Will Smith Race Through the World Series of Darts in Dubai?
New World Champion and number-1 ranked player, Michael Smith, heads the cast of players set to compete in the inaugural Bahrain Darts Masters. Former world champions Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Rob Cross and Raymond van Barneveld will join him.
World Championship semi-finalist Dimitri Van den Bergh will play in Dubai this week, and he looks like a spot of value at 10/1. @PDC
Luke Humphries, Jonny Clayton and Dimitri Van den Bergh complete the list of eight visiting players from the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). They will face eight Asian representatives headed by Singapore’s legendary player Paul Lim.
Japan’s recent World Championship representative Toru Suzuki and Bahrain qualifiers Bassim Mahmood and Abdulnaser Yusuf will join the 68-year-old. Japan’s Yuki Yamada, Philippines’ Alain Abiabi, India’s Nitin Kumar, and Hong Kong’s Man Lok Leung will also play in the event.
Darts in the Fast Lane
ITV 4 is televising the two-day event live. Proceedings will get underway at 4 pm this Thursday – precisely 50 days before Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix takes place. Interestingly, the Bahrain Darts Masters will be staged inside an entertainment dome within the Bahrain International Circuit.
The competition is the first leg of the 2023 World Series of Darts. The five-leg tour will also visit Denmark, America, Australia, and New Zealand during 2023. A sixth event, the season-ending World Series of Darts Finals, will be played in the Netherlands.
Last year there were seven events won by Michael Smith, Dimitri Van den Bergh, Jonny Clayton, Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price. Van den Berg won two titles – the Nordic and Dutch Masters – but it was Gerywn Price that marginally fared best by taking the New Zealand Masters and then the World Series Finals.
In 2022, only recognized PDC players made it to a final of any World Series event. It would be a major achievement if a local representative could reach a decider in 2023. That belief is underlined by the betting for the Bahrain Darts Masters.
Bookies Can Only Agree on the Favorite
The shortest price contender outside of the ‘big PDC eight’ is Paul Lim. The popular veteran – who became the first player to hit a perfect nine-dart finish during the 1990 Embassy World Darts Championship – is available at 200/1 with the best darts betting sites.
According to the betting, it is the man-of-the-moment, Michael Smith, that the online bookmakers like most. In addition to his newly applied world crown, the 32-year-old won the Grand Slam of Darts at the end of November.
The ‘Bully Boy’ has won 13 of his last 14 matches. Four consecutive victories would see him take the Bahrain Darts Masters for which he is industry top-priced 5/2 with BetVictor. Gerwyn Price follows in the betting. The Welshman can be backed at 4/1 in some places.
There is significant disagreement between the best darts betting sites regarding other players. While bet365 rate Jonny Clayton at 11/2, Paddy Power does not like him and quotes the Welshman at 7/1. Similarly, Peter Wright is only 5/1 with Betfair, but he is on offer at 7/1 with Unibet.
Heed the World Championship Form Pointers
And we believe the value lay with 10/1 shots Rob Cross and Dimitri Van den Bergh. Our reasoning is simple: only two of the players in the Bahrain Darts Masters averaged over 100 in a match during the World Championship. The victor, Michael Smith was one, Rob Cross was the other.
Cross made the fourth round of the World Championship and was a finalist in November’s Players Championship Finals, so he appears ready to return to the winner’s circle sometime soon. Dimitri Van den Bergh did even better in the World’s reaching the semi-finals.
As that event represents the most recent form on offer – and only Michael Smith did better – the Belgian should surely not be three points bigger than Peter Wright. ‘Snakebite’ is badly out-of-form and exited the World Darts Championship after winning just one match.
