THE third staging of the Champions League of Darts emanates from Brighton.
Televised live on the BBC from The Brighton Centre, the eight-player tournament sees two groups of four facing off across the opening three sessions, with a double session on Saturday September 22 followed by the afternoon session on Sunday September 23.
The top two players from each group then progress to play off for the title on Sunday evening in the semi-finals and final.
Group A features Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Daryl Gurney and Dave Chisnall, while Group B contains Peter Wright, Rob Cross, Mensur Suljovic and Simon Whitlock.
Mighty Mike is the red hot 10/11 favourite with the sponsors to lift the title 12 months after being dumped out at the group stage.
Anderson is 9/2 with the same firm with reigning World Champion Rob Cross 6/1 with 888Sport. Snakebite is 8/1 with Betfair with defending champion Mensur Suljovic 14’s.
The remaining players sees Daryl Gurney and Dave Chisnall at 40/1 and outsider Simon Whitlock 80/1.
Format
The format sees a round robin with all players facing off, so all participants will play three games over a race to ten legs. Leg difference could play a part in the event in a race to qualify for the semi finals on Sunday evening.
The winners of groups A and B will face off against the runners up of the opposite groups A1 Vs B2 and B1 Vs A2 for the semi finals in the race to take the £100,000 winners cheque.
Betting
There are several markets available for the event, with special thanks to odds compiler Glenn Woodage over at Sportingbet for being the front runner producing early prices for all events.
Looking at the qualifying markets group A has MVG at 10/1 ON to qualify with Anderson as short as 2/7 for the semi finals. Cross is 1/2 with Wright 4/7. Mensur is 8/11 to get out the group with Whitlock 11/4, Chisnall 3/1 with Gurney at the same price.
I like the look of Anderson to make the final at 6/4 and at 4/11 to qualify implies around a 5/6 shot against his opponent in the semi final.
Against Cross/Wright/Whitlock or Suljovic in my view is a shade of value being to second favourite for the title.
With Suljovic in steady form at 3/4 with Sportingbet is third favourite to qualify with Cross the 1/2 favourite and Wright at 6/10 with the above firm.
Even if Anderson fails to qualify the 6/4 price in my opinion is a spot of value for the reasons above of his qualification price and implied calculation for his semi final match.
The Matchplay champion will use this event as his on stage preparation for the World Grand Prix the following weekend.
Quality over quantity!
Recommendation
- Gary Anderson to make the final – 6/4 Bet365 and Paddy Power – 3pts
This event should give us an indication of how the summer break and World Series event for those that participated will appear.
There has been European Tour events but over a shorter format, MVG is getting back to match sharpness despite a couple of below par performances recently.
Could Whitlock be the surprise?
I am potentially having an interested bet on under 38.5 180s this afternoon 5/6 with Coral.
Under 159.5 session checkout also appeals at 10/11 with the same firm.