World Cup 2019

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Quite looking forward to this. Very much a different kind of event. Gets started 24th June. Pairings from each country :

Group A :
China A - Ding / Bingtao
Thailand - Un-Nooh / Saengkham
Poland - Stefanow / Filipiak
Austria - Ploner / Nuessle
Norway - Maflin / Watts
Germany - Lichtenberg / Kleckers

Group B :
N.Ireland - Allen / J.Brown
England - K.Wilson / Lisowski
Iran - Vafaei / Vahedi
R.O.I - Doherty / O'Brien
Hong Kong - A.Lee / Kai Cheung
S.Arabia - Alajani / Asseri

Group C :
Scotland - Higgins / Maguire
Belgium - Brecel / Mertens
Malaysia - Thor Leong / Hoo
Israel - Sharav / Ruberg
UAE - Shehab / Al Joaker
Cyprus - Georgiou / Poullos

Group D :
Wales - Williams / Day
China B - Yuelong / Wenbo
Switzerland - Ursenbacher / Vetter
Malta - Borg / Cini
Australia - Mifsud / Thormerson
India - Jain / Vatnani

Example of a tie (Wales Vs China B) -
Williams Vs Yuelong
Day Vs Wenbo
Doubles
Williams Vs Wenbo
Yuelong Vs Day

Top 2 of each group go through to the final 8.

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China have two teams and will be the only team to have that this year. China have had alot of success in this event and are current holders although the winners have been split up. Ding is in team A whilst fellow partner Wenbo now partners Yuelong.

This event has evolved into the same kind of ilk as the shootout i suppose, although it's actually been formed since 1979 so despite it being non-ranked, it's quite competitive. Teams such as Scotland (Maguire/Higgins) have had the same team throughout since 2011.

Since 2011, China have won this all three times (2011/2015/2017) albeit, they have had 2 teams in those 3 events. The runners-up though have been different in all three of those events. Although China tend to do well, there is value on the outsiders because ultimately in the knock-out rounds anything can happen in one frame.

Looking at the groups I would say that the final 8 would be :

China A + Thailand (Group A)
N.Ireland + Iran (Group B) - Yes, I am going to lay England for that group
Scotland + Belgium (Group C)
China B + Wales (Group D)

so based on what I think will happen my bets are :

2pts Thailand to win World Cup - 10/1 boylesports
2pts China B to win World Cup - 12/1 boylesports
1.5pts E/W N.Ireland to win World Cup 16/1 boylesports
1pt E/W Iran to win World Cup 50/1 paddypower