Our sister company, Performance Darts, are proud sponsors of Big Dog, Adam Smith-Neale. I will be going along to support Adam as we prepare to launch his signature darts later in January.

Adam has had a somewhat fraught build up to the Lakeside having tripped over a kerb and severely damaged his foot.  He is only just out of plaster and will be playing with the aid of a crutch. His opponent is 50-year-old, Mark “The Cowboy” McGrath from New Zealand. Mark played in the 2017 Championships, going out 3:0 to Scotty Dog after winning his Preliminary game.

Picture Credit - Evert Zomer

The Draw

It is very much a draw of 2 halves for Lakeside 2019. The bottom half of the draw looks horrendous. Durrant, Mitchell, Williams, Montgomery to name 4. In the top half it is McGeeney, Waites and Unterbuchner who leap out as potential finalists.

Who Wins?

Duzza is 11/10 favourite to win the trophy for the 3^rd time. In the bottom half, potential each way bets are McGeeney, Unterbuchner at 10/1 and Scott Waites at 22/1. Waites has not had the best of years but he has a well trodden formula to prepare for Lakeside and always seems to excel here. Scott Mitchell is another player who could go under the radar. Yes, he may have to overcome Durrant but at 16/1 there is definitely some value there.

In the Ladies event anyone who recalls Lisa Ashton’s first set in the Worlds will like the look of even money for her to retain her title. Anastasia, who was poor at the Grand Slam is 5/1 and Fallon Sherrock and Deta 10/1.

Outsiders here worth considering are  Mikuru Suzuki at 20/1 and Maria O’Brien at 50/1. Both are capable of going all the way on their day but if Lisa Ashton plays like she did at the Worlds then there will only be one winner.

The action starts on Saturday afternoon and there are still tickets available from the Lakeside Box Office. If you can get along, do, it is a brilliant day/night out.

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