Party Poker European Championships

Posted: 25.07.11 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

The darts tournaments are coming thick and fast! Our preview welcomes pundits with puns not sports science and why this could turn out to be a smashing event!

Hot on the heels of the Skybet Matchplay from Blackpool the increasingly congested darts calendar has produced another high profile event. The PDC European Championship in the “Party City” of Germany – Dusseldorf- what a fantastic place, but that’s another story.

So what is in it for the Darts Performance Centre? Well first of all the coverage is being transmitted by ITV4 and not Sky. This means we will have a “new team” of pundits and commentators to entertain us with their profound and not so profound thoughts on the action. That will be good!

The Sky team is fantastic! However we had to listen to John Gwynne during the Matchplay getting stuck into a bit of technique analysis (describing the eye-line of a player) and discussing with Sid: the psychology of darts, the science of darts and the “performance analysis” carried out by Taylor to weigh up the probability of his second or third dart being capable of following the first one into the treble twenty bed (or whether to go downstairs for treble 19 if he “knew” his dart couldn’t hit the target). What has all that got to do with darts? Whizzes over my head. You will be telling me next there is a website dedicated to darts improvement that covers all of these areas (and much much more!)

Another reason to welcome ITV 4 -The “Iceman”, one of the hardest working men in darts should be on the ITV 4 team. Excellent, his puns are the best on the darting punditry market!

Another area for us is to keep track of the players competing apart from the “usual suspects”. It is always a treat of course to watch the higher echelons of the PDC hurl their darts but... Whitlock V Darts Performance Centre favourite Suljovic, The King V Stompe, Klassen V Chisnall and the tie of the round if you are, like us, wanting to know what is going on in European darts: Kim Huybrechts of Belguim  v Antonio Alcinas of Spain. Should be a cracker!

Finally the first round matches are over a short format of first to six. This is of course the format used in the Players' Championships floor events so everyone is used to it, but it is also capable of throwing up some surprises. Well we have to give some hope to “The Deadly Rose”, the nickname of the Greek PDC player John Michael.

He has drawn Matchplay winner “The Power” in round one. If John can pull off a shock there may be a few plates smashed in celebration (and in defiance of health and safety) in Cyprus on Thursday night! 

The full draw is:

Phil Taylor (1, ENG) v John Michael (GRE) 
Mervyn King (ENG) v Co Stompe (NED) 
Mark Webster (8, WAL) v Terry Jenkins (ENG) 
Justin Pipe (ENG) v Paul Nicholson (AUS) 
Simon Whitlock (5, AUS) v Mensur Suljovic (AUT) 
Alan Tabern (ENG) v Colin Lloyd (ENG) 
Gary Anderson (4, SCO) v Jamie Caven (ENG) 
John Part (CAN) v Peter Wright (ENG) 
Adrian Lewis (2, ENG) v Vincent van der Voort (NED)
Jelle Klaasen (NED) v Dave Chisnall (ENG) 
Wes Newton (7, ENG) v Andy Smith (ENG) 
Kim Huybrechts (BEL) v Antonio Alcinas (ESP) 
Raymond van Barneveld (6, NED) v Andy Hamilton (ENG) 
Wayne Jones (ENG) v Mark Walsh (ENG) 
James Wade (3, ENG) v Magnus Caris (SWE) 
Ronnie Baxter (ENG) v Michael van Gerwen (NED)

..............................................................................................................................................

The Darts Performance Centre is a resource to assist dart players of all standards play better darts. The site is arranged as an online coaching manual. There is advice on technique, nerves, psychology, goal setting, practice games, an area to log your statistics and an interactive area where your darting questions are answered by two sports scientists, one with 30 years dart playing experience and an invite to our exclusive members only events!