World Grand Prix 2015

[Jazzer Isaac]

Darts.
Sunday.

Most 180s on the day - Michael van Gerwen vs Keegan Brown @ 8/1. 1 point.

365 have just stuck this market up and I think this is an excellent price.

Short games + the double-in lead to a low number of 180s per game which implies a tight distribution between the 8 games on the night. Blindly, I was drawn to the outsiders because of this - and when I saw that one of the outsiders is a game involving Michael van Gerwen it sprang out at me.

MvG, Dave Chisnall and Michael Smith, 3 of the top 4 180 hitters in the game, are all playing on this night. If they each played 10 legs, I would find it hard to separate them in a 'player with the most 180s' market, so it seems wise to look to their opponents in order to gauge the probabilities in the 'game with the most 180s' market. Chisnall plays Peter Wright, Michael Smith plays Gerwyn Price and MvG plays Keegan Brown. Again, I'd find it hard to separate these players in a 'player with the most 180s market', but would put Wright a very marginal favourite.

The other match of note is Adrian Lewis vs Raymond van Barneveld - I'd place both players in the top 10 180 hitters and I'd probably put this as favourite in the market if pushed.

365 are obviously banking on MvG finishing Brown quickly, shortening the match as much as possible and decreasing the number of opportunities for 180 scoring. I don't think this will happen. I've got a point on Brown to win the match and he will certainly make a fight of it whether in vain or not.

If Brown can keep the match close, this pick has a decent chance of being a winner. I just can not see why this match is double the odds of the Chisnall, Lewis and Smith games. Maybe it's a flaw in my logic but I am not bothered at all about laying down a point on this.

As a final note, with the tightly distributed numbers of 180s, I think that DH rules could well have to be applied in this market.

 

[Jazzer Isaac]

To win quarter 3 - Robert Thornton @ 11/2. 365. 2 points.

Not much reasoning to this one. I priced each hypothetical match in the quarter to construct the market, and this comes out as well under where it should be in my opinion.

If Thornton can get past Gurney in the first round, I think he has the beating of Pipe and Beaton in the second and will certainly come back as a strong favourite. He reaches the quarter final with probability ~0.5 and from there you look to the potential opponents.

Ian White vs Gary Anderson in the second round is the key match in the opposite eighth. White is playing superbly of late and I've marked it as a match where he will probably be overpriced. They are currently the best two players in the quarter and I make Thornton the dog should he play either in the QF. But by running into each other in the second stage (and recalling I think my price is different to the bookies planned price on that game), it decreases the chance of Anderson getting to the QF and thus the SF. Gary Anderson is very overvalued in this market, with Thornton getting the main benefit from that. Everyone else in the quarter is priced accurately in my opinion.

[Jazzer Isaac]

Mark Webster vs Stephen Bunting – Stephen Bunting to win 2-0 @ 7/5. 2 points. Coral.

Webster took a firm place on my shortlist of players that I expected to struggle in Dublin. Bunting's straight win price actually came back bang on what I thought it be, so it may seem strange that I'm betting on this match, but I think the double-in format provides an opportunity to exploit some value here.

Webster has been in a lull for literally years now, while Bunting has struggled to find form recently but is still throwing good darts. Despite the slowing of his climb up the rankings, Bunting is still an excellent player and I forecast him making the top 10 by the end of his first two-year cycle.

Webster's main struggle during this prolonged slump is his doubling (seehttp://www.dailymotion.com/…/x2d1yr3_mark-webster-and-ron-m…) – in this event you have to double your number of doubles, which of course doubles his problem. Failing to check-in or out on his own darts against one of the best in the world like Bunting and Webster is in trouble.

The pick is by no means a shoe-in hence the small stake, but I'm confident that Webster's double-trouble skews the distribution out of line with the win prices, pushes the true odds under the 7/5 offered, so I'm happy to back this as value.

[Jazzer Isaac]

Monday

Justin Pipe vs Steve Beaton

The double-in format, the set format and the short length of first round matches make this stage of the tournament difficult to price accurately. But I think you may be getting a decent bet on this.

I was disappointed when these two drew each other – both haven't been playing to their abilities recently and I was looking at two losses had they not drawn each other.

Steve Beaton is a player on a bad run. The last match he won on TV was in November 2013 and the one before that was December 2012. Despite having some bad luck with the draw over the past year, he hasn't backed up his run of losses with any particularly good perfomances. I backed against him with 5 points at the last big tournament in July and have him marked to lose should he qualify for any of the major tournaments in the coming months.

Beaton is the weakest player in this field in my opinion. He got to this tournament with £24750 earned in the pro-tour events over the past year – the cut-off was £22750 and he accrued more money than 7 other qualifiers. But an analysis of where this money was earned is telling: by reaching the final of a European Tour event in late 2014, he earned himself seeding in the first 6 European Tour events of 2015, guaranteeing 6 automatic second round places and importantly 6 £1500-minimum cheques. Effectively, he won £9000 of that £22750 prize money for turning up at the venue. Beaton qualified for only 1 of the other 3 European events this season, and since that run to the final he has only won 4 times in 27 matches against top 32 players.

Justin Pipe has won only one match on TV since December 2013, but he has maintained a steady top 16 ranking through his off-camera performances. I don't expect his poor TV run to continue in the long term, he is too good of a player and in the worst case scenario, he will eventually draw someone who can't deal with his throwing pace. As I said though, had he drawn any top 16 player here, I would have him down to lose this one. As it is, I have this as a 4/6 Pipe 6/4 Beaton match.

The double-in format of this tournament is not conducive to 180 hitting. I did some research to gauge how much of an effect it had, but quickly realised that the key sample I was collecting would be too small (in the time available) to draw any definite conclusions from. I decided to formulate an upper bound on the effectiveness instead:

-You can not score a 180 on your checking-in turn. 
-The average checking-in turn in this format is about 80 (call this 60 for bound reasons). 
-I estimate the number of 180s hit with a starting score between 501-441 at this level (this is the sample that I realised would take too long to fully collect) is about a sixth of the total 180s hit (with almost all of this number coming from a spike at 501 and a much smaller hump at 444-441).

So with a fair bit of noise, it can be assumed that you will get at most 5/6ths of the return you'd expect from a standard start match of the same number of legs on average.

-Pipe has averaged 1 180 per 5.3 standard start legs over the past year.
-Beaton has averaged 1 180 per 6.2 standard start legs over the past year.

You're expecting 1 180 per 2.9 standard start legs in a match between these two.

-There are 10.0 legs per first round match in this tournament.

And 2.8 goes into 10.0 3.4 times. Apply the bounded double-in 'filter' and I think I've got a bet – apply it in real terms and it becomes even better.

Obviously by this point the variance on my calculations was like a bucking horse trying to throw me away from putting my cash down, but I liked these instinctively when I saw them and the statistics somewhat suggest my thoughts were right.

-u3.5 180s @ 4/6. 2 points. Coral. 
-u2.5 180s @ 7/5. 1 points. Betfair.
-u1.5 180s @ 19/5. 1 point. Betfair.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Jazzer Isaac

[Jazzer Isaac]

+16.33 points. Can't complain about that!