This is the opening match of the tournament and we’re siding with the young Dutch star Gian Van Veen to beat Ritchie Edhouse to kick us off to a winning start.

These two have met three times previously and our selection has won on each occasion. They played each other twice in 2023 and GVV won 6-4 and 6-1 and in their sole clash in 2024, it was another 6-4 victory for Van Veen.

Gian likes playing against Edhouse as his averages in their three previous encounters have been 99.93, 107.17 and 105.20. He must just like the pace the game is played at.

Darting enthusiasts know Van Veen is a precocious talent and he is the hot favourite to win the PDC World Youth Championship against fellow Dutchman Jurjen Van Der Velde in November. He fell just short in that event last year losing in the final to Luke Littler and we all know how he’s gone on this year.

Big things await Van Veen and despite his relative inexperience, he reached the Semi-Final of this event last year, defeating MVG in the Quarter-Finals en route. A victory here would see him potentially on the march to follow that up again.

These two have met twice this year and on each occasion, Ross Smith has hit the most 180s. Both matches were over this type of format and it was a comfortable victory in this market too both times.

In their first clash of the year a match that featured eight legs of darts, Smith won the maximum count 5-2 and in their second, a match that contained ten legs of darts, Smudger once again hit more 180s, this time by way of a 6-3 margin.

Ross Smith is renowned for his maximum prowess and is arguably the biggest 180 hitter in the game right now, averaging them at a rate of 0.38 per leg, just over one every three legs. Woodhouse in comparison has a seasonal rate of 0.26 per leg, around the one-every-four-legs mark.

In their last 10 best of 11-leg matches Smith has amassed 33 in 91 legs of darts and Woodhouse 29 in 93 legs of darts. Even in such a short format, I struggle to find anything that would put me off opting for Smith to fill the red bit more often than Luke.

MVG enjoys a strong head-to-head record over Gabriel Clemens and it’s hard to see that superiority not showing itself here also. The pair have met on nine occasions and Van Gerwen has won eight of them.

That sole success for the German did come in September on the Euro Tour but required Clemens to register a 107.27 average and produce a sparkling performance. This shows he is capable of producing an upset but it’s a one-off at present and MVG got revenge in the following Euro Tour at the end of the same month by comfortably beating him 6-2.

What’s more ominous now is that MVG is finding that winning feeling again. In the past month or so he’s won two Players Championship events and a Euro Tour and it took an average of 110.57 by Luke Littler to stop him this weekend, despite Van Gerwen himself averaging 112.19.

Clemens on the other hand is not in the same vein of form. Since that aforementioned victory against the ‘Green Machine’ he’s played 28 matches, winning just over half of them at 15.

The closing match of the night could be an absolute belter. Two big power scorers and good friends doing battle. Both are renowned for hitting maximums but we’re just concentrating on the ‘Bully Boy’ performance for our final leg of the accumulator and taking him to hit three or more in this contest.

Smith has averaged 180s at a rate of 0.32 per leg throughout this season, around one every three legs. In that instance, we’d need around nine legs to be on par for our target.

In his last 10 matches over this format, Smith has hit 37 maximums, an average of 3.7 per match. This was over 96 legs of darts, which makes his current rate even higher than his seasonal average of 0.39 per leg.

A close-fought eleven-leg thriller would boost this bet massively but if not I’d still say this target is achievable providing we get eight or nine legs played.