2023 German Darts Open Betting Preview

Round 11 of the 2023 European Tour is the 2023 German Darts Open, once again being played in the Sparkassen Arena in Jena. Peter Wright is the defending champion, having beaten Dimitri van den Bergh 8-6 in last year’s final.

Before the 2021 renewal, the previous German Darts Opens had been played in Saarbrücken. Michael van Gerwen beat Ian White in 2019, Max Hopp beat Michael Smith in 2018 and Peter Wright beat Benito van de Pas in 2017.

Most of the players enjoyed a few weeks off to recharge their batteries ahead of the business end of the season, which lies ahead. Some of the ‘big names’ have been away on the World Series tour of Australia and New Zealand.

That involved a lot of travelling and explains why MVG declined to take part this year. Jonny Clayton also pulled out for personal reasons. Rob Cross enjoyed himself, winning the New Zealand Darts Masters and the New South Wales Masters.

Price In Form

We have had five Players Championship events since the summer break for the players to get back into tournament play. Gerwyn Price won both PC17 and PC18, accounting for two of the best young players Gian van Veen and Josh Rock in the finals.

PC19 saw Callan Rydz return to winning ways, defeating Dave Chisnall. Rydz reached the semi-final of PC20 the following day, losing to Luke Humphries, who beat Kevin Doets in the final. PC21 was won by that man Gerwyn Price again.

Chizzy Tops Order Of Merit

After the first ten Euro Tour events of the season, Dave Chisnall tops the OOM, with Luke Humphries a close second. Humphries has been very kind to our bank accounts on the Euro Tour in 2023 and he finally got one over the line last time out at the European Darts Matchplay, taking advantage of a doubles’ meltdown by Dirk van Duijvenbode.

That makes it +29.00 points profit on our outright tournament bets in the Euro Tour in 2023 to date.

This season’s Euro Tour has had eight different winners so far. Chisnall (x2) Price (x2), Michael Smith, Jonny Clayton, MVG, Peter Wright, Rob Cross and Luke Humphries. Humphries has made five finals and rewarded each way backers handsomely. Chizzy has made three finals and Van Duijvenbode is a two-time runner up.

There are some notable absentees this weekend. Michael van Gerwen, Michael Smith, and Jonny Clayton have all decided to swerve this one, and Gerwyn Price continues to absent himself. That means Ross Smith, Andrew Gilding and Krzysztof Ratajski are now all seeded.

2023 German Darts Open: The Seeds

1 Dave Chisnall

Two time winner on the Euro Tour in 2023, Chizzy showed good form to reach the final of PC19 last Sunday. He has won six of his last ten matches. He has reached five finals in 2023 and is enjoying a very strong season. Chisnall lost both first round matches on Monday and Tuesday, both with sub 90 averages.

2 Damon Heta

Won PC15 in July, won PC14 in June and made a World Series final down under last month. His seasonal win rate is a healthy 69%. He is having a lot of good tournament runs and starting to pick up more titles. He has only won five of his last ten and his was a mixed bag at the Players Championships this week.

3 Luke Humphries

Very much a Euro Tour specialist having now won five titles and been runner up on another four occasions. His 2023 win rate is 73%. He took a long break after the World Matchplay, having six weeks off.

He returned to action at this week’s Players Championship events in Barnsley, losing in the first round on PC19, but averaging 100 in defeat. Cool Hand shook the rust off the following day by winning PC20. He has won eleven of his last twelve matches and remains in excellent form. Mr. Euro Tour tops the shortlist once more.

4 Dirk van Duivenbode

Losing the final of the European Darts Matchplay and the way in which he lost, will have set Dirk back. He desperately wants to win one of these titles and might be trying too hard. He just had a bit of a meltdown and Luke Humphries was gifted the title, which was nice for us, but Dirk was in bits afterwards.

The Aubergenius has reached two finals and has the ability to win, but he is finding getting past the winning post very hard. In terms of scoring and seasonal win rate (72%), he is right up with the very best. Just three pro tour titles to his credit is less than his ability deserves.

He was another to take a long break after the Matchplay, returning to action this Monday. He won four of his matches and hit three ton plus averages.

5 Josh Rock

Sometimes even meteoric rises up the rankings can hit a flat spot and Rock’s form has not been his best of late. His last big run in a tournament was losing the final of PC12 back in May.

There have been too many sub 90 averages, which is a concern for a very heavy scorer like Rock. He has won six of his last ten and hit as many sub 90 averages as ton plusses. Hard to place where his form is, but consistency is a bit lacking.

6 Rob Cross

Cross is enjoying something of a revival in 2023. He isn’t playing a great deal better than he has for a while now, but he is winning titles again and that virtuous circle of confidence and success is back in his armoury.

Voltage won back to back World Series events last month and followed that up with a quarter final in PC18 last weekend. He won on the Euro Tour in May, along with PC11. He is scoring well and his doubling has been strong. Very much a contender.

He has been a Euro Tour runner up seven times, so getting that first win could be the key to more success. He remains in good form, winning seven of his last ten matches.

7 Joe Cullen

A three time Euro Tour winner, Cullen reached the Matchplay semi-final before the summer break and returned still in good form, reaching the semi-final of PC18 last weekend and the quarter final of PC19 on Sunday.

He has won seven of his last ten matches. Cullen has had a lot of good runs on the Euro Tour and pro tours in 2023 but he has lost six semi-finals.

8 Peter Wright

Snakebite has won a Euro Tour title in 2023, but the season as a whole has been a disappointing one, to say the least. At the end of 2020 Wright was averaging 99.26 and now it is just 93.40 and falling.

His win rate in 2023 is only 46% and while it is tempting to dismiss him out of hand, he did win seven of his ten matches at the Players Championship events. It was a slow start with four sub 90 averages but he improved and by Tuesday, he had reached an unlikely semi-final. It is hard to say if he is on the comeback trail after one good event but it was a positive sign.

9 Danny Noppert

Started 2023 by winning PC2 but he hasn’t won since then. He has enjoyed plenty of good runs on the Euro Tour, making a semi-final and three more quarter finals. He played pretty well in his World Series events down under.

Danny took a few weeks off after that and returned to action on Sunday. He played well enough to win eight of his eleven matches, reaching one quarter final. Another decent run is likely/possible, but winning the title? There are more likely winners.

10 Martin Schindler

Schindler is the tenth seed? He still hasn’t won a PDC senior title of any description and his 2023 win rate is a modest 58%. He has made a semi-final and two more quarter finals on the Euro Tour in 2023 but his recent form has been poor.

Since the resumption of the pro tour after the summer break, Schindler has played nine and won four. He hit three ton plus averages and it was the usual mixed bag of performances.

11 Nathan Aspinall

Aspinall has not played since returning to the UK after the New Zealand/Australia World Series events. He skipped the five Players Championship events in the last two weeks. He either thinks he will play well fresh or he will be lacking match fitness.

His seasonal win rate is just 58% but that hardly matters after picking up his second major title, The World Matchplay, just before the summer break. Euro Tour wise he has been runner up once and reached two other quarter finals.

The Asp is hard to call having not played for a month. That said, Price and Humphries got back to winning ways very quickly after their summer breaks.

12 Ryan Searle

Still to get the hang of the Euro Tour. He did reach a semi-final in the opening event back in February and has made one more quarter final, but a player of his calibre should be doing better.

He made his comeback after the summer break earlier this week and he played well enough, winning eight of his eleven matches. Others make more appeal given his poor Euro Tour record.

13 Jose de Sousa

Continues to play OK, but not near his best. He has yet to win more than one match in any of his Euro Tour events in 2023. The Special One has played thirteen matches since the end of the summer break and he won eight. His scoring was decent and he could win a match once more, but a deep run? Maybe not.

14 Ross Smith

Showed some good form at the Players Championship events earlier this week. He reached the quarter finals of PC19 and averaged 100 over his five matches. He only just missed out on another quarter final in PC20.

Ross was hitting a lot of 180s and when Smudger is hitting the maximums well, he is a player to follow. He played fourteen matches at this week’s Players Championships and won eleven. He also hit more 180s than anyone else. That is a good sign and he is a player who warrants attention this weekend.

15 Andrew Gilding

Played all five of the Players Championship events since the summer break and he won his fair share of matches, but his scoring was only modest. His 2023 win rate is 67% but he has got no further than one quarter final on the Euro Tour in 2023.

16 Krzysztof Ratajski

Was playing well back in the spring, winning PC9 having been runner up in PC8. Since then he has just been ticking over with his best result a quarter final in ET9 in May. He has lost six of his last ten and remains hard to fancy.

Notable Unseeded Players

The record of the unseeded players on the 2023 Euro Tour remains poor. James Wade made the Semi-final of ET10, and Daryl Gurney the semi-final of ET5, but not one unseeded player has reached the each way pay out spots. That suggests that giving these players a wide berth is the sensible play.

There are some that showed some decent form in the recent run of Players Championship events, and while reaching the final looks unlikely based of past form, they will be players to avoid for the seeded players when the draw is made.

Gian van Veen

Continues to impress, even in defeat. An exceptional talent and still improving. Like Josh Rock last year, he has the game to beat anyone and long run should almost be expected. He will face the other young uber talent, Luke Littler, in the final of the World Youth Championship later in the year and that will be a must watch match.

Van Veen has won seven of his last ten matches and he operates at a very high level these days. His consistency is commendable and he is a contender for anything he enters.

James Wade

Made the semi-final of ET10 before the summer break, averaging 109 in a 5-7 loss to Luke Humphries. He came back after his summer break on Sunday and reached the semi-final of PC19, losing to eventual winner Callan Rydz.

Daryl Gurney

Along with Wade, he has got the furthest for an unseeded player in 2023. He has built his 2023 season around qualifying for these events and he has also qualified for the next three. He is eighteenth on the Euro Tour OOM as a result.

Outside of ET5 he hasn’t strung many long runs together but overall in 2023, his win rate is up to 68%, his highest since 2017, and we all know what he did back then. His game is heading in the right direction and he is a player who could have a good run.

Superchin reached the semi-final of PC21 on Tuesday and he has won seven of his last ten. His game is back in very good shape and his checkouts earlier this week were excellent. Amazingly, he hasn’t drawn Dylan Slevin this weekend. Instead he plays Steve Lennon and the winner faces Martin Schindler.

Others who get honourable mentions after showing some good form in the last week or two are Stephen Bunting, Cameron Menzies, Mike de Decker, Jules van Dongen and Florian Hempel. They could be a pain for any seed that draws them.

The 2023 German Darts Open Draw

Q1

Dave Chisnall has got a decent draw. His fellow seeded players are Ratajski, Wright and Noppert. Wright is bang out of form, Ratajski is coasting and Noppert is a bit in and out. I have to fancy Chizzy to continue his good Euro Tour form and win this quarter.

Q2

A competitive looking quarter but Dirk van Duijvenbode and Josh Rock make the most appeal. Both have made finals in 2023 and both have the firepower to have another good run. Searle and De Sousa are dangerous players, but not really Euro Tour experts.

Q3

Damon Heta had a mare in Barnsley earlier in the week, winning just three matches. Gilding isn’t having much joy in Europe this year. Martin Schindler has been hitting some big numbers this week, but he is hard to fancy going really deep. He has home advantage but that is a two edged sword.

Joe Cullen would like to get his Euro Tour mojo back and he’s playing well enough to have a decent chance of winning the quarter. The unseeded players include Gurney, Wade and Bunting, so the seeds will have some in form players looking to knock them out

Q4

The group of death. Luke Humphries has been immense for much of this year’s Euro Tour and he was due a win, which he got last time out. He warmed up for this weekend with a Players Championship win and after a long break with not a lot of practice, he has hit the ground running. Luke will need to be at his best however.

The other seeds are all in form. Nathan Aspinall will have a spring in his step for a while after winning the World Matchplay. Not taking part in the Players Championship events this week might leave him coming into this a little rusty. He’d like an easy second round draw to ease himself back into action.

Rob Cross is back to something like his best and winning titles again. He is now a Euro Tour winner as well as a two time European Champion, and his confidence will be high.

Ross Smith is banging in the 180s at a ferocious rate right now and he is a very dangerous player when in that sort of form. A very tough group for all concerned, but it is the Euro Tour, so just back Luke.

2023 German Darts Open: Ante Post Selections

This is a tough one. The draw has resulted in the fourth quarter featuring five players on my long list and three on the short list.

Luke Humphries has been great for us this season, and last, on the Euro Tour. For once, he starts at single figure odds. The absence of the big beasts has left him as the favourite to win and at odds of 8.00, If he was in any other quarter I’d back him again, but I’d want more than 8.00 just to make the semi-final.

Top Half

The top half of the draw looks easier but there is no really outstanding candidate. Dave Chisnall has done the business twice in Europe this season, but his form earlier this week wasn’t great, despite making a final. He ended up losing his last four matches and hitting three sub 90 averages.

Dirk van Duijvenbode has reached two finals in 2023 but nerves got the better of him. He has the game to win these tournaments, but his temperament must be questioned.

Josh Rock is another who has the game to win and he has already made a final. He is lacking a bit of consistency right now, playing some great stuff, but also the odd duff match.

The absence of MVG in particular means the odds on the others are shorter than usual but I’ll take a few chances for smallish stakes this weekend.

0.5 point e/w Ross Smith to win the 2023 German Darts Open @ 26.00 with Hills, Ladbrokes, Boylesports

0.25 point e/w Gian van Veen to win the 2023 German Darts Open @ 81.00 with Ladbrokes

0.5 point e/w Dirk van Duivenbode to win the 2023 German Darts Open @ 14.00 with Boylesports

0.25 point e/w Daryl Gurney to win the 2023 German Darts Open @ 51.00 generally available

I will not be able to cover the matches this weekend but will be back next week with a look at the World Series Finals.

-JamesPunt