Beer, beer and more beer
With a lot of entertainment thrown in
You gotta love the darts. Lads who should be on the cover of Mens and Fitness, throwing three little pointy things at a circle. As 10,000 screaming men (mostly) pay tribute to Yaya and Kolo Toure 18 times per game, while dressed as Superman.
But for all the jokes, there’s quite a big carrot as incentive. Not literally of course, but a £200,000 check for winning the Premier League isn’t too shabby for an hour and a half’s work. Four players have qualified for the playoffs on Thursday but there’s no shift to the darting status quo if our tip is right.
Penalty shootouts have nerves, excitement, drama and ultimately, one failure. That happens at the end of every single leg of darts. Except the English are actually quite good at darts compared to their penalty record…
The semi finals (match odds in brackets)
Michael Van Gerwen () vs Adrian Lewis ()
Usually odds of would be quite long for a player of Adrian Lewis’ standard. He’s a back to back world champion, the world number four and won 9/16 to get here. The only problem is he’s up against MVG – who he’s only beaten twice in the last 10 meetings.
Van Gerwen has somehow got better than he already was. The highest checkout percentage of the league (49.30%), the highest tournament average including the highest one ever seen on TV and the only one of the four to hit a 170 checkout all season. There’s no stopping him.
Phil Taylor () vs Gary Anderson ()
Every time Phil Taylor looks like he’s finished, he comes back stronger and reaches a major final to shut his critics up. The 16 time world champion was beaten by MVG in Rotterdam but notched up wins over Anderson and Lewis in the league, including two over the Flying Scot. 52 180’s, 11 wins and more ton plus scores than the other three. The Power is back.
Anderson started slowly after not picking up a victory in the first four weeks. He then lost just twice in the remaining fourteen to secure a playoff spot and a chance at retaining his Premier League crown as he did with the World Championship in January. But Anderson has lost five of the last six meetings with Taylor and was beaten easily by Lewis last week.
Our traders have this one spot on. It’s going to be tighter than LVG’s defence.
The Winner
It has to be MVG at odds of. Barney seems to be the only one who knows how to stop Van Gerwen consistently and he isn’t at the playoffs. But we’re going for a minor upset in the other semi by saying Anderson will beat Taylor. A forecast with MVG winning and Anderson as runner up is and that should be taken.
The very best of order please. Game on!