With the PDC World Darts Championship beginning today at the Alexandra Palace in London, it is of course the most regular time of year for people who are not generally fans of darts to begin an interest in the sport.
The tournament will see Gloucestershire-based player, Lee Evans make his debut on the world stage against Sandro Eric Sosing, Evans has made.
Evans recently played in the Players Championship finals, he lost 6-2 to Dave Chisnall in the first round stage.
The player from Fairford comes into his first game against Sosing as a hot favourite, being priced at 1/5 by varying bookmakers.
Of course, it would be highly unlikely that Evans went the whole way with him being priced at a massive 750/1 for the tournament.
Tournament winner
It would be unsurprising to see tournament favourite Luke Humphries win this year’s tournament, after the World Grand Prix, the Grand Slam of Darts and the Players Championship finals.
Humphries, who is originally from Newbury, is in the form of his life. He now sits third in the PDC Order of Merit and boasted a 100.75 average against world number two, Michael Van Gerwen.
The current world number three begins his quest for darting success against the winner of Gloucestershire-based Evans or Sosing. Should Humphries win that game he will then play the winner of the tie between Callan Rydz or Ricardo Pietreczko or Muramatsu Suzuki.
One to watch
It goes without saying that Luke Littler should be a contender for a one to watch at the best darts tournament in the world, the 16-year-old recently won the PDC World Youth Championship in emphatic fashion, winning 6-4 against Gian Van Veen. Littler averaged 102.16 and had a checkout percentage of 46.15%.
Littler’s first round game is against world number 91, Christian Kist, but unsurprisingly the 16-year-old is the favourite to win that game. The winner of that game will play Andrew Gilding in round two, with the winner of that game playing against either James Wade or Matt Campbell/ Lourence Ilagan.
Littler also chose to play at the PDC World Championship, rather than playing at the World Darts Federation Championships which shows that his game is in the exact place that he wants considering that he would have probably gone the distance in the WDF tournament.
The 16-year-old is priced at a whopping 66/1 to win the tournament, and is 28/1 to reach the final, but after a fantastic year of darts it would not be surprising to see him go quite far into the competition.
Prominent outsider
It could be said that Ryan Joyce is a good pick for an outsider at a whopping 200/1, the 38-year-old’s first round game is against Alex Spellman. However, should Joyce win his first round game he will play against Stephen Bunting.
Bunting is of course a very tough test after having a superb run in the Players Championship, but Joyce also had a great run having got to the semi-finals.
The 38-year-old lost 11-3 to eventual winner Humphries. However, he saw off competition from Daniel Klose, Joe Cullen, Jermaine Wattimena and Damon Heta on his road to the semi-finals.
If Joyce was to beat Bunting in the second round, he would play the winner of Dimitri Van den Bergh or Dylan Slevin/Florian Hempel.
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