2023 Night 1 Premier League Darts Preview & Tips – JP
2023 Night 1 Premier League Darts Preview
Belfast will be rocking for the opening night of this year’s Premier League of Darts. Our expert James Punt has already posted a player by player, outright betting preview and you can read that here. His 2023 Night 1 Premier League Darts preview and tips are below.
Dimitri van den Bergh vs. Jonny Clayton
It seems like crap dancing is enough to get you into the Premier League these days. Van den Bergh is not in great form, despite reaching the World Championship semi-final. He won a couple of World Series events in the summer but otherwise had a quiet 2022.
A change of darts supplier didn’t help him, but he has got the new supplier to make something that looks very much like his old darts. He has won six of his last ten matches and looked in decent nick in Copenhagen a couple of weeks ago, enough to make me think he might do well at the Masters. He didn’t, averaging 90.3 in a 4-6 loss to Gary Anderson. His doubling has been dire at times, with a third of his last 50 matches seeing a checkout rate of 30% or worse.
Ferret Loves The Premier League
Clayton loves his Premier League, and he will be in a positive frame of mind, despite his recent form being a bit iffy. He has won six of his last ten matches and is hitting plenty of mid to high 90 averages.
Van den Bergh is 8-5 in their previous meetings, and he beat Clayton in their last two. The most recent was at the World Championships, the other at the Grand Prix, both set based formats. They have met twice in the PL with one win each.
Clayton is the 1.75 favourite, Van den Bergh 2.20. Neither player is entirely trustworthy at the moment and while Clayton deserves to be favourite, there is no value here.
2023 Night 1 Premier League Tip: No Bet
Michael Smith vs. Michael van Gerwen
The best looking match of the night with the two World Championship finalists lining up to get their Premier League campaigns underway.
Smith has played ten matches since winning the World Championship, winning eight of them. He played his first stinker of the season with a 90 average and a 7-11 defeat to Chris Dobey at the weekend. He may just have been tired as he hasn’t had a break since winning the World Championship and if he is not playing, there has been plenty of media work to be done.
H2H Interesting
Smith’s H2H record with MVG is interesting. It is 37-14 to MVG, but Smith has won their last four. In the Premier League it is 12-3 to MVG but again, Smith has won their last two. Their last six PL matches, all played last year, went over 9.5 legs.
Van Gerwen has won seven of his last ten matches but lost three of his last five. Arguably, he wasn’t fully fired up post World Championship and he wasn’t prepared for his opening World Series event, but his scoring remains very strong with only one of his last ten matches seeing a lower average than 98.
I suspect MVG will have put the work in this week to get prepared for what is the second most important tournament on his radar. Smith is no longer brow beaten by Van Gerwen and so long as he is a bit fresher than last weekend, we should have another close match.
2023 Night 1 Premier League Tip: 1 point over 9.5 legs @ 1.91 generally available
Peter Wright vs. Chris Dobey
Chris Dobey is the only debutant in this year’s League. He did play as a Contender, against Mensur Suljovic in Newcastle in 2019, drawing 6-6, and behind closed doors in Milton Keynes 2020, losing 2-7 to Daryl Gurney. He rates that night in Newcastle as a one of his career highs. Dobey is in great form, winning eight of his last ten matches, including winning The Masters on Sunday night.
Peter Wright is also in good form, winning seven of his last ten matches, including winning the World Series event in Copenhagen. He reached the semi-final of the Masters on Sunday, losing 10-11 to Rob Cross. He has averaged 100.78 across his last four matches. His doubling has been very strong and he should be hard to beat tonight.
Their H2H record is 4-2 to Wright. They haven’t met since 2021 and never on TV. Three matches ended in a deciding leg, two ended 6-1 with one win for each.
Wright The Fav
Wright is the 1.48 favourite with Dobey 2.75. Snakebite is the better player in most respects, including experience in the PL. He has played in nine and won four of his opening matches, with three draws. He has only lost one match here in Belfast from seven played, but also drawn three. We do not have draws anymore of course but clearly, he usually starts well.
Dobey at least has had a taste of playing a proper PL match, in front of an adoring home crowd in Newcastle, so it will not be entirely new, but Wright does have the advantage in terms of experience.
Dobey could suffer a bit of mental let down after his big win on Sunday night. The adrenaline will be pumping and it will be interesting to see how he gets on.
Wright makes little appeal at 1.48 against an in-form player. Over 9.5 legs at 2.00 makes some appeal but with Dobey coming down after a big win, it is hard to say how he will cope in front of a huge crowd in a short format match. I am cutting down on PL bets this year and this is a marginally attractive bet which gets passed over.
2023 Night 1 Premier League Tip: No Bet
Nathan Aspinall vs. Gerwyn Price
The Asp has been a bit inconsistent lately. He was runner up in the Grand Slam, very flat in the final, lost to Kleermaker in the first round of the Players Championship finals, lost in the third round of the World Championship to Josh Rock and lost 5-6 to Bunting in the first round of The Masters. His scoring has been reasonably good, all 90+ plus averages and half over 95. He has won six of his last ten but lost four of his last five.
Price will be hoping that the Belfast crowd will be gentle on him, but he can only bank on that in Cardiff. He too has won six of his last ten matches and his scoring has been good, and more consistent than Aspinall’s.
Price Edges H2H
Their H2H record is 11-9 to Price and Aspinall says he enjoys playing Price. He likes all the shouting and adrenaline pumping stuff. That may play into his hands. If Price starts giving it large, the crowd will jump all over him, if Aspinall does, he will get cheered.
These two met in the PL in 2020 and Aspinall won both, 8-6 and 7-4. Both those matches were behind closed doors. Their TV record is interesting, 5-2 to Aspinall.
Price is 1.54 favourite with Aspinall 2.62. Relatively speaking, Aspinall raises his game in the PL, while Price has always been disappointing given his standing in the game. In Price’s last ten matches played in the UK and on TV, he has lost five and after his ear defender nonsense at Ally Pally, I expect the abuse factor to go up a notch.
