The Darts 20/21

[Out on blue 6]

He is married to the walk on girl now (Sammi Marsh) and they have a baby. He was losing his focus prior to that and there were some games where he gave the impression of someone who had given up a bit which he was criticised for. He suffers from Bipolar so there are reasons for some of his behaviour but occasionally he can come across badly when interviewed. He is a great darts player though. Been at the top for 14 years now and I don’t think he has ever been out of the top 10 during that time.

Probably the most underrated player of his era to have been around that long. Won plenty of majors as well just not the big one. Without Taylor probably would have.

 

[simmo]

Looking at getting fans into the upcoming World Championship after the announcement yesterday.

 

[Blue Potato]

This has been one of the best tournaments in recent memory from the knockout stages onwards, all been really good and close games. Looking forwards though The Grand Slam seems a bit pointless as a competition now, having gone from a unique competition as the only cross-code major to being just another standard leg format tournament in the PDC calendar now that the BDO is basically defunct.

 

[Blue Potato]

Looking at getting fans into the upcoming World Championship after the announcement yesterday.

Yeah, difficult to see it happening but if it does I think it would only be a few hundred fans in there at most, given the Ally Pally capacity under normal circumstances is c. 3.5k if I recall correctly. Could be a strange spectacle if the no singing, shouting and drinking rules being rumored for PL stadiums are also applied to the darts

 

[Northernstorirs]

Yeah, difficult to see it happening but if it does I think it would only be a few hundred fans in there at most, given the Ally Pally capacity under normal circumstances is c. 3.5k if I recall correctly. Could be a strange spectacle if the no singing, shouting and drinking rules being rumored for PL stadiums are also applied to the darts

Sounds like the BDO world Champs.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Probably the most underrated player of his era to have been around that long. Won plenty of majors as well just not the big one. Without Taylor probably would have.

Yep. He has his chance a few years back when he played Lewis in the semi and was 5-1 up I think before Lewis came back and won. Lewis hammered Andy Hamilton in the final and I think Wade would have too! Can’t see him winning that one though as he didn’t tend to like sets. Prefers these long formats where he can chase people down.

 

[Northernstorirs]

This has been one of the best tournaments in recent memory from the knockout stages onwards, all been really good and close games. Looking forwards though The Grand Slam seems a bit pointless as a competition now, having gone from a unique competition as the only cross-code major to being just another standard leg format tournament in the PDC calendar now that the BDO is basically defunct.

What's the latest on the BDO, their World champs is usually in the New Year.

 

[Blue Potato]

What's the latest on the BDO, their World champs is usually in the New Year.

Went into liquidation in the summer and this will be the last year where BDO participants will be playing in the PDC Grand Slam. They had a shocker with their World Champs last year after moving it from Lakeside to London, ticket sales were so bad that the prize fund for the Men's tournament winner was cut from £100k to £23k.

I guess a few of the BDO players will try and get a PDC tour card through the Q-school qualification system in January but not sure there's many left who are good enough and Q-school is a bit of a lottery (Glen Durrant only scraped through and got his PDC tour card on the last day of qualifying when he moved over from the BDO last year). Shame given how many PDC players started out in the BDO initially but it's been a rapid decline over the past few years

 

[Dr Jacoby]

Wade is one of the best players I’ve seen when checking out at double top.

But his behaviour against Asada was atrocious.

 

[Out on blue 6]

Yep. He has his chance a few years back when he played Lewis in the semi and was 5-1 up I think before Lewis came back and won. Lewis hammered Andy Hamilton in the final and I think Wade would have too! Can’t see him winning that one though as he didn’t tend to like sets. Prefers these long formats where he can chase people down.

Shows how long he's been around is that he's only 37 and De Sousa is actually 46 but fairly unheard of. Wade could do another 10-15 years easily. Wright won the world's at 49 I think