European Darts Championship Day 3

Posted: 05.07.13 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

We have news of the demise of the cycling darts concept and we have become Euro (player) sceptics!

I have some bad news to kick the blog off with, but then it does cheer up after that! The Darts/Cycling concept isn’t going to happen. The Health and Safety issues are huge according to my man in France so the concept has been binned, for the time being!

However, ITV 4 has come to the rescue of dart fans that have had to suffer the despair of their sport of choice being superseded by men in lycra. The games that were only going to be on the pay channel at the PDC are now going to be shown on the ITV 4 website, hurrah. Why the sponsors Party Poker didn’t insist on this from the start is beyond me, but the situation is resolved, in some way anyway.

One thing to me these Euro events highlight is the European players not in the “mainstream” of the PDC (the mainstream includes:Barney, MVG, Hybrechts etc) still have a long way to go to be able to compete with the top UK based PDC players. Setting aside Max Hopp, he is only 16 and has a great future if he is guided correctly the rest have been below par. Seyler looked very average, Suljovic is a great character but with a technique that handicaps him hugely and last night we saw Kurt Van De Rijck.

He is in the habit of twisting his dart to the left, so the point is skewed to one side and yet it seems he hasn’t considered why his darts rarely group and put two and two together. He did hit 2, 180’s as Philip one of my twitter pals pointed out to me. He did, but this just allows the problem to continue because he then believes that his technique is sound! If these European based players truly want to make an impact in the main PDC arena they need to realise these drubbings are a reality check and more work is needed on their technique!

The Bulldog Darts

The darts was much more entertaining last night than night one and I didn’t miss a chuck. All the darts fans that stayed to the bitter end were rewarded with a classic game between Painter and Part. I described it as a master-class and a great game for any standard of player to study! Why?

First of all their preparation. It was midnight I think by the time the game started but both players looked fresh and ready to go. No mean feat in a boiling hot tournament environment. Painter then underpinned his preparation by banging in two 180’s on the bounce to set up a 9 dart chance in the first leg.

Fast forwarding to Painter being 4:1 up the Canadian demonstrated why he has been a Champion. Painter has already had 4 leg winning darts and Part was on 170! Part popped that in and also demonstrated why dart players should never, ever give up! JP brought the match back to 4:4 before Painter had the mental toughness to defy the mystical laws of momentum, as well as a second 170 opportunity missed by a whisker from Part to take the last two legs and win 6:4. Those who backed Painter at bwin.com/en/dart will have been delighted.

Phew! That is a few reasons why it is worth studying!

Tips

We also had an interest in their match from a betting perspective and the 2:1 double came home after Painter’s win.

I fancy sticking with Painter for his game against Lewis, but I am playing it safe and taken him in the handicap (+2.5) and double this up with The Hammer to beat Nico. 

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