Masters Darts 2020 Betting Tips

Masters Darts 2020 Betting Tips

2020 Darts Masters Betting Tips

With a month passing since Peter ‘Snakebite’ Wright was crowned world champion, the players return this weekend for the 2020 Darts Masters, made up of the top 16 players on the PDC Order of Merit. Play takes place from January 31-February 2 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes and we now know the full draw and schedule for the event which will be broadcast live on ITV 4.

Michael van Gerwen, still the world’s number one, will be shooting for six in a row here as his customary way of opening the season. The five time defending champion banked an easy 11-5 win over James Wade in last year’s final but defeat in the final at the Ally Pally one month ago will only serve as extra motivation and, with a month off, the Dutchman will be fresh to take on all comers this weekend. Mighty Mike will take on the lowest-ranked player in the field, Wales’ Jonny Clayton in his opener and is an outright price of 11/10 at Betway.

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World number two Gerwyn Price went into the World Championships as many people’s favourite, looking likely to provide the biggest threat to the tournament favourite Michael van Gerwen. Despite a very strong end to 2019, such a challenge at the Worlds wasn’t to be after being out-thought in the battle of the mind games that was the semi-final against Peter Wright. Similar to Wright, it will be interesting to see what 2020 holds for in store for The Iceman. It will clearly be a big year for him and this tourney represents the ideal opportunity to lay down an early-season marker. Despite a first round exit twelve months ago, a much deeper run is expected of him this time around. 11/2 is his quoted price at Betway.

World champion Peter Wright recently enjoyed by far the biggest moment of his career, so far at least, shaking off his perennial choker’s tag in the process when he won at the Alexandra Palace. What this all means is that he will enjoy a flood of bets of his success now as the pressure mounts on the Scot to carry on winning. It’s an interesting question to ponder, what the season ahead holds for Snakebite.

After all, last year was almost one his worst ever seasons but, in true Peter Wright style where nothing is straight forward, right on his last throw of the season, it ended being his best on record. Snakebite was a losing semi-finalist last time out here and prior to that a quarter-finalist four years in a row. On the back of his Ally Pally victory he has been installed as the third favourite at 6/1, again with Betway.

James Wade
is the only player in the line-up other than Michael van Gerwen who has been to more than one Masters final. After winning in 2014, he lost out in last year’s final to MVG and is considered to be a 33/1 shot to go one better this week. Anyone interested in Gary ‘The Flying Scotsman’ Anderson returning to the top of his sport in 2020 will be tempted by the 10/1 on him getting the new season off to a winnings start, just ahead of Rob Cross’ 12/1 which follows his disappointing World Championships.

Elsewhere, debutant Nathan Aspinall’s stock continues to rise following back to back semi-final appearances at the PDC World Championships. The Asp has even qualified for next month’s Darts Premier League and this could prove to be the breakout year for the 28-year-old who is rated as a 20/ shot with the online bookmaker Betway to win in Milton Keynes.

Friday February 1

First Round (Best of 19 legs)

  • Michael Smith v Mensur Suljovic
  • Nathan Aspinall v James Wade
  • Michael van Gerwen v Jonny Clayton
  • Rob Cross v Adrian Lewis

Saturday February 2

First Round (Best of 19 legs)

  • Daryl Gurney v Dave Chisnall
  • Gary Anderson v Ian White
  • Peter Wright v Joe Cullen
  • Gerwyn Price v Simon Whitlock

Sunday February 3

  • 4x Quarter-Finals (Best of 19 legs)
  • 2x Semi-Finals (Best of 21 legs)
  • Final Winner (Best of 21 legs)

QUICK GLANCE AT MASTER DARTS

Venue: Marshall Arena, Milton Keyne
Dates: 31.01.2020 – 02.02.2020
Format: Best of 19, 21 legs
Current Champion: Michael van Gerwen
Where To Watch: ITV 4
When To Watch: (1200, 1945 GMT)

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Gerwyn Price Move From Rugby To Darts – Examining Sports Stars That Have Switched Sports

Gerwyn Price Move From Rugby To Darts – Examining Sports Stars That Have Switched Sports

Gerwyn Price Rugby

As recently as 2013, Gerwyn Price, known as The Iceman to darts fans the world over, was employed as a hooker for the lower league professional rugby team Neath RFC in South Wales. Earning as little as £25k a year, the player took a job working behind a bar of the local Welsh valleys rugby club Markham Welfare to make ends meet but never let go of his dream of representing Wales at senior level.

After leaving school at 16, Price represented Wales at every age group save for senior-level, while also carving out a playing career with Glasgow Warriors and Cross Keys, the latter of which he would get to represent at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. After more than a decade playing, and with injuries piling up, he finally contemplated walking away from the game he loved and leaving behind his dreams of making it as a pro-sportsman. Then fate intervened.

Despite not throwing a single dart since leaving school, Price would, on a quiet day in the bar, gradually begin to chuck a few darts at a board mounted on the walls of the bar before getting skilled enough to play for the pub at weekends, playing in a local League.

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After winning a handful of tournaments locally, Price went down to a PDC qualifying school at the Robin Park Tennis Centre in Wigan on the advice of Welsh darts professional Barrie Bates and managed to bag himself a tour card. After securing his place at the UK Open in Minehead – the exact same venue of his first major televised PDC final two years later – the rugby player finally became the darter.

Rugby helps Price find success in darts

Despite not sharing much in common, rugby actually provided some transferable skills for the rookie chucker’s new discipline; composure, resilience and raising his game under pressure. Plus, years on the rugby pitch gave the would-be Iceman a physique out of step with his beer-bellied opponents. In 2016, he broke into the top 32 on the PDC Order of Merit.

Another thing that followed him from the pitch to the oche, was his aggression particularly in his knack of celebrating by bellowing at in the faces of his opponents. While such ferocity hasn’t always won him an army of fans, such emotion is commonplace in rugby and second nature to a rugby players, thus, to a degree, understandable.

Things reached a peak at the 2018 Grand Slam of Darts, when he beat double world champion Gary Anderson in a bad-tempered final to win his first major TV title. Anderson took issue with Price’s extravagant celebrations which set up his bad boy of darts reputation and the crowd sided with the Scotsman, raining down the boos on Price’s big moment. It would also prove to be a costly moment, as Price was issued the biggest fine in darts, some £21,500 which was later halved on appeal. The boos followed him into the new season, following him to every stop in the Darts Premier League, save for Cardiff naturally.

In 2019, Price repeated the trick, winning the Grand Slam of Darts once again, this time brushing aside the formidable world No 1, Michael van Gerwen, and in the process and banishing the hoo-doo that the dutchman held over him. A much-tipped victory at the World Championships at the Ally Pally in December wasn’t to be, however, as he lost out to Peter Wright in the semi-final.

It is clear though that the volume of dissent is getting lower tourney by tourney. Admitting that he wishes to put his rugby past behind him, Price is said to want to “park this rugby thing” and become known as a superstar darts player in his own right. With the new season kicking off with the Darts Masters in Milton Keynes this Friday, this represents the perfect opportunity to lay down a marker in the very first event of what could be a very big year for the would-be superstar darter from Markham.

Five Sport Stars To Switch Sports

Gerwyn Price is not the first professional sports star to switch sports and try his hand at a new and different discipline. Plenty of others have made the jump with various degrees of success. So, who else has tried it and how successful were they?

Usain Bolt (Athletics to Football)

Usain Bolt Football Career

Having won everything in sight for almost a decade, eight-times Olympic champion, Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt decided to pursue his dream of becoming a footballer.

In 2018, Australia’s Central Coast Mariners gave him the opportunity to show what he could do with a ball at his feet. Not very much was the resounding answer after he made a 30-minute cameo appearance coming off the bench with The Mariners already 6-0 to the good with Bolt having very little effect. Soon after, he did manage a brace against the amateur side Macarthur South West United in a 4-0 win for the Mariners but, sadly, that world-famous stride that served him so well on the track was to prove incompatible with a football.

Ian Botham (Football to Cricket)

Ian Botham Played Football Before Cricket

While Beefy might be synonymous with English cricket, many have no idea that he was, at first, a professional footballer. After his career peaked with lowly Scunthorpe United of the Football League, his decision to switch events would prove to be a wise one as Botham would go on to rack up more than 5,000 runs in 102 test matches, many as captain, at an average of 33.54 after making his test debut in 1977.

In 2009, he was knighted by the Queen, the same year that he was also inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

Victoria Pendleton (Cycling to Horse Racing)

Victoria Pendleton Moves from Cycling to Horse Racing

Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion cyclist Victoria Pendleton broke records in the Keirin for Team GB during the 2012 London games but within three years had announced her intention to become a national hunt jockey instead.

After winning her first race in March 2016 when she rode Pacha Du Polder to victory at Wincanton, she mounted the same steed two weeks later when they took a shot at the Cheltenham Festival where they could only manage a fifth place. Despite her haul of gold medals and broken records, Pendleton cites her time as a jockey as her biggest professional achievement.

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff (Cricket to Boxing)

Andrew Flintoff Cricket To Boxing

TV personality and former England International cricketer, Andrew Flintoff, better known as Freddie, has enjoyed a multifaceted career since retiring from cricket. One of the best all-rounders of all time, Freddie is, among other things, a presenter of Top Gear, They Think It’s All Over team captain, Australian I’m a Celebrity winner and fish and chip flogger and, to some, a one-time ugly baby.

He even had a gig hosting his own darts show, when he took the mic for the short-lived Sky One flop One Hundred and Eighty. In all, Freddie played 79 test matches and 141 One Day Internationals scoring more than 8,700 runs. After retiring in 2010, Fred trained as a professional boxer, winning his first and only pro bout against America’s Richard Dawson in November 2012 before going back on the telly. In December 2010, Flintoff became a guest commentator during a number of matches in the 2011 PDC World Darts Championship.

Rebecca Romero (Rowing to Cycling)

Rebecca Romero Cycling To Rowing

Romero picked up a silver medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics in the quadruple sculls and followed that up with the 2005 World Championships. A year later, however, a back injury forced her retirement after which she took up track cycling and won another Olympic gold medal, this time in the 2008 Beijing Olympics individual pursuit.

In doing so, she became the first British woman – and second woman of any nationality – to win medals in two different sports in the Summer Olympic games (German swimmer and handball player Roswitha Krause being the first). In 2019, she was rewarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

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Win Up To €1,000 At Bet365 Poker For Correctly Predicting EPL Results

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Bet365 English Premier League 2020

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