James Punt landed a couple of nice winners at the Grand Slam. Robert Thornton at 2.00 to qualify was advised and he did the business. So did Dave Chisnall who won his group for us at 2.75. The Players Championship is the big event this weekend and the last major before the big one. James Punt has again produced an in depth preview. Check out his 2019 Players Championship tips below…

2019 Players Championship Preview

The last of the televised majors of 2019 before we head off to the Alexandra Palace for the World Championships next month.

As with most tournaments its has be dominated by Michael van Gerwen in recent years, He won it for the first time in 2013 and followed that up with wins in 2015, 2016 and 2017. His winning run was ended by Daryl Gurney last year when he beat MVG in a thrilling final.

 The top 64 players on the Player’s Championship order of merit qualify. The first two rounds are played in standard player’s championship format of first to six legs. That is a fairly brutal format as there is no time to recover from a slow start and we will see some big names going out in the first and second rounds.

2019 Players Championship Tips: The First Quarter

The big form player in the first quarter of the draw is number one seed, Gerwyn Price. He has won on the euro tour, won another major and topped the players championship OOM. Not a bad season for the Welshman. He doesn’t have a great tournament record however and has never gone beyond the second round in four appearances. You have to fancy him to improve on that record and being the top seed, he gets the easiest of first round matches vs. Micky Mansell. He won’t be hitting any choppy water until the third round which is a longer format, first to ten legs.

There a couple of dangermen for Price in that top quarter. Jose de Sousa won no less than three player’s championship events and he finished 8^th on the order of merit. This is just his first season as a PDC professional, and he has been a massive hit. The Portuguese player lacks experience of playing on the TV stage. He has played at Ally Pally twice and at this years UK Open where he won just one match.

De Sousa played his first euro tour event, the Danish Open, in June and he won three matches before losing the quarter final 5-6 to Chris Dobey. His only other stage matches were at the Gibraltar Darts Trophy where he rattled MVG’s cage before losing 3-6 in the second round.

He lacks stage experience, but his form is irresistible. He has taken plenty of big scalps on his debut season including Peter Wright, Rob Cross, Michael Smith, Daryl Gurney, Nathan Aspinall, Mensur Suljovic, Glen Durrant and certain Mr. Gerwen Price.

Clayton Hitting Form

The other dangerman is fellow Welshman, Jonny Clayton. He is hitting form at just the right time. He won PC 10 back in April, reached the Danish Open semi-final in June, the semi-final of PC26 in late September, the quarter final of the last players championship event, PC30 last month, before a run to the quarter final of the World Series three weeks ago. His scoring has improved with four ton plus averages in his last ten matches. Clayton also has a good tournament record being the runner up in 2017 and a quarter finalist last year.

This top quarter has the second favourite to win the tournament, Gerwen Price and two dangerous outsiders, De Sousa and Clayton. All three are decent bets but only one will reach the quarter final.

2019 Players Championship Tips: The Second Quarter

There are not so many hot shots in this quarter. The most likely lads to progress are Nathan Aspinall, Peter Wright and Glen Durrant. Aspinall has a tricky first round match vs. Van Barneveld which looks to be a big banana skin. Peter Wright is playing well but just can’t win the big tournaments and his tournament record isn’t great. Glen Durrant is making his tournament debut and whilst he has done well in most of the TV tournaments some of his doubling in the Grand Slam last week was worryingly poor. I would expect Peter Wright to make the quarters, but can he win the title? History says no.

2019 Players Championship Tips: The Third Quarter

This quarter sees tournament favourite Michael van Gerwen and he should be the quarter finalist. The has reached four consecutive finals here and won three. He has got Rob Cross and Dave Chisnall in the same quarter, but he has the beating of those two players should they progress.

Players Championship: The Fourth Quarter

Another quarter with some very interesting contenders not just for the quarter, but the tournament. We have the defending Champion, Daryl Gurney, who despite winning just five of his last ten matches (exactly the same form as he had coming into this event last year), is playing well. He has enjoyed this event with a semi-final in 2015, a quarter final in 2017 and winning the whole shebang last year.

Beating MVG in the final was his greatest achievement and he has a lot of positive mental associations with the tournament. I am going to back him to win….but not just yet. He is due to face one of my big priced outsiders for the tournament in the second round, Gabriel Clemens.

Clemens Playing Nice Darts

Clemens beat Daryl Gurney 5-4 in last weeks Grand Slam, another example of the German’s continuing rise to the top. He has the game to win tournaments, lots of tournaments and as he has only recently gone full time, we can expect more and more improvement, much like what happened when Gurney himself went full time. Clemens still lacks a lot of big stage experience but that is coming. He only just missed out on a quarter final last week and is playing great stuff.

Also in this quarter we have Krzysztof Ratajski, a winner of two players championship events this year, a euro tour winner and third in this years players championship OOM. His stage form is still short of his floor form, but he is still improving and has the game to win tournaments.

Gurney has a very difficult path to the quarter final, and he is best backed if he can get there first.

The first and fourth quarter are the ones full of the value player, the outsiders with real potential. It is a shame that that they are not spread out a little more but we can split the stakes and back the lot and see if we can get one in.

Outright selections

2019 Players Championship Tips: 0.5 point e/w Jose De Sousa @ 67.00 with Skybet (1/3 the odds 1-2)

2019 Players Championship Tips: 0.5 point e/w Jonny Clayton @ 81.00 with Betvictor (1/2 the odds 1-2)

Outright 2019 Players Championship Tips: 0.5 point e/w Gabriel Clemens @ 81.00 with BET365, Marathon Bet (1/2 the odds 1-2)

2019 Players Championship Tips: 0.5 point e/w Krzysztof Ratajski @ 51.00 with Betfair, Paddy Power (1/2 the odds 1-2)

We can come back to Daryl Gurney if he can get through the very difficult second and third rounds.

-JamesPunt