Premier League 13 - Play-Offs
And then there were 4! After 14 weeks the Premier League reaches its conclusion!
We have made it-the first dart of the first semi final will be the 22,524th of the tournament so far according to our records!Arguably the best four players came through, I believe that. Whitlock fans may disagree, as will fans of The Thorn but James Wade managed to galvanise himself for one last push last week to secure a point against The Power. Mind you I don't know what The Machine was sweating about; we had already predicted that 16 points would be the key to the 02 door!
Before we get too carried away though there is also the Youth Final going on! Mighty Mike was of course a finalist in the first two years of the PDC Youth competition; he even managed to lose both of them too! Aaron Monk beat him in 2011 and James Hubbard in 2012. At the time it was Hubbard who was being confidently touted as a future World Champion and Mighty Mike barely got a mention. A year is a long time in darts!
This year it is two PDC tour card holders battling it out, Michael Smith and Ricky Evans. Smith, who has a PDC floor tournament win to his name, is a strong favourite with the bookies (1/3). I don't know a lot about Evans but if the bookies are right then perhaps finishing second won't be the end of the world; it didn't do MVG much harm!
MVG is also a huge favourite to beat Wade (also 1/3) and on current form you can understand why. Wade has the experience and has beaten MVG once already in the Premier League but his form has been erratic and Mighty Mike's hasn't.
In the other semi final The Power is 4/9 pretty much across the board. Taylor backers will be scrabbling around at the back of their sofas to get every last penny then can on him as everyone knows Barney simply can't beat Taylor, can he? This is surely Barney's best opportunity though. He knows it, but will he be able to convince his head that he can do it?
Tips
One area we are convinced Barney can beat Taylor is in the amount of 180's hit. Barney finished 23 180's ahead of Taylor over the course of the Premier League season (53 V 30). In the other game there is a similar story-MVG finishing with 20 more 180's than Wade (57 V 37). The Barney/MVG most 180's double pays 7/5 at Ladbrokes.We have also had some success with our checkout bets. The four semi finalists have hit 50 ton plus finishes so far this season. The bar is set for both games though at over 123! This has been hit 8 times by The Machine, 3 times by MVG, 5 times by The Power and 3 times by Barney. So they do have previous form! At a fraction under 12/5 for the double I reckon their class over a slightly longer format will give this a chance!