I kind of miss the old Whitlock, must have disappeared somewhere in Australia the last few years.

The old Whitlock briefly showed earlier this month when he beat MvG on route to a tour title, and in the Euro Championships, he'll need to do it again, as they've done the draw:



Notes and bets:
- I kind of want to take Whitlock at that price but know better than to lay van Gerwen at this stage
- I kind of want to bet Price given that they qualified similarly and my rankings can barely split them, but Gurney's hit ridiculous form since coming back from injury and I don't think 11/8 properly compensates
- Klaasen line also looks fine, him and West had a common opponent yesterday in Norris and Klaasen did a lot better, so will leave it alone
- 0.5u Smith evs, I saw the draw and my first thought was to bet Bunting but then I saw the prices, was assuming something like 4/6 or 8/13 Smith, so evens given that Bunting isn't exactly flying seems like an OK punt, despite Bunting winning their last 4 head to head meetings
- LOL Wade getting one of the two bastard draws, 1u Anderson 8/15, he absolutely owns the head to head, 10-2 with three PL draws in the last two years
- 1u van de Pas 4/7, Hopp couldn't even qualify for the event this weekend, losing to Mike Holz, and then crashed out of the world youth to Martin Schindler. If he can't beat Germans he can't beat Benito
- Huybrechts line looks good. Seemed solid in Ireland, didn't do it this weekend but Wilson's dropped off since making the final that got him to the Grand Prix himself
- 1u King 8/13, Petersen's only here because he was quite consistent in qualifying, King has the quality still and is here because of a semi final run where he beat Petersen in the process
- Nothing on Suljovic, he should win but Wattimena has just enough game that he can hit a good run over a short format just enough
- White/Jenkins is intriguing, think this is very, very close to a coinflip, will go 0.25u Jenkins 6/5 as there's just enough value for a tiny play
- LOL Norris getting the other bastard draw, that said, 0.25u Norris 4/1, really don't know if Taylor can be arsed for what's a fairly minor major, he's sacked off the PC finals by not entering the last two events
- May add a bet on Dobey/Cullen if there's less vig, do not think Cullen is that big a favourite but would want at least 15/8 Dobey
- Pipe's started to look not completely AIDS this past month and Wright's dropped a couple of bollocks, so will ignore this
- 0.5u Reyes 13/8, Thornton not showing enough that Reyes should be more than a 60/40 dog
- 0.25u Anderson 9/4, tiny speculative play, peak Anderson shows up enough that he should nick this about 1 in 3
- 0.5u Richardson 6/4, apart from one final to save his Matchplay skin Caven's done nothing this year and has been annihilated more than once on TV, Richardson outqualified him and is the opportunistic type that might grab this, and he needs a result to save his tour card in all likelihood

final weekend of the players' championships today, fairly important weekend as it's the last chance for players to get pro tour moneys for worlds qualification, and also for the players championship finals. with the cutoff currently at 7250 for the PC finals, most notable players in danger of not making it are (listing in danger as being within 1500 of the current cutoff or below it, and excluding phil as he's outside the top 100 and not entered this weekend):

barney (7250) - drawn matt clark then adie/meeuwisse
dolan (7500) - drawn lolwade then todd/van dijk
hopp (6250) - appears to have withdrawn, lol
k brown (7750) - drawn west then shepherd/pallett
painter (8000) - drawn richardson then pipe/frost
hamilton (7000) - drawn gilding then price/littlecott
pallett (3500) - drawn shepherd then brown/west
van den bergh (8500) - drawn vvdv then evans/parsons
newton (6000) - drawn kellett then wilson/petersen
boulton (4000) - drawn decker then wright/lovett

Whitlock over Dobey in the final. Chris can play. Nobody listed above did much, Hamilton got to round 3 so should be safe

final two players championship events done. 19:



20:



notes:
- whitlock's second tour win of the season. moves him back up into my top 16, and of the month for that matter
- dobey's first final, a new biggest score beating the mincash he'll get from the european championship finals. finished in the top 16 for the PC finals rankings, not bad
- frost with a semi final pretty much from nowhere, easily his biggest cash this season and counting for half of what he earned domestically, although he has had a decent go in europe, making 4 events
- jamie lewis was in minor danger of not making the worlds, with a couple of players breathing down his neck for the last seed, but this weekend makes him safe
- meulenkamp's result looks to have been enough to get him into the world championships just ahead of jan dekker, no big scores but lots of grands here, 1500's there to keep him ticking over
- benito with his third title, a good run next weekend could see him sneak inside my top 10
- chisnall with his fifth final defeat of the year
- pipe's quietly coming into form, adding this semi to the three quarters he's made in the last five weeks. thank **** his match with dennis smith only went seven legs
- dennis smith sighting
- matt edgar's won saw him backdoor into the players championship finals. after saying hamilton was safe, he then lost first round to christian kist and missed out to brendan dolan on countback, lol hammer

wild card qualifiers for the grand slam and world series are going on right now, we now know the draw for the players championship finals (this isn't official but the guy i follow on twitter that's worked it out is usually very reliable):

1 mvg - 64 dolan
32 murnan - 33 vvdv
16 payne - 49 van peer
17 reyes - 48 baxter
8 suljovic - 57 s brown
25 r huybrechts - 40 king
9 cullen - 56 meulenkamp
24 g anderson - 41 thornton

4 whitlock - 61 van den bergh
29 kist - 36 t jenkins
13 dobey - 52 de graaf
20 norris - 45 a jenkins
5 price - 60 painter
28 caven - 37 clayton
12 west - 53 mcgowan
21 pipe - 44 stevenson

2 van de pas - 63 k brown
31 m webster - 34 gilding
15 k huybrechts - 50 walsh
18 gurney - 47 petersen
7 wright - 58 van barneveld (LOL)
26 a lewis - 39 j lewis
10 bunting - 55 kamphuis
23 k anderson - 42 rodriguez

3 white - 62 edgar
30 d webster - 35 wattimena
14 beaton - 51 mansell
19 green - 46 m smith
6 chisnall - 59 jason wilson
27 wade - 38 evans
11 james wilson - 54 dekker
22 klaasen - 43 henderson

RICHARDSON
REYES
KING
SMITH oh wait he just missed a match dart and lost, what an *******

ffs, Benito leaves 16 after nine darts to break at 4-4 and then missed six darts at double and is immediately broken for gg in leg 10, was all going so well

go home gary, you're drunk

Sad to hear about Dave Lanning - always loved his commentary

I love that Taylor has to walk on before Mensur.

yeah, that's sad news

didn't fancy any bets in the last 16 or quarters, seemed to be mostly a bunch of solid favourites which i didn't want. will almost certainly be firing large on mvg vs wade, that performance versus klaasen seemed unstoppable while wade was really poor vs wilson and deserved to lose, didn't face a single good opponent in getting to that stage

interesting that the pdc couldn't find a way to make phil come out second vs suljovic

oh look, taylor miscounting in the first leg

and another miscount in leg 4 lol

Form of his life.

Sign the board Phil

Love Suljovic, and he uses my walk-on music.

2u van Gerwen 1/6 vs lolwade

Top 2 seeds into the final. Nothing to see here.

I really thought Mensur was going to win too.

lol j/k, ran into a steam train here. How will MVG manage to not win the worlds this year?

yeah, this is kind of ridiculous. unsure how mvg is still odds against to bink the worlds

MvG is pretty good at darts

Cadby's qualified for the worlds along with Platt this weekend FYI

couple of days until the slam starts, groups are as follows:

mvg/dolan/hopp/adams
thornton/price/van den bergh/waites
wright/whitlock/evetts/j smith
taylor/white/d webster/fitton
anderson/norris/derry/durrant
suljovic/rvb/aspinall/noppert
wade/chisnall/wilson/hughes
lewis/bvdp/dobey/mitchell

throwing out a few bets for the opening matches:
1u Whitlock 1/3 vs Evetts, really not convinced by Evetts at all, think that Whitlock, lol 10-0 vs MvG aside, is in pretty good form
0.5u Wilson 2/1 vs Chisnall, James is 0-3 vs Chizzy this year but I don't think that's truly representative and he's live over a short race
0.5u Waites 10/11 vs Thornton, betting on lolbdo players against pdc seeds is usually setting money on fire, but Thornton's a dumpster fire and Waites is at least their champ with course and distance
0.25u Durrant 12/5 vs Anderson, betting on lolbdo players against pdc seeds is usually setting money on fire, but Ando's produced enough hot garbage over the last month that taking the clear BDO #1 (who's rumoured to be moving after Lakeside) to win a race to 5 30% of the time doesn't seem that unreasonable

Too many people who can run hot and beat him on any given day to go through. He's not 10 points average better than the field like peak Taylor.

slam under way. of the bdo players noppert looked the best, taking out suljovic, think that he loses to barney fairly easily who was the best player of the session but should get out of the group unless mensur beats barney and it's an all three with two wins situation, hughes was doing well then choked a 3-0 lead to wade, waites didn't show at all, allowing thornton to be able to miss a bunch of doubles and still win, smith wasn't awful but didn't really score enough. chisnall missed something like 20 doubles, whitlock was comfortable enough but evetts didn't play that badly (neither did aspinall in getting destroyed by barney to be fair). will watch the evening session but probably ignore the first couple of matches

evening session wasn't too bad. didn't see dolan/hopp, looking at the playback it seemed like hopp choked after leaving himself 62 after 12 on throw in the decider, missing two for the match. norris/derry was a bit of a mess, dunno how chuck threw this one away, derry's throw seems awful but he hit enough. white/webster wasn't great, webster left himself on tops after 11 darts on throw at 2-2 and then got broken, and that was that. bvdp/dobey is worth a replay, benito rolls into a 4-0 lead but needs a deciding leg to take it. fitton couldn't score at all and was lucky to get a leg against phil, duzza/ando went with throw so ando won 5-4, durrant only had the one dart to break, ando had a few in the eighth but missed the lot. adams took a couple of legs to get going vs mvg and that was enough for van gerwen to break in the second and hold out without really getting out of first gear. lol lewis, mitchell played excellently though.

bets for today:
0.5u Price 10/11 vs Waites, Scott really didn't seem at the races, think that Gerwyn will come through in this must win match
0.25u Hughes 12/5 vs Chisnall, Dave looked completely off yesterday, it's homefield advantage for Hughes who although collapsing against lolwade looked alright to get the 3-0 lead (with 2 breaks) in the first place
1u van Barneveld 2/5 vs Noppert, Barney looked spectacular yesterday. Noppert looked good as well but I think that the younger Dutch players often underperform against RVB and he may just settle for keeping it close and then beating Aspinall in the final round
0.5u Webster 11/10 vs Fitton, Fitton looked really, really bad vs Phil and I don't think he should be a favourite here. Webster's run to reach here is more impressive than whatever Fitton did to qualify and was done more recently
0.25u Dobey 5/2 vs Lewis, he showed a lot of character to make his game against Benito a fight, which will give him confidence, over a short race I think he can nick this enough to be worth a small play

As an aside, it's only about a month until the worlds - I plan on doing the same sort of match previews I've done for the last couple of years, is there anything people want to see on these that I don't do already?