Ladbrokes World Darts Championship

Posted: 11.12.13 in Tournament Analysis Blog category

Here is our preview of the PDC World Championships.

The event does, however, give us darts fans the chance to see players rarely spotted on TV or some we may never even have heard of. This year is no exception; Rob Sbazo from New Zealand, Zoran Lerchbacher from Austria and Ting Chi Royden Lam from Hong Kong are players I am looking forward to watching. There are some old friends too; Paul Lim takes on Hashimoto from Japan for example.

There has been one disappointment; Edward Santos from The Philippines has withdrawn from the event due to problems with his flights. But fear not Colin Osborne has stepped in to take his place. I have nothing against Colin Osborne, I have never met him in fact, he seems like a nice chap but it is slightly disappointing a more “global” replacement couldn’t be found.

Anyway, let’s move forward to the business end and fathom who is going to wander home with the trophy and the £250,000 cheque. I was looking back at the previous finals and in the inaugural event in 1994 Priestly took home £16,000 for beating Taylor 6:1 in the final. More evidence, if it is needed of the strides darts has taken commercially in twenty years.

Who is going to win? Well is it worth looking any further than the big 3? The Power, Jackpot and MVG are the realistic contenders. Recent history suggests backing anyone else is throwing your money away. Rodders and Wayne may try and tell you otherwise (someone invariably flags up Barney) and The Machine is a great player on his day. But, we have described him as a “loose cannon” on many occasions (and this description is not intended to belittle the publicised battle he is fighting) and nothing has changed on that score. So block your ears to the pundits’ farfetched fancies. Even though Barney is  40/1, as the old joke goes, ”if you don’t understand betting this means if you place £1 on Barney you get nothing back”!

But Taylor is 10/11 before the first dart has been thrown. Why you ask? It is because he is in the other side of the draw to MVG and Lewis and his form this year has been sensational of course. In Taylor’s quarter are The Thorn, Snakebite and Wes. His potential semi final opponents (if he gets that far) include Whitlock, Hamilton and Kim Huybrechts.  

Probably the best advice here is to take the sponsor’s kind offer of a free bet to the value of your stake if The Power prevails yet again. You can bet up to £25.00 on anyone else to win it (singles or E/W). So a split between MVG (3/1) and Jackpot (6/1) seems to be the call for the outright market if you can’t bring yourself to back Taylor at odds on before the off!

Anyway, let’s not get carried away, we have a sensational few weeks of darts ahead and we will take it one game at a time. We will be blogging on any areas of interest as the tournament progresses and have a statistical tip or two as well. You can also follow us on Twitter.

The championships start on Friday at 7pm and the first night’s action is as follows:

John Part (2/5) v Mareno Michels (9/4)
Rob Szabo (5/2) v Ian Moss (P)(2/5)
Peter Wright (1/4) v Joe Cullen (7/2)
Phil Taylor (1/100) v Szabo/Moss (20/1)
Richie Burnett(E) v Dean Winstanley (9/10)

Tips:

Our guest tipster for one night only (unless it wins of course) is Aidan Farrelly, our throw like a pro blogger!

Aidan doesn't do things by halves and has come up with this 17 man acca for the first round! 21/1 at SkyBet. Part, wright, Taylor, White, Thornton, Hamilton, Chisnall, Barney, Dolan, Beaton,King, Lloyd, MvG, Whitlock, Pipe, Lewis, Newton!!

We are starting a little more cautiously and have the Deano/Prince of Wales game to have over 17.5 legs and Snakebite -1.5 sets in the handicap against Joe Cullen

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

TheDarts 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. You also get an invite to our free but exclusive members only events and acess to our members only darts coaching app! Membership is £25 per year!