2023 European Championship Darts Betting Preview – JP
2023 European Championship Darts Betting Preview
This weekend is going to be a busy one for James Punt. Not only will he be covering the darts, he’ll also have previews for the Mexican GP in the coming days. First up though is his 2023 European Championship Darts outright betting preview, find out who James is backing below.
2023 European Championship Darts
This weekend’s European Championship comes from the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, Germany, the same venue as last year when Ross Smith beat Michael Smith in the final to win his first major PDC title.
The top 32 players on the European Tour OOM qualify with the top seed playing the 32nd and so on. The first round matches are best of eleven legs, the second round and quarter finals best of 19 legs and the semi-final and final best of 21 legs.
Past winners in this week’s field included defending champion Ross Smith, four time winner Michael van Gerwen, James Wade, Peter Wright and two time winner Rob Cross.
2023 European Championship Darts: The Players
1 Dave Chisnall
A three time winner on this year’s Euro Tour and Chizzy tries, once more, to finally win a big TV title. His recent form is poor, losing seven of his last ten matches and I think losing in the first round of the Grand Prix knocked the stuffing out of him.
He has reached four quarter finals here in the past but given his poor recent form, he is hard to fancy.
2 Luke Humphries
Is now a major winner having won the Grand Prix last month. It was inevitable that he was going to get one and the question now is, now many more. He is in great form winning seven of his last ten. His scoring has been consistently heavy and he is very much a contender.
3 Michael van Gerwen
Won this four times on the spin between 2014 and 2017 but those days of domination are over and he is now only a leading contender, not the only contender. His recent form is good with seven wins from his last ten, but his grip in these big tournaments is not what it was.
In his pomp, his win rates were in the 80% – 91% range. This year? Down to 71%. Still very competitive, but not as high as Luke Humphries.
4 Gerwyn Price
In great form, winning eight of his last ten matches, but hasn’t won a ranking major since the 2021 Grand Slam of Darts. He is playing very well and he will take some stopping, but is there a bit of doubt in there?
Price has never won this but was runner up in 2019.
5 Rob Cross
Very much a tournament specialist. He has won it twice and been runner up once. He has been dumped out in the first round in two of the last three European Championships, but he comes here in decent form, winning six of his last ten matches.
Voltage hasn’t won a major since this one in 2021, so he is defending the winner’s purse. Could be in the running once again.
6 Damon Heta
A very consistent match winner on the Euro Tour but is yet to progress beyond a quarter final in a major. He does have a lot of early exits in the big ones and perhaps he is trying a bit too hard.
His recent form is very good, winning eight of his last ten matches, but his record at the business end of stage events is lacking. A good run would be no surprise, winning the title would be.
7 Dirk van Duijvenbode
The Aubergenius hasn’t been the same player since he missed darts to win ET 10 back in July. His confidence just seems to have taken a big hit and his record in majors has been indifferent in 2023. Dirk has lost five of his last ten matches and is hard to fancy.
8 Michael Smith
His recent form is a worry, losing five of his last ten, and his consistency has been lacking. The A game is still devastating but the B game not so good. He is now a two time major winner and he no longer gets tight in the big events, but he isn’t quite in the same form as he was 12 months ago.
9 Peter Wright
Snakebite picked up a Euro Tour title when he won the Czech Darts Masters, a rare highlight in a season of struggles. His more recent form has been more encouraging with some decent runs.
He was runner up in the final Euro Tour event but he didn’t show a lot of consistency in last week’s Players Championship events, losing five of his last ten matches. I wouldn’t rule out a decent run, he has the major pedigree, but can he play at his best for five matches in a row?
10 Jonny Clayton
He has been struggling a bit of late, missing too many darts wide of the mark, and he has lost six of his last ten matches. Does not look like the form of a potential winner.
11 Josh Rock
Rock ended a period of indifferent form in last week’s Players Championship events, winning fourteen of his eighteen matches. He was runner up in PC25 and he will be feeling a lot more confident than he would have done even two weeks ago.
He has the talent to have a good run but still is light on big tournament experience.
12 Danny Noppert
Losing five of his last ten matches (and four of his last five) is not a great warm up. His major form has been forgettable in 2023, but he has reached the quarter finals in this tournament for the last two years. He will need to find some better form to do so again.
13 Nathan Aspinall
Having lost seven of his last ten matches, The Asp is hard to fancy despite winning the Matchplay and being runner up in the World Series finals in 2023.
14 Ricardo Pietreczko
From struggling to qualify for the finals to being the fourteenth seed after winning the final Euro Tour event of the season two weeks ago. He backed that up with a semi-final and quarter final in last week’s Players Championship events.
Pietreczko has won fifteen of his last nineteen matches and is full of confidence. His consistency is still lacking a little but his confidence could carry him through that.
15 Krzysztof Ratajski
Comes here in very poor form, losing seven of his last ten matches. He has never won a match in this event and looks likely to keep that poor record going.
16 Martin Schindler
Artificially high in the Euro Tour rankings? Perhaps. The German players benefit from so many events being played in Germany and the system of qualification means Schindler is guaranteed a lot of action.
His recent form is fine, winning six of his last ten matches, but he has yet to win any sort of PDC title and winning a major for his first looks unlikely. He has reached two major quarter finals in 2023, so a decent run is not out of the question, but I can’t see him making the final.
17 Stephen Bunting
Has been in good form lately but never gone beyond the semi-final stage in a PDC major. He is playing well enough to maybe make another semi-final, but then the mental aspect of the game tends to take the edge off his game.
18 Joe Cullen
A two time major semi-finalist both this year and in this event. His recent form isn’t great, losing five of his last ten matches, and his form in last week’s Players Championships was poor, winning just four matches.
19 Ross Smith
The defending champion warmed up well by winning PC29 on Saturday, his second title of 2023. He has won thirteen of his last sixteen matches, has been hitting some big averages and a lot of 180s.
The last two players to successfully defend a European championship were MVG and Taylor which puts things into perspective, but you can’t knock his form.
20 Ryan Searle
Looked in better form in last week’s Players Championships, but this is part of the problem. Searle is a better player at home, on the floor. On stage, in Europe, he is not the same player.
He has won six of his last ten matches but gone out at the second round stage in this in his two previous appearances.
21 Andrew Gilding
Goldfinger has won seven of his last ten matches, but his scoring is lacking consistency. He has won one major in 2023 and reached the quarter final of another, so his confidence will be fine and he could have another nice run. However, he’s had too many modest averages to suggest he can reach another final.
22 Daryl Gurney
The two time major champion is beginning to play like a two time major winner again. His scoring is improving week by week and he is doing impressive things again. The one thing left to do is to string a decent run of good performances together and go deep. There are still too many losses, but to be fair, he has been a bit unlucky with his opponents tending to play their very best against him.
He warmed up by winning six of his last ten matches, hitting a nine darter and his highest recorded average when beating Ian White 6-0 in last week’s Players Championship 27, hitting a 117 average.
That will have done his confidence plenty of good and he will need it to get past Josh Rock in round one. Some bookies make him a 101.00 shot this weekend and those are not bad odds if you fancy an outsider.
23 Jose de Sousa
Another 101.00 shat but Jose actually looks like a 101.00 shot and he might be a bit short at that. The Special One has lost six of his last ten matches and his scoring power just isn’t what it was a couple of years ago. He can still pull out a good performance, but it is hard to see any kind of run.
24 Gabriel Clemens
Started to show a bit of form on the Euro Tour in the final few events, but he is not a Euro Tour specialist and not a European Championship specialist, having lost all three of his first round matches. Clemens has won five of his last ten matches and has been very inconsistent.
25 Raymond van Barneveld
It is a bit of a surprise to see Barney in the finals. His last appearance was back in 2015 and it is hard to remember him doing anything much in this year’s Euro Tour events, but he was a fairly regular qualifier and did make one quarter final. His recent form sees seven wins from his last ten matches.
26 James Wade
The 2018 Champion has finally dropped out of the World’s top 16, has lost five of his last ten matches and is hard to fancy for a deep run. He is playing well enough to win a match or two but he hasn’t performed well in the 2023 majors.
27 Gian van Veen
Making only his third appearance in a Major Championship and that is the thing. He is so good, it is easy to forget that he is very inexperienced.
I feel that he has started to expect a bit too much from himself, wanting success now rather than seeing it as long term project. Frustration helps no one and he has looked a bit frustrated. An underdog mentality would serve him well.
Van Veen has won seven of his last ten matches, so there is little wrong with his form. He reached a semi-final last week and with his talent, it is hard to rule out a good run. He has a tough first round match against Heta and if he wins that, either Rock or Gurney. Van Veen is a 67.00 shot which looks about right.
28 Dimitri van den Bergh
Dimitri will need to find his stage form if he is to have any sort of a run. He isn’t having a great year and he doesn’t have a great tournament record, only qualifying three times and winning just one match.
His scoring power has dropped off and his win rate (54%) likewise. However, he has made three semi-finals on TV this season, so he cannot be dismissed lightly. He won seven of his eleven matches on the floor last week but there were too many low scoring matches to think that his game is in great shape.
29 Keane Barry
The Irish youngster has lost five of his last ten matches and faces Gerwyn Price in the first round. I would say that is as far as he goes. His A-game makes him dangerous in a first to six format but his inconsistency makes a decent run unlikely.
30 Madars Razma
Razzmatazz has been lacking a sparkle lately and has lost ten of his last eleven matches. Not the sort of form you want to be in when going in to bat against MVG in the first round.
31 Brendan Dolan
The History Maker has lost five of his last ten matches and faces the in-form Luke Humphries in the first round. That fixture hasn’t gone well for Dolan and an early exit looks likely.
32 Chris Dobey
This where the rankings are off. There is no way Dobey is the worst player in the event but he only just scraped into the finals.
He didn’t play in too many Euro Tour events, he had to qualify for them and for much of the season he was playing the Premier League on Thursdays. He then had to travel to Europe for his first round matches on Fridays. Add into that playing qualifiers on Mondays and it was no wonder he was jaded by the time he took to the stage.
His recent form is fine, winning six of his last ten and he faces the number 1 seed, Dave Chisnall. That should be tough, but he now faces an out of form Chisnall. It is with some irony that Dobey could scrape into the finals, knock out the top seed and take his slot in the draw.
Dobey has already won the Masters and made three other major quarter finals this year, so he’ll quietly fancy his chances for another good run.
The Draw
1st Quarter
This quarter is up for grabs. Chizzy is out of sorts, Peter Wright can be anything, ditto Michael Smith. Stephen Bunting could take advantage but I am going for Chris Dobey. He is going well in the big events this year and playing in the Premier League has been beneficial for him, which is not always the case for debutants.
2nd Quarter
Gerwyn Price and Rob Cross are the top seeds in the quarter and those two meeting in the quarter final looks more than possible. Price is 11-7 vs. Cross and in 2023, 3-1. That points the way to Price making it through to the semi-final, but Cross is very fond of this trophy and has made three finals in six years. Horses for courses? Let’s hope so.
3rd Quarter
Luke Humphries should be too good for Brendan Dolan in his opener and if he can get past the banana skin that is Joe Cullen, I would fancy his chances against the likes of Wade, Van Duijvenbode and Clayton in the bottom half of the quarter.
4th Quarter
You can make a case for seven of the eight players, but MVG is the 2.00 favourite to win the quarter. The value bet looks like Ross Smith. He is in great form, very confident and knows he can do it. As I say, all but Razma have claims here but none are in better form than Ross Smith.
2023 European Championship Darts: Ante Post Selections
I am going to try a slightly different approach with three players here. Rather than a straight each way bet, I will back them to win their quarter and back that up with a small win bet to win the tournament but there is one player who looks a straight each way bet.
