Darts Tournament - Ted Hankey v World Championship

3 January 2010

Preview By Tipster Lordburt (England)

Well there are less than 2 weeks til Christmas Day now and its usually a great time of the year for betting, Football galore, Darts, The snooker in on at the moment and the new tennis season is fast approaching, Sadly for me im going to miss most of this action, Dont shed too many tears for me though 'cos im going to be backpacking for a month around Malaysia, Thailand Bali and Cambodia, Tough life hey!! What this all means is though that if i want to put any picks up they will have to be now rather than later, Without any match prices up at the moment for the PDC darts i will just concentrate on the BDO darts which starts Jan 3rd

****BDO World Championships****

The BDO is the original darts, Sadly though the standard isnt the same as the PDC and many of the brigher stars have moved over for the money and the razz of the PDC, You do however get a far more educated crowd it the BDO, that said im off next Saturday to the PDC for a big piss up with rdeacon and some other darts friends!! Anyway

Ted 'The Count' Hankey is current BDO 'World Champion' and i dont see any reason why he cant defend his crown and at a price that is more than attractive (13.0). At the recent Grand Slam Of Darts, Hankey had a few problems early on, the Crowd were not on there best behaviour and it effected Ted in his opening match, After that though he played some pretty good darts and perhaps should have got through the group stage, He missed a dart for the match against Simon Whitlock who is a very good player and personally id be happy if he took that sort of form into this tournament. The crowd will be more to his liking here and although he portrays himself as a bad guy still doesnt deserve to be booed during his throw. (this wont happen at the BDO)

What of his rivals??

Waites, O'Shea and Adams are the market leaders, which is unsurprising, Waites reached the G.S.O.D final before getting a lesson of Phil Taylor, O'Shea (runner up here last year) had a good run at the G.S.O.D and Evergreen Wolfie Adams turned down an invite but is regarded as one of the BDOs very best players. The problem with backing these guys is that at between 4.0 and 6.0 to me they dont represent any value whatsoever. Fitton and Montgomery aren't without value but Fitton will need to improve on his GSOD effort. The match of round 1 though looks to be between Hankey and Robson and if Hankey can overcome a decent player in Robson i fancy him to have a good run. At a big price, Wagner, Walton and Bunting are capable of the odd good match but will lack consistancy in the longer matches.

So as ive said, The value here looks to be with any of the chasing pack and Hankey is the pick for me, a big scorer who can be clinical around the doubles, he has been there, done it twice and got the t-shirt and at 13.0 looks the stand out bet for me if he gets past a tricky opening match.

Seasons greetings everyone

Burt