Darts Tournament - Paul Nicholson v Adrian Lewis

29 December 2008

Preview By Tipster CYellow (England)

Paul Nicholson vs Adrian Lewis

The odds for the second round clash intrigue me and do not really represent what i believe the tru odds for this match are.

The favourite to win is Adrian Lewis. He needs little introduction to darts fan having been a top ranked player for a few years now and a regular in the premier league. For me he falls just short of being a top player, he has all the talent in the world but just cannot seem to push his average up over the 95 mark to be a contender for titles and its this reason he is so often an also ran.

Much less is known about the Aussie born in England Paul Nicholson. What i do know and what i have seen of him suggests to me he could be very good indeed.

Nicholson is no stranger to winning titles, he has a massive list of wins in 2008 and is clearly Australias finest darting export for a few years to hit the PDC.

I first saw him at the Grand Slam of Darts where he produced a big shock beating Gary Anderson before losing to Daryl Fitton and then losing by the odd leg to Kevin Painter which saw him eliminated. By way of contrast Lewis also won 1 and lost 2 of his 3 grand slam matches. The pairs averages across the tournament were similar Lewis with 90.6, Nicholson with 88.9.

What was noticable in their tournament stats was the huge amount of 140+ scores by Nicholson.

In their first round matches at the PDC World Championships it was a similar story. Lewis less than impressive averaging 86.1 in a workmanlike 3-1 win over the only other Aussie in the tournament Russell Stewart. Nicholson meanwhile posted the 4th highest average of the round in his 3-0 demolition of the seeded Adrian Gray winning all 9 legs and not losing any. He averaged 96.62.

The most eye catching stat from that performance was the amount of 140+ throws from Nicholson a remarkable 14 (in 9 legs) In all he had 27 ton plus scores, Lewis had 34 but threw 8 legs more.

If Nicholson maintains this heavy scoring he will give himself plenty of opportunities to break the Lewis throw. His grouping has been excellent and i dont see why he starts the match as such a long odds outsider.

By dutching the odds we can actually get a bigger price on a Nicholson win (which shows the power of both novelty markets such as correct score and also not being loyal to one bookmaker) so the suggested staking plan is as follows:

Nicholson 4-3 2.07 points @ 7.0 (Skybet)

Nicholson 4-2 1.61 points @ 9.0 (Betfred)

Nicholson 4-1 0.97 points @ 15.0 (Betfred)

Nicholson 4-0 0.35 points @ 41.0 (Betfred)

Any win returns 14.49 points for 5 points staked giving odds of 2.89 (considerably better than the top priced 2.63 n the match odds).