The Arrers

[Chico Hamilton III]

He had to play his best darts to win that one

[tomd2103]

Excellent darts from Clayton to turn that one around in the final game of the evening.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Price v Huybrechts last night was an absolute classic. Fantastic match, even had a bit of handbags on the stage

[Nev]

Brilliant game but the tournament is being devalued somewhat by the Covid. withdrawals. Still, at least we get to see some other players progress I suppose.

Not that anyone in the crowd could give two fucks.

About anything.

[Villa Lew]

MVG withdraws with covid.

[Chico Hamilton III]

I hope Snakebite gets a thrashing for looking like such a dick tonight, even by his own standards

[manic-road]

Fantastic game of arrers between Snakebite and Rydz, even more impressive is the way Callan Rydz throws whilst balancing a shredded wheat on his head.

[Lsvilla]

Peter Wright is a top player. To carry that look he has to be. But he really is.

[manic-road]

Should be a decent final tonight, the amount of maximums Peter Wright got last night was insane and Smith is more than handy at 180's. I think Wright will win just but would like Smith to win.

[tomd2103]

Should be a decent final tonight, the amount of maximums Peter Wright got last night was insane and Smith is more than handy at 180's. I think Wright will win just but would like Smith to win.

Yeah, Smith has been brilliant in the last few rounds and seems like a decent bloke.  Don't mind Wright, but would like to see Smith do it tonight.

[tomd2103]

Fair play to Peter Wright.  As Smith faltered, he was just relentless and was a worthy winner in the end.

[Joe S]

It looks like this thread doesn't get much traction. Me and Mrs S do enjoy the darts, more as "something on" in the background over the weekend and what not. We also try and get to Ally Pally and we're considering an afternoon on the euro tour if the dates work out.

Anyway, here's how 2022 has gone so far for all of you not interested:

Masters (Usually end of January, the first "televised" title of the year but it's not the largest of fields). Joe Cullen won this as his first TV title which likely resulted in his inclusion in the Premier League.

Players championships (these are one day tournaments, usually weekends, held behind closed doors but shown on PDC TV). Mixed bag year to date. Notable winners are Joe Cullen, MvG, Michael Smith who've won x2, Luke Humphries and Danny Jansen got there first ranking titles.

Euro Tour (3 day weekend tournaments held in various locations in Europe, again on PDC TV). After winning his first ranking title, the story here is Luke Humphries who has won x3 and placed highly in most of them. MvG has also won similar with the odd usual suspect picking up the odd remaining titles.

UK open (major TV tournament broadcast). Danny Noppert won this to really boost his ranking, it was his first major. He beat Michael Smith in the final, whom continues his search for a first major despite multiple finals.

Premier League (major TV non-ranking tournament on Sky). Changed format this year where each date is a mini nightly tournament with League points awarded for reaching semi final / final / win. Dominated again in 2022 by Johnny Clayton with MvG an untroubled 2nd. James Wade just did his usual thing and kept grinding out points and got 3rd. Joe Cullen beat Peter Wright in the final League night to edge 4th. These top four battle it out tomorrow in finals night to get crown the winner.

World Series (taking the game more global, more invitational and therefore non ranking). The first event last week was in New York where Michael Smith won. Last night Dimitri van den Bergh beat Gary Anderson to win the Nordic Masters.

Coming up is the world cup which is a pairs event (nation v nation), Wales will be strong with Gerwyn Price and Johnny Clayton.

That should bring you all up to date (ish).

[luke:lamf]

I don’t follow it at all outside the World Champs, but what has happened to MvG ? My understanding was he was going to be the uncontested no1 for years, sweeping all before him à la Taylor, but he doesn’t seem to be mentioned as a winner much there. Have the other just raised their game ? Or is he faltering and not quite as good as sold ?

[cdbearsfan]

I'd assumed MVG would just take over from Taylor in winning everything. Three world titles so far is under-achieving for him.

[Joe S]

It's a bit of both I suppose. MvG has probably dropped off a little but in no way has he become a bad player or anything (he's actually started to look quite strong again recently). It was initially the case that most of his opponents just had the game of their tournament, he was (and still is) losing with mainly very decent averages.

As a result, the top players then lost that "fear factor" and combined with them all seemingly upping their own game means the field is wide open. On any given day it's now easily conceivable that any of the top 20 (or beyond) could win depending on tournament and seeding.

You still see the same few names at the top of the main order rankings, mainly due to them working on two year cycles and being heavily weighted to the world championship, but there is a very strong and competitive list of players. It makes it much more interesting knowing it could be pretty much anyone winning the next event.