2024 Masters Darts Outright Betting Preview

The 2024 Masters Darts will be the twelfth renewal of this tournament. It continues to be an unranked event, featuring the top 24 players in the PDC World Rankings.

The top eight players are seeded and enter the event at the second round stage. The other sixteen players have been drawn to play eight best of eleven leg knockout matches on Friday night to find the eight to join the seeds.

Saturday sees two sessions with four best of nineteen leg last 16 matches played in each session. Sunday features the quarter finals in the afternoon, with the semi-finals and final on Sunday evening.

Good Memories For MVG

The list of past winners is dominated by MVG who won five consecutive Masters between 2015 and 2019. We have had four different winners in the last four years: Peter Wright, Jonny Clayton, Joe Cullen and Chris Dobey, who is the defending champion.

This used to be the traditional curtain raiser to the new season but we now have two World Series events and a Premier League night before the start of the Masters. Many of the players in the field have had a run out already so we should see some good stuff.

Gerwyn Price withdrew from the tournament yesterday and has been replaced by Daryl Gurney. The good news for Daryl is that he is a direct replacement for Price and he enters at the second round stage and will face the winner of the Rock vs. Cullen tie. He also gets a minimum £7500 which is a nice little bonus before his season proper starts on the 12th of February with Players Championship 1.

2024 Masters Darts: The Seeds

1 Luke Humphries

The new World Champion and number 1 seed. Past newly crowned World Champions have gone on to win four of the previous Masters titles, the last being Peter Wright in 2020.

Humphries has taken part in both of the World Series events, losing in both quarter finals and losing to Littler last night. It is fair to say that his form has dropped since that twenty match winning run that saw him win the Grand Slam, Players Championship Finals and the World Championship.

Humphries has played in two previous Masters but has not progressed beyond the first round. A dip in form after winning the World Championship is not unusual and there is a fair chance that he is just tired after playing so much darts.

In the old days, the World Champion would have had three weeks off before resuming play, but already this season Humphries has been to Bahrain, the Netherlands and Cardiff before getting to Milton Keynes for this tournament.

2 Michael van Gerwen

Enjoyed winning the Dutch Darts Masters on Saturday night, beating Luke Littler in a high quality final. That was in his hometown and while it was just a World Series event, it was a very strong line up and was a proper test.

MVG was runner up to Littler in Bahrain, so his 2024 campaign has got off to a decent start. He lost his match vs. Michael Smith last night, but it was a 5-6 loss and he didn’t do too much wrong, just didn’t do the right things at the right time.

3 Michael Smith

Smith’s form has been indifferent, but he picked up Night 1 at the Premier League last night. He gave an interesting interview afterwards in which he admitted to not having worked very hard on his game last year.

As World Champion, he wanted to take holidays and with a busy schedule, he didn’t spend the hours on the practice board, which makes sense. Smith also said he is enjoying not having all the additional media attention that come with being World Champion. It will be interesting to see how he gets on in the coming weeks and months.

Smith made the semi-final in Bahrain but only just won his first round match before beating the hapless Peter Wright. Smith then lost his first round match in the Dutch Darts Masters to Gian van Veen, averaging just 88.

Last night’s win will have been a much needed boost to his confidence and he did put in three solid performances, if a little too close for comfort vs. MVG.

4 Nathan Aspinall 

Remains in poor form, winning just one World Series match by the skin of his teeth in Bahrain. His scoring is all over the place and while you can’t rule out a good performance, seeing him string two together is becoming rare. He only averaged 89 in a 4-6 to Gerwyn Price last night and has lost seven of his last ten matches.

5 Daryl Gurney

It is like the old days, with Superchin high up the seedings. Of course it is more a case of Super Sub, than Superchin this time.

Gurney hasn’t played since losing his last 16 match against Dave Chisnall at Ally Pally. Gurney has a history of losing to Chisnall in this event so he will be pleased that Chizzy is on the other side of the draw this weekend.

It is worth pointing out that Gurney is now ranked 5th for checkout % over the last 12 months. That is elite class finishing and if, and when, he recaptures his power scoring, he will be right in the mix to move up the rankings again.

Gurney had lost five of his last ten matches before the break and as we haven’t seen him for a month, it is hard to say what sort of form he will be in. He won’t have been expecting a late call up (De Sousa was first reserve) and will he have been on the practice board recently?

6 Rob Cross

Continues to score well without getting the results that he has deserved. He missed a heap of doubles in the Netherlands last weekend and went out early to Raymand van Barneveld.

Cross was runner up here last year, ending what had been a very poor record in Milton Keynes. He has the potential for a good run once again.

Voltage lost his semi-final to Gerwyn Price last night, averaging 98, but checking out at just 18%. He wasn’t helped by the whistler putting him off, but his doubling in his last three matches has been poor.

7 Danny Noppert

Beat Nathan Aspinall 6-2 last Friday but lost his quarter final to Gian van Veen. Noppert has won seven of his last ten matches but half his matches saw sub 90 averages, which doesn’t suggest that a good run is likely.

8 Peter Wright

Wright is seriously out of form. His scoring is poor and his doubling has fallen to under 30% in half of his last ten matches. It seems every time I come to write a preview for Wright, his scoring average has dropped.

He is down to 46th place in the 12 month scoring averages and it seems to fall with every match he plays. An 83.7 average last night didn’t help.

Wright is going to find winning matches very hard unless he can find some sort of form soon, but he hasn’t played well for a quite some time. He did manage to win the European Championship last October, but that was a real outlier in terms of his performances in the last 12 months.

Non Seeds

Jonny Clayton is the highest ranked non seed and he gets drawn to play the lowest ranked in the first round, the 10th ranked player plays the 23rd and so on.

Jonny Clayton

The Ferret’s form nosedived following the death of his father in the summer. He had reached the final of the Matchplay in July, but since then his win rate has been just 52%. At his peak in 2021, Clayton was winning 78%, so he has been way off his best for months.

Dave Chisnall

A two time runner up in this event, Chizzy is still chasing that elusive first TV title. Chisnall had a very successful 2023 season, winning two Players Championship titles and three Euro Tour titles, but once again, it didn’t happen for him on TV.

Chizzy has played in every previous Masters tournament, losing two finals, a semi-final and four quarter finals. Another good run is possible, but winning a TV title? He is expensive to back when he is on telly.

Damon Heta

2023 was a case of close but no cigar for The Heat. Four Euro Tour semi-finals and four more quarter finals. There were three ranking Major quarter finals as well, enough to take him to eleventh in the world rankings. I always expect Heta to have good runs, but he is not such a good bet to actually win titles.

Joe Cullen

The 2022 champion reached two Major semi-finals in 2023 and Cullen retained his 12th place in the rankings. The one thing missing was a title.

He has taken a bit of a huff that he was passed over for the Premier League again, but perhaps he really needs to win something to get that call up. He ended 2023 with six defeats from his last ten.

Dirk van Duijvenbode

It seems that the post World Championship break hasn’t allowed Dirk to recover from his shoulder problem which derailed him late in 2023. He lost 2-6 to Luke Littler in the Dutch Darts Masters last weekend, averaging just 82. Dirk has only won one of his last ten matches and only hit five maximums from his last seven matches, so his greatest strength is just not there now.

Dimitri van den Bergh

Another player who was off his game last season. After reaching the semi-finals at the World Championship and UK Open, his season fizzled out and he ended the year with a 53% win rate.

Van den Bergh returned to action last Friday, averaged 102.4 but lost 3-6 to Gerwyn Price. That was Dimitri’s best average since October, but he has only won three of his last ten matches, so it is hard to say if a corner has been turned.

Chris Dobey

The defending champion kicks off his 2024 season at the scene of his only TV title win. He had a successful 2023, reaching four ranking Major quarter finals. While he only finished ahead of Peter Wright in last year’s Premier League, he benefited from the experience of playing the top players, week in and week out. He ended 2023 with six wins from ten, but he proved last year that he can play well after a break.

Stephen Bunting

Another player who enjoyed a good 2023 season. His 66% win rate was his best since he started playing PDC darts in 2014. It must be said that the one thing that was missing was a title. He did reach a Euro Tour final, but lost that to Krzysztof Ratajski.

It has been a feature of his PDC career that Bunting can have good runs but finds things difficult when he gets to the business end of tournaments. Bunting has played in five previous Masters tournaments but only won two of his seven matches.

Ross Smith

Had a win rate of 65% in 2023 but only managed a Players Championship title. However, it was more than some other form players managed. His performances in the televised events were disappointing, however.

Many thought his 2022 European Championship win was the start of Smith really getting going in the Majors, but it has not been the case.

Smudger is one of the heaviest scorers in the game (ranked 6th for his 3 dart average in the last 12 months) and he is now ranked 1st for 180s per leg over the same period. He really should be winning more titles.

Andrew Gilding

Goldfinger had his best ever season in 2023, winning the UK Open and reaching the quarter final at the World Grand Prix. He ended the season ranked 18th in the world. His form did fall off in the second half of the season and he ended 2023 with just three wins from his last ten.

James Wade

Another player to have played in all eleven previous Masters. He was the winner in 2013 and runner up in 2019.

Wade ended 2023 as the World number 19, his lowest year ending rank since 2005. His win rate was still a very creditable 65% and he was runner up in the European Championships and was a Grand Slam semi-finalist, so it is too early to think he is a spent force, just that the competition is very tough.

Ryan Searle

Despite a decent win rate of 64% in 2023, it was a disappointing season for Searle. He started the year in great form, winning PC1, runner up in PC4, the semi-final of ET1, runner up in PC6 and the semi-final of PC15. There was also a semi-final at the World Matchplay. After that, there was just a couple of Players Championship quarter finals.

Searle has played in two previous Masters, but only won one match. Searle has a record of playing well early in the season. He won PC3 in 2020, was runner up in PC1 in 2022, won PC1 last year as well as being runner up in PC4. He is a player to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

Josh Rock

A player ruined by the media according to Gary Anderson. In reality he upped his 3 dart average in 2023 to 95.98, reached a Euro Tour final, a ranking Major quarter final and ended the year as the World number 21.

It was only his second year on tour and most people would regard his progress as steady. Maybe Gary thought Rock would have been World number 1 if nobody talked about him.

It is true that his limelight was stolen by the likes of Gian van Veen and now Luke Littler, but to describe him as ruined was nonsense. He won six of his last ten matches in 2023 and it was his consistency that was letting him down.

Gabriel Clemens

The German Giant will be making his third Masters appearance but he is still looking for his first match win. Clemens had two Major Championship semi-finals in 2023, bookended by the World Championship and Players Championship.

He increased his seasonal average by a little under 2 points but his win rate was stuck at a disappointing 56%. He was playing some nice darts at the end of 2023 but we shall have to wait and see if he has retained that form at the start of 2024.

Martin Schindler

The second German to qualify for the tournament. Schindler, like Clemens, is still seeking a first senior PDC title. His ranking at the end of 2023 was a career best 23rd and he reached two Major quarter finals. His form at the end of 2023 was poor, losing six of his last ten matches. Others make more appeal.

Krzysztof Ratajski

Not the player he was in 2017 to 2020 when his win rate was in the 70% + range. Last year it was 59%, a slight improvement on 2022, but he did win two titles, the Czech Darts Open and a Players Championship title.

His world ranking has fallen to 24th from a 2021 high of 12th. The reason was that he had a good year in the Majors in 2021 but struggled to make much progress in any in 2023.

He is a player to follow when in form, he has won eight PDC titles, but he ended 2023 in poor form, losing six of his last ten matches. He has played in three Masters and only won a single match.

2024 Masters Darts: Summary

The history of this tournament is interesting. The first eight tournaments were all 16 runner fields, but from 2021 it was extended to the top 24 players, with the top eight entering in the second round.

For those first eight events, the number 1 seed won six, the second seed won one and the 6th seed won one. Since it was extended, the ranking of the winner has been 18th, 11th and 21st. Two of the runners up were ranked 13th and 20th.

The first eight saw Taylor win the first and MVG win five. We do not currently have one player who is dominating the game in the same way as those two did, but the fact that the last three winners have all been ranked outside the top 10, and two of the runners up, is a bit strange.

Anyone Can Win

In 2021, the only one played behind closed doors, the winner was ranked 18th and the runner up 20th, but the trend continued in the following two years. At the very least, we should be considering all 24 players as potential winners, and not just the ones at the top of the rankings, as was the case at the World Championships.

All past eleven winners had win rates in the previous year of at least 63%. Of this year’s entries, ten fall short of that threshold. Ratajski, Schindler, Clemens, Gilding, Van den Bergh, Dobey, Cullen, Clayton, Wright and Aspinall. I will add Dirk van Duijvenbode to that list, such was his loss of form in late 2023.

That narrows the field down a bit. Now to take a look at the draw.

The Draw

The top quarter only has three players not already eliminated. Ross Smith and Stephen Bunting meet for the right to play Luke Humphries. Bunting and Smith are not prolific tournament winners and Humphries would be short odds to beat either. That said, Humphries has now lost three of his last four matches and is becoming opposable.

With Bunting having a very good record against Smith, it is not impossible to see him meeting Humphries, and beating him. There is a path to the semi-final of Bunting, but that is where things go wrong for him.

Second Quarter Interesting

The second quarter looks very interesting for a place in the semi-final. With the withdrawal of Gerwyn Price, I would say the winner will come from Rock, Cullen or even Daryl Gurney (seasonal win rate in 2023 64%).

Joe Cullen had lost six of his last ten matches before the break. He is a former champion here, so he has that in his favour. Josh Rock was in reasonable form, winning six of his last ten matches, but he wasn’t flying and was playing very inconsistently. There is no H2H form with Cullen and Rock which doesn’t help.

No Pressure

With Gurney, who knows? He is under no pressure, has got a phone call which effectively gave him £7500 he wasn’t expecting and is four wins away from winning a title.

He was hoping to finish 2023 inside the top 24 in order to qualify for this event, and it is ironic that he failed to do so, but finds himself in round two. Gurney has a very poor record vs. Cullen and has only played Rock once, winning 6-2.

MVG Should Win 3rd Quarter

The third quarter looks good for MVG. His warmups in the two World Series events and PL give him the edge. Dobey is a threat if he can hit the ground running again.

Dave Chisnall is a two time runner up, and the number 10 ranked player has finished as runner up four times in the last nine years. However, I’d take MVG to beat anyone in the quarter, but with Dobey as a live threat

Cross & Wade

In the final quarter I can see James Wade facing Rob Cross for a place in the semi-final to face MVG. Wade has a good record over Michael Smith in the top half and in the bottom Heta is 5-2 with Clemens, but only 1-5 with Cross. Michael Smith will have a spring in his step after winning Night 1 of the PL last night, so he enters the equation.

Wade is 12-10 with Cross and has won four of their last five. Cross is playing the better darts right now, but both had been in good form at the end of 2023. A bit of a coin toss for me.

2024 Masters Darts: Ante Post Selections

In keeping with the recent trend of the lower ranked players making hay here, I’ll take a few plays on some of the outsiders and hope that one can get through to a semi-final. For the outright, I’ll stick with one of the favourites.

1 point Stephen Bunting to win the 1st quarter at the 2024 Masters Darts @ 8.00 with Skybet, Livescorebet

0.5 point Daryl Gurney to win the second quarter at the 2024 Masters Darts @ 8.00 with Livescorebet

0.5 point James Wade to win the fourth quarter at the 2024 Masters Darts @ 10.00 with Skybet

1 point Michael van Gerwen to win The 2024 Masters Darts @ 4.50 with Skybet

-JamesPunt

James Punt’s Friday night Round 1 preview can be viewed here.