DAY THREE EVENING MATCHES

	Steve Beaton	Kyle Anderson
Qualified by	#21 in world rankings	#13 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	23	47
Odds	4-5	6-5
Last Year	Last 64, 1-3 vs Petersen	Last 64, 1-3 vs White
Majors	Last 32 Players, Euro, Grand Prix, Matchplay, last 64 UK Open	Last 128 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x RU, 1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 4 x last 32	1 x last 32
Pro Tour	1 x SF, 3 x QF, 7 x last 16, 6 x las 32, 5 x last 64	1 x SF, 1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 9 x last 64

Let us get paid.

Steve Beaton is a former Lakeside world champion who has stuck around the top 32 since moving from the BDO in 2002, although hasn't set the world alight in the PDC - this season he's been unimpressive in the majors, losing at the first time of asking to Dolan, Bunting, van Gerwen and Taylor (twice). So I think we can excuse that. On the floor, he got to the final in Gibraltar, losing to Wade after beating Anderson and Whitlock, and has had a solid season domestically although not breaking through to the absolute business end too often.

Kyle Anderson became a household name (at least in my house) by hitting a nine darter against Ian White in last year's worlds, losing the match though. He took the gamble to come here and play the tour, sneaking into the UK Open after he couldn't play the first half of the qualifiers (think it was a visa issue or something), but lost a decider to Kevin McDine two rounds before the money. He qualifier for one European Tour event, beating Kev Dowling before losing to Thornton, and has had a couple of deep runs on the tour, taking advantage of a pretty favourable draw to get to a semi final in April, beating Wade on the way, and locking up the Ally Pally spot in Ireland with a quarter final run, beating Wade again.

This line is hugely off. Beaton is the vastly superior player, hugely more experienced, and simply playing better. I don't know why it's this close - maybe the bookies went ZOMG NINE DARTER and ignored the rest of the legs he lost. Best bet of the round.

2u Beaton 4/5

	Terry Jenkins	John Weber
Qualified by	#16 in world rankings	Oceanic Masters winner
64 ranking	12	82
Odds	1-9	7-1
Last Year	Last 64, 2-3 vs Laursen	Debut
Majors	RU Euros, UK Open, QF Players, last 16 Grand Prix, last 32 Matchplay	None
Euro Tour	1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 2 x last 32	None
Pro Tour	1 x win, 1 x RU, 3 x QF, 4 x last 16, 6 x last 32, 9 x last 64	None

I know little of Weber. It's his first time here, and he made it by beating Rob Szabo, who clearly doesn't suck as he has 15 minutes of fame by taking a set off Phil Taylor in the opening round of last year's worlds.

Jenkins is having somewhat of an Indian summer, if we can equate that into the length of a career, having a great run in the UK Open, beating Wade in a decider then van Gerwen in the semi final, before seeming spent and losing to Adrian Lewis in the final, only winning a solitary leg. van Gerwen would get revenge in the final of the recent European Championship, with Jenkins having got through Anderson, Thornton, Bunting and King to get to the final before ending up as a bridesmaid once again.

This shouldn't be close. Weber might win a few legs, but I can't see Jenkins losing this one ever. Safe as houses for your accas.

	Simon Whitlock	Darren Webster
Qualified by	#7 in world rankings	#2 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	7	31
Odds	1-3	3-1
Last Year	Semi final, 2-6 vs Wright	Last 64, 2-3 vs Wade
Majors	SF Matchplay, last 32 Players, Euro, Grand Prix, last 64 UK Open	Last 32 Players, Grand Prix, Matchplay, last 64 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x RU, 2 x SF, 1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 1 x last 32	2 x last 16, 1 x last 32
Pro Tour	1 x win, 2 x SF, 1 x QF, 7 x last 16, 8 x last 32, 3 x last 64	6 x QF, 3 x last 16, 4 x last 32, 6 x last 64

The main event of tonight's antipodean action sees former finalist Simon Whitlock against perennial can't quite get over the line or into the top 32 superstar Darren Webster.

Whitlock's been poor in the majors this year, he was a trainwreck in the Premier League, and only a good showing in the Matchplay prevented a complete set of failure. His form on the European Tour has been solid, an arena that he likes quite a lot, and he picked up a Pro Tour win in Coventry in June, with wins over Painter, White, Dolan and Wade in the final.

Webster's a veteran player, who having made the quarter final in 2007, beating Bob Anderson, Adrian Gray and Wynand "better than Peter Manley" Havenga before losing 1-5 to Taylor, took a break from the game for a couple of years, and is now making his way back up the rankings. Making the tournament through a great tour season, qualifying for most of the majors and going deep in quite a few tour events, the question is whether he can get over the line. You may recall his first round match against James Wade last season - he got several match darts, but was unable to post the winning double, similar to how he went out to Thornton in the Players Championship.

I think it's only a matter of time before he grabs the TV stage by the gonads and beats someone. Whitlock's there for the taking, and I think he does it. Webster's accumulated enough stage experience by now that he can take this chance.

1u Webster 3/1

	Gary Anderson	Mark McGrath/Scott Kirchner
Qualified by	#4 in world rankings	New Zealand qualifier/Dartslive soft tip qualifier
64 ranking	3	133
Odds	1-33	11-1
Last Year	Last 16, 3-4 vs van Gerwen	Debut
Majors	Won Players, SF Grand Prix, Matchplay, last 16 UK Open, last 32 Euro	None
Euro Tour	1 x win, 1 x SF, 1 x QF, 1 x last 16, 2 x last 32	None
Pro Tour	6 x win, 1 x RU, 3 x SF, 3 x QF, 2 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 5 x last 64	None

Let's be brief here. Mark McGrath qualified from New Zealand, and seems to be a complete unknown. He made the last 64 of the World Masters about a decade ago. Scott Kirchner won the DARTSLIVE soft tip qualifying event, and has toured extensively playing that version of the game, with pretty good results. He's also played a fair bit of steel tip, looking like he played the tour a fair bit in 08-09, and having shots at qualifying for the Las Vegas Desert Classic (remember that?) but not making it.

Gary Anderson is Gary Anderson.

Kirchner probably wins the qualifier and then doesn't win a leg.

Thanks for these posts sixfour. I bet on some of these matches to give me something to watch (esp. In the slow pre-christmas days Friday onwards) and this might be the first year I'm not lighting my money on fire

DAY FOUR AFTERNOON MATCHES

	Paul Nicholson	Benito van de Pas
Qualified by	#25 in world rankings	#3 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	30	40
Odds	10-11	11-10
Last Year	Last 32, 0-4 vs Painter	Debut (last 32 of BDO, 0-3 vs Dekker)
Majors	Last 16 Matchplay, last 32 UK Open	Last 32 Players, Euro, last 64 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x last 16, 2 x last 32	2 x last 16, 1 x last 32, 1 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x QF, 1 x last 16, 13 x last 32, 5 x last 64	1 x SF, 3 x QF, 3 x last 16, 4 x last 32, 5 x last 64

Let's ignite the fury of all Aussies by betting against everyone's favourite Newcastle native and shoving all the cash on van de Pas.

My only real cause to stop is that the likes of Mason and Warriner, almost as bad as Bristow at tipping, were saying he was a good outsider when looking at the odds for the Euros pre-tournament. Obviously he then loses to Peter Wright in the first round, but not without good chances. He's made it through the Pro Tour rankings, ahead of the likes of Kist and Huybrechts, with some time to spare - his best tour result came quite some time ago, beating King, Mansell, Michael Smith and Painter, not a bad run. Stick that on top of half a dozen last 16+ tour results and qualifying for several of the European events, and it was enough to get him into the Players Championship, albeit running into Peter Wright.

That is more than Paul Nicholson did. He snuck into the Matchplay (as the 31st of 32 qualifiers) and got a win, and made it to the money of the UK Open, but other than that, it's been an annus horribilis. Look at all those last 32's on the tour - 500 quid a time isn't going to cut the mustard.

Nicholson needs to do something here if he harbours ambitions of staying in the top 32 for much longer, and he's facing a young in-form Dutchman who will give zero ****s - I'm not sure who Nicholson's ideal opponent would be, but van de Pas is probably on a long list of someone he'll mentally crack to. I like the guy, but he's probably got as much chance of winning this as his idol CM Punk has of having a successful UFC career

1u van de Pas 11/10

	Mark Webster	Ron Meulenkamp
Qualified by	#32 in world rankings (#31 seed)	#2 in European Tour rankings
64 ranking	33	60
Odds	4-11	5-2
Last Year	QF, 3-5 vs van Gerwen	Debut (last 32 of BDO, 2-3 vs Robson)
Majors	Last 16 UK Open	None
Euro Tour	3 x last 48	2 x last 48
Pro Tour	2 x QF, 6 x last 16, 5 x last 32, 3 x last 64	1 x QF, 1 x last 16, 2 x last 32, 9 x last 64

Oh god, this one is probably going to be brutal.

Webster's not been playing good enough to make majors. He's not been playing good enough to make even half the European events, and when he did, he lost first round each time. That world title probably seems a hell of a lot longer than 7 years ago, yet when we were all questioning him last year, he went on a run and gave van Gerwen a decent match. That's who he went out to in the UK Open, his only decent performance of the season, although a first round win against Mark Walsh is to be expected, and he nearly ****ed it up against pub qualifier Paul Hogan.

Ron Meulenkamp is one of the invading Dutch army who moved over last winter, and hasn't done a great deal. He made a couple of euro events but went out first round both times, and needed a quarter final run in the last tour event to get here, taking down Ward, West, Thornton and Ross Smith. On his side is that he'll have a lot of match practice - he's been playing a lot of the challenger tour events, and did win one, but that's an entirely different level to what'll be expected here.

I've put Meulenkamp in my bracket, but that's more a throwaway 1 pointer, as either gets murdered by Taylor. This could easily be the worst match of the first round. The line is probably about right - something like 4/9 - 2/1 might be closer, but this is the bathroom break game of the day

	Dean Winstanley	Wayne Jones
Qualified by	#27 in world rankings (#26 seed)	#7 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	25	35
Odds	2-5	12-5
Last Year	Last 64, 1-3 vs Burnett	Last 64, 2-3 vs McDine
Majors	QF Players, last 16 UK Open, Grand Prix, last 32 Euro, Matchplay	Last 32 Matchplay, last 96 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x SF, 1 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 2 x last 48	1 x last 16, 2 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x RU, 1 x SF, 5 x QF, 3 x last 16, 8 x last 32, 3 x last 64	4 x last 16, 7 x last 32, 8 x last 64

GET PAID GET PAID GET PAID

Winstanley's starting to get at the stage where he's comfortable in the PDC and on the PDC stage - two years out from a magical nine darter on the Ally Pally stage, he's picking up wins in the majors and solidifying his place in the top 32. Very consistent on the tour, he's one of the more feared opponents and somewhat underrated.

Wayne Jones is one of those players that really ought to go away - he's about 3 years behind someone like Alan Tabern's career path. Like Nicholson, he had enough junk from the latter end of last year to make the Matchplay, although he lost 10-3 to Andy Hamilton, who's complete AIDS, that says more about Jones imo. He hasn't even made a single quarter final on the tour this year, most people are able to do that by accident.

This is a good bet on Winstanley, I really don't see how he loses this one at all. Jones has nothing left in the tank and Winstanley's still pretty young (despite looking at him, he's my age apparently). This game should be the cornerstone of all accumulators

1.5u Winstanley 2/5

	Kevin Painter	Boris Koltsov/Hakuri Murimatsu
Qualified by	#20 in world rankings	Russian qualifier/Japanese qualifier
64 ranking	24	133
Odds	1-4	4-1
Last Year	Last 16, 0-4 vs Whitlock	Debut/DNQ
Majors	QF Grand Prix, UK Open, last 32 Players, Matchplay	None
Euro Tour	1 x SF, 1 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 1 x last 48	None
Pro Tour	2 x QF, 2 x last 16, 8 x last 32, 6 x last 64	None

Right now, Kevin Painter's probably still wondering how he didn't kill off Taylor in that epic final that nobody remembers after the Barney final a few years later, especially as it wasn't even as good as the Part final the year before. He did finally win a major at some point, and is keeping relevant with a couple of major quarter finals, getting a free win over Hamilton and then just edging out Lewis in the Grand Prix, and getting wins he ought to do in the UK Open. His floor form could be better - only getting past the last 32 4 times is not good, but a semi final in Europe, beating Keegan Brown, Beaton, Kim Huybrechts and Caven compensates slightly.

I know nothing about the Russian darts scene, and I wouldn't be surprised if Koltsov suddenly ends up with visa issues and has to withdraw or some similar garbage, it's happened before and will happen again. Murimatsu's a veteran of the world stage, him being the Japanese guy that doesn't have an easy to sing along name to Pig Bag. He's previously gone three and out to Taylor, Whitlock and Baxter.

I think there's probably slight value on Painter, but knowing little about the Russian guy, who for all we know could be as competent as someone like Suljovic, I'm going to avoid lumping on Painter. He's probably safe to shove in an acca, but at 1-4 I don't want to be making any single bets as the value isn't there.

DAY FOUR EVENING MATCHES

	Kim Huybrechts	Michael Mansell
Qualified by	#18 in world rankings	#15 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	17	43
Odds	1-4	7-2
Last Year	Last 32, 3-4 vs White	DNQ
Majors	Last 16 Euro, last 32 Players, Grand Prix, Matchplay, UK Open	Last 16 Grand Prix, last 64 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x QF, 5 x last 16, 2 x last 32	1 x QF, 2 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x RU, 3 x SF, 6 x QF, 4 x last 16, 5 x last 32, 2 x last 64	2 x last 16, 2 x last 32, 9 x last 64

Yeah, Kim's not kicked on as many of us thought he might have done - while he can compete with anyone, his record on the big stage is somewhat mediocre this season, although he's continued to do work on the tour, although much of it was in the UK Open qualifiers right at the start of the season. He did have a final a couple of months back where he lost a deciding leg to Wade, but I don't think too many people would suggest that he's not at the peak of his form.

Mansell's sneaked in through the Pro Tour, doing just enough throughout the year after getting a good start with a European quarter final, where he beat Kim Huybrechts along the way, funnily enough. He did manage to get a win in a major, taking out potential second round opponent Ian White in the Grand Prix, so any ideas that he can't do it on the TV stage are out of there, and White's a comparable opponent to Huybrechts.

The line looks right. Mansell's not without chances, but Kim's a lot better. I'm going to leave this alone, I think Kim'll win but I'm not rushing to get on at that price

	Dave Chisnall	Ryan de Vreede
Qualified by	#8 in world rankings	#4 in European Tour rankings
64 ranking	9	58
Odds	1-9	8-1
Last Year	Last 64, 2-3 vs Henderson	Debut
Majors	QF Euro, Matchplay, last 32 Players, Grand Prix, UK Open	None
Euro Tour	3 x QF, 2 x last 16, 3 x last 32	3 x last 32, 1 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x RU, 1 x SF, 4 x QF, 2 x last 16, 6 x last 32, 4 x last 64	3 x last 32, 3 x last 64

This ought to be a curbstomping. de Vreede got in through the most back door of back doors, after Burnett's withdrawal shifted Rodriguez up into a Pro Tour qualification spot, leaving a free spot in the Euro table. If the last guy out on the Pro Tour was a Brit, he'd be ****ed. But still, he has a free eight grand with the potential for more? No, not really.

Chizzy's coming off the back of a final in the Grand Slam, and has a couple of good majors this season - trouble is that his ranking sees him run into van Gerwen just as it gets interesting, as would happen here.

Dave'll win this one easily, de Vreede's still very much learning his trade, as arsehole Rod would like to say, having got a lot of match practice in from playing the youth tour as well as the main events, and getting some stage experience will help him - just not help him to win this one.

	James Wade	Jamie Lewis
Qualified by	#6 in world rankings	#5 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	6	36
Odds	1-8	7-1
Last Year	QF, 1-4 vs Lewis	Last 64, 0-3 vs van Barneveld
Majors	RU Grand Prix, QF Matchplay, last 16 UK Open, last 32 Players, Euro	Last 16 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x win, 1 x QF, 1 x last 16, 1 x last 48	2 x last 32, 2 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x win, 2 x RU, 2 x SF, 4 x QF, 2 x last 16, 9 x last 32, 2 x last 64	1 x RU, 3 x last 16, 7 x last 32, 4 x last 64

Wade's had a storming return to form after being left out of the Premier League - making the final of the Grand Prix, winning the invitational Masters, taking down a Euro event in Gibraltar and generally doing well on the tour, which he's taken more seriously this year, after his poor ranking required him to try (and fail) to qualify for the European tour events earlier in the season. But for his second round draw, he's be a lot shorter than he is.

Lewis is on the brink of breaking through into the top 32, and also maybe into the Welsh World Cup team (Burnett withdrawing from this will help, although Webster's first in the firing line - he made a nice announcement of his skills by making the latter stages of the UK Open, although just beating Willie O'Connor then a pub qualifier before losing to Suljovic isn't overly impressive looking more widely. His qualification for said event was more impressive, making a tour final (losing to Dolan), with scalps of van Gerwen, Kist, Pipe and Burnett collected along the way.

I'd fancy Lewis against a few opponents - Wade isn't one of them. I think if Lewis was on better form he might be tiny marginal value, but I'm just leaving this entire evening alone. Could be good fun for an accumulator, just taking all the seeds.

	Ian White	Jani Haavisto/John Michael
Qualified by	#15 in world rankings	SDC Tour winner/South European qualifier
64 ranking	13	92/133
Odds	1-4	4-1
Last Year	QF, 4-5 vs Whitlock	DNQ/Debut (Last 40 BDO, 2-3 vs Razma)
Majors	QF UK Open, last 16 Euro, Matchplay, last 32 Players, Grand Prix	None
Euro Tour	1 x SF, 1 x QF, 3 x last 16, 3 x last 32	Haavisto: 1 x last 32. Michael: None
Pro Tour	1 x win, 2 x RU, 1 x SF, 4 x QF, 3 x last 16, 9 x last 32, 2 x last 64	None

Ian White, after going through a stage where he was only just making various major tournaments, has managed to break through and up into the top 16 - making last year's quarter final helped a lot, and he wasn't without chances against Whitlock there. An ultra-solid player, White was a winner on tour last month with a 6-2 win over Chisnall in the final, made another couple of finals and is rarely found going out early. He's picked up a few TV wins, both in the majors and on the European tour, with his UK Open run being the best, knocking out Gary Anderson before finding van Gerwen a step too far, as many do.

Jani Haavisto makes a return to the world stage after just losing out in the final of qualifying to Dennis Lindskjold last year - previously he took a set off Gary Anderson, and has also appeared in the European Championship. The SDC's a good standard, he's no mug.

John Michael qualified from the southern European event, which had no recognisable names whatsoever. He's had quite a few open wins in that area, made the Lakeside last year, has cashed in the World Masters and also previously qualified for the European Championship several years back, when they had standard tour events in Europe that you could just roll up to and play.

Line looks right - White should be a class apart, I'd fancy Haavisto to give him more of a challenge but doesn't pull off the upset enough to be worth a bet. As mentioned earlier, just bet all the favourites in an acca if you need something for this session.

Soooo how much should I be betting on Beaton then?

DAY FIVE MATCHES

	Jamie Caven	Jason Hogg
Qualified by	#19 in world rankings	PDPA Qualifier winner
64 ranking	19	67
Odds	2-9	4-1
Last Year	Last 32, 3-4 vs van Barneveld	Debut
Majors	QF Players, last 16 Euro, last 32 Grand Prix, Matchplay, last 96 UK Open	Last 64 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x RU, 1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 4 x last 32	None
Pro Tour	1 x SF, 6 x last 16, 6 x last 32, 5 x last 64	1 x last 16, 1 x last 32

Caven's had a slight upturn in form this year, getting things together at the Players Championship, losing a deciding leg to Adrian Lewis in one of the best matches I've seen this year. I'd have thought he'd have done a bit better on the tour, but who knows. He nearly took a Euro tour title but got edged out by van der Voort, having lead a charmed life previously, beating Jenkins, Bunting, Taylor and Wright - all in deciding legs. So some bottle then.

Jason Hogg won the PDPA last ditch qualifier, having won a tour card last year he hasn't played too many of the tour events - just the UK Open qualifiers (where he made it and cashed for the second year in a row), and a handful of others where he all lost first round.

This might be closer than the bookies suggest - when Caven won the Granite City Open, he beat Hogg in the semi final, albeit in a deciding leg, but I feel that Caven's increasing level of comfort on the big stage and confidence will be a telling factor. I'm not rushing out to bet him at 2-9 though.

	Michael Smith	Mensur Suljovic
Qualified by	#22 in world rankings	#1 in European Tour rankings
64 ranking	16	39
Odds	1-3	3-1
Last Year	Last 16, 3-4 vs Wright	Last 64, 2-3 vs Webster
Majors	Last 16 Matchplay, last 32 Players, Euro, Grand Prix, last 64 UK Open	QF UK Open, last 32 Euro
Euro Tour	1 x win, 1 x RU, 1 x SF, 1 x QF, 3 x last 32	1 x SF, 4 x last 48
Pro Tour	3 x RU, 2 x QF, 7 x last 16, 5 x last 32, 7 x last 64	1 x last 16, 3 x last 64

After Smith's "hello darts world" performance last year, knocking out Sir Phil, he's not done a huge deal on the TV stage. He took Justin Pipe out of the Matchplay but that's about it. He has won on the European Tour, stepping his game up after an easy route to the final to edge out MVG, so he's not having a complete sophomore slump, merely just continuing to gain experience and climb the rankings.

Suljovic has been somewhat inconsistent, as you might expect if you've ever seen his throw. He qualified for and made the quarter final of the UK Open, going out to Lewis, but mostly just stuck to the European events rather than playing the tour heavily - one semi final on home turf was all that he could do.

The line looks good again. Suljovic is dangerous, but Smith should probably combine general superior play and a bit more consistency to come through. An upset isn't off the cards, but I don't think the line offers enough to bet the Austrian here.

	Raymond van Barneveld	Rowby-John Rodriguez
Qualified by	#14 in world rankings	#16 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	20	50
Odds	5-19	4-1
Last Year	Last 16, 3-4 vs Webster	Debut
Majors	SF Euro, last 16 Grand Prix, Matchplay, UK Open, last 32 Players	Last 32 Euro, last 128 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x QF, 2 x last 32, 1 x last 48	1 x last 16, 2 x last 32
Pro Tour	1 x SF, 2 x QF, 2 x last 16, 6 x last 32, 3 x last 64	1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 2 x last 64

Barney misses a fair bit of the tour, so I don't have much to work off on that count - only one semi final is a bit weak, and he's made no impact on the Euro tour - having to qualify for some of them as he's let his ranking slip that much, so much he nearly didn't qualify for the Players Championship. Even Taylor isn't that negligent. The semi final of the Euros was somewhat routine, Whitlock/VVDV/Wright fell before losing to MVG. He did win the Premier League though, which is one thing.

Rowby looks about 12 and often acts like it, with on-stage antics that might make you assume he's a better player than he is. He's competent, but it'd be nice if he backed his confidence up with results. He's had a few ok-ish runs on tour, and did enough to make the Euro championship, but has yet to have that breakthrough event, although he did make the final of the World Youth.

A lot will depend on how Rowby adapts to this huge stage, whether Barney can be arsed, and if Rowby can handle things should he get into a position where he can win. Barney's gone out first round before, I think he probably does enough here though. Line is alright so no bet. Again.

	Brendan Dolan	Nolan Arendse/Alex Hon
Qualified by	#11 in world rankings	South African qualifier/China qualifier
64 ranking	10	133
Odds	1-7	9-2
Last Year	Last 32, 1-4 vs Anderson	Debut
Majors	QF UK Open, last 16 Players, Euro, last 32 Grand Prix, Matchplay	None
Euro Tour	1 x SF, 5 x last 16, 2 x last 32	None
Pro Tour	3 x win, 4 x SF, 1 x QF, 1 x last 16, 5 x last 32, 3 x last 64	None

Quick on this one. Arendse beat Devon Petersen to qualify, so should be OK. Hon won the Chinese event, but I know nothing of who he played.

Dolan's the most underrated player on the tour, probably because people look at speed of play and/or think he's a one nine darter gimmick pony. That's off, three tour wins this year, couple of wins in majors and a good UK Open run is a solid season.

Dolan should win, but 1-7 is too short. No bet again.

Last call for the bracket pool, PM me your picks and state whether you're in for $20 or just for fun, it starts in less than 24 hours so don't wait, meanwhile

DAY SIX MATCHES

	Vincent van der Voort	John Henderson
Qualified by	#23 in world rankings	#9 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	21	42
Odds	4-9	9-4
Last Year	Last 32, 1-4 vs Lewis	Last 32, 3-4 vs Webster
Majors	SF Players, last 16 Euro, last 32 Grand Prix, Matchplay, UK Open	Last 64 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x win, 2 x QF, 2 x last 16, 1 x last 48	1 x QF, 2 x last 32, 1 x last 48
Pro Tour	4 x QF, 6 x last 16, 7 x last 32, 5 x last 64	2 x last 16, 2 x last 32, 12 x last 64

Vincent van der Voort is having somewhat of a resurgence this year, looking to have finally put niggling injuries behind him and returning to peak form. His run to the semi final of the Players Championship was good, but he managed to get a win on the European Tour in Austria, his biggest win in a long time, albeit it was a weakened field and the few good players there all got taken out by somebody else. Still, a win is a win, and it's nice that he can take one of numerous quarter final/last 16 typical efforts further when the opportunity presents itself.

Henderson busted all the brackets last year by beating Chisnall in the first round, but lost a deciding set to Webster, unfortunately. He beat Wright and Whitlock in making the quarters of the German Darts Masters, but otherwise he's had a real bad year - look at all those last 64 performances.

Henderson's shown little in the way of form this year, meanwhile van der Voort is having a great resurgence. I think this should at least be a 1-3/11-4 type match, so let's bet the favourite and collect some small cash

1u van der Voort 4/9

	Mervyn King	Max Hopp
Qualified by	#10 in world rankings	#3 in European Tour rankings
64 ranking	8	49
Odds	1-6	23-5
Last Year	Last 16, 1-4 vs Lewis	Last 64, 1-3 vs Thornton
Majors	SF Euro, UK Open, QF Grand Prix, last 16 Players, Matchplay	None
Euro Tour	1 x win, 1 x RU, 2 x last 16, 4 x last 32	1 x last 32, 5 x last 48
Pro Tour	2 x SF, 4 x QF, 5 x last 16, 3 x last 32, 8 x last 64	1 x last 32, 2 x last 64

If you've paid attention to this thread you'll have noticed that I've been nuthugging King pretty hugely. He's having the season of his career - semi final in two majors, no huge failures in the others, also recently went deep in the Grand Slam and the Masters, and has two finals on the European circuit, beating Michael Smith in one and losing to van Gerwen in the other. Apart from the top 4 I don't think there's anyone I wouldn't fancy King to beat.

Max Hopp played this last year after a series of OK results in Europe, and qualifies the same way here (he won the German qualifier as backup, but didn't need it). He doesn't have a tour card so could only play the UK Open qualifiers (where he failed horribly) and get in the odd few recently to make up the numbers. He's qualified for the majority of European events, but has made next to no impact, losing to Terry Jenkins (twice), Ryan de Vreede, Dave Chisnall, Steve West and Micky Mansell, his only win coming against Mike de Decker, who isn't even notable in his own house.

King will storm this, that market has quite a bit of markup, but the price is a lot better than a lot of other short favourites so I'll look to pick up a small piece again

1.5u King 1/6

	Adrian Lewis	David Pallett
Qualified by	#3 in world rankings	#11 in Pro Tour
64 ranking	4	46
Odds	1-12	19-2
Last Year	SF, 0-6 vs van Gerwen	Debut
Majors	Won UK Open, RU Players, QF Matchplay, last 16 Grand Prix, last 32 Euro	Last 32 UK Open
Euro Tour	1 x SF, 2 x QF, 3 x last 16	1 x last 16, 2 x last 48
Pro Tour	2 x RU, 4 x SF, 4 x QF, 4 x last 16, 3 x last 32	3 x last 16, 6 x last 32, 7 x last 64

Lewis has been the consensus #3 for quite some time, at least until Gary Anderson had his dream summer/winter and stuck his nose into the equation. The two-time winner will look to at least make the same stage as last year, where he fell apart against a rampant van Gerwen, and has a major win this year where he looked untouchable, and looked very strong in the Players Championship last month as well before losing the final to Anderson. It comes as a huge surprise that he hasn't actually won on the tour, although he has missed some and it's quite possible that happens just through variance. It's not like he isn't getting into positions to win.

Dave Pallett is an up and coming talent making his debut here. The 24 year old hasn't made a huge breakthrough on the tour yet, hitting barriers and not making a quarter final, but did qualify for the UK Open comfortably enough (hitting a 9 in qualifying), where he cashed but found Gary Anderson too strong, as most do.

This is clearly a big step too soon for Pallett, and while he's talented, it's just too big of an ask, even at that price. Pile Adie in your accumulators at will.

	Stephen Bunting	Jermaine Wattimena/Robert Marijanovic
Qualified by	#28 in world rankings (#27 seed)	Central European qualifier/Eastern European qualifier
64 ranking	22	133/115
Odds	1-16	9-1
Last Year	Debut (Won BDO, 7-4 vs Norris)	Debut/DNQ
Majors	SF Grand Prix, QF Euro, last 16 Players, Matchplay, last 32 UK Open	None
Euro Tour	2 x SF, 1 x last 16, 1 x last 32, 1 x last 64	Wattimena – None. Marijanovic – 1 x last 48
Pro Tour	1 x win, 1 x RU, 2 x SF, 1 x QF, 2 x last 16, 7 x last 32, 6 x last 64	None

And now the moment we've all been waiting for, as the current Lakeside champion makes his PDC worlds debut. Bunting comes over, wins a tour event his first weekend, which sets him up to make all the majors (making the Matchplay in year one is incredibly hard as you've only got half a year of tour events compared to everyone else), where he's got through some rounds in all of them, and has slammed into the top 30 with ease. Those idiot doubters (particularly the likes of Harrington with his "can he push that 95 average into the 100's" spiel, where that happens automatically by playing better players) have been proven wrong, and now it's a case of what he can do here. It'll be the hard way after this round, with Wade awaiting and it only getting worse from there.

Marijanovic has played here before, where he lost a preliminary 4-3 to Daryl Gurney, so he knows the stage, and has also got to the quarters of the World Cup with Tonci Restovic. He beat a few "ok, but not real threatening" type players to qualify. He did make a Euro tour event, but lost easily to de Vreede. Wattimena meanwhile is a newcomer to the PDC stage, mostly playing continental BDO events and failing at the last hurdle to qualify for the Lakeside, to a Belgian with career earnings of about a ton. He did see off occasional European qualifier Dimitri van den Bergh in qualifying, also whitewashing "that guy that took a set off Taylor" Jerry Hendriks en route.

Bunting wins this. He's too short to bet though.

And that's your lot for the first round, thank **** for that

Awesome stuff 64

Writes ups have been excellent!

Starts today! Lets goo!

GL all!

looks like the part price has drifted even more, is now 11/5 somehow. good think i waited to place the bet

wow

It was 7/4 this morning when I took a punt on him.

I too will probably be following team 64. #Team64

Been watching Sky Sports Darts all day. Pumped now, and ready to be underwhelmed by the tripe that usually gets served up in the first round.

I shall grow fat whilst enjoying the festive PDC darts, and diet through the BDO version.

12/5 now. Either he's got some Denis Ovens-esque injury that we don't know about, or there's simply tons of cash going on Keegan. Might add half a unit on, have a break at work just before KO, probably wanting 11/4 at this rate though

John Part just doubles in size every year.

Could someone post updates for the Part game please, I'm at work

Part is 442 after 3 darts and Brown 401 after 3, in the second game. Brown took the first on throw.

Brown takes out 61 for a 15 darter, to break the throw and take a 2-0 lead.

Brown leaves 170 after 9 in the third - well ahead.

And that's the 1st set with another 15 dart leg.

Oh god. How many sets are they?

Comeback? Who knows.

jesus

Shame, but he was closer than it looked it was gonna be after the first 6 legs.

My first fiver has bit the dust ... Part cannot expect to win a match these days playing like that.

The score flattered Part if anything.