Darts analyst and statistician Carl Fletcher has crunched the numbers to discover which darts players are superior at bringing up the popular 'match treble'. And some of the results may surprise you...
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When it comes to individual match betting on darts events, you sometimes have to look long and hard to find a betting angle that appeals to you. One such angle that seems to be growing rapidly in popularity is the 'Match Treble' bet; where your selected player has to win, hit the most 180’s and register the highest checkout of the match.
Having examined data from the 2020 calendar across all matches from all events excluding the Home Tour and the World Grand Prix - which is a double start format of course - I’m going to highlight players that may be worth tracking throughout the World Championships in respect of this betting angle.
Throughout this season it will be no surprise to learn that the best 180 hitter on tour this year is also the most prolific at registering the match treble and that honour falls to DEVON PETERSEN, who’s managed to do so in 37.7% of the matches he’s been involved in this year. His overall percentage is actually even better on the big stage where the ‘African Warrior’ has accomplished this in 47.1% of matches under the lights.
The next best on the match treble front overall throughout 2020 has been another player who’s been a revelation this year and that’s the Portuguese sensation and Grand Slam of Darts champion JOSE DE SOUSA. He's notched up this feat in 32.4% of his games. ‘The Special One’ has not been quite as prolific at achieving this on stage but has still managed to do so in a respectable 25% of matches.
Defending world champion PETER WRIGHT has fared next best this year in this sphere, managing to record it in 31% matches. Quite an achievement when you consider ‘Snakebite’ has played considerably more matches than anyone else during 2020.
It will be no surprise to read that these three aforementioned players are also three of the top four 180 per leg hitters in the game this year, although Michael Smith is the only one of these four not to rank high on the Match Treble count at a decent but not outstanding 24%.
It seems on the whole that the ability to regularly out score your opponent on the 180 front is a more important prerequisite than the ability to hit the highest checkout when determining your selection in this field, as this can easily be scuppered by an out the blue large checkout by your opponent. To back this up further, none of the top five players at hitting the highest checkout in matches, namely: CALLAN RYDZ, JAMES WADE, GERWYN PRICE, KRZSZTOF RATAJSKI and ADAM HUNT make the Top 10 in the Match Treble records with the Welshman and world number three ranking highest of these players at 14th.
The tables below show a breakdown of this data in various forms: overall, on stage and on the floor for all Tour Card holders participating at the forthcoming PDC World Darts Championships.
While the amount of 2020 stage data is lesser than previous years due to there being so many European Tour events cancelled and some of the players percentages are inflated by the fact they’ve only played a handful of matches on the big stage, two players do really stand out.
One has already been mentioned in Devon Petersen but the other to note is the current World Matchplay champion, DIMITRI VAN DEN BERGH. The young Belgian has chalked up the match treble in 42.9% of stage matches compared to just 19.6% of matches on the floor. He’s always been widely regarded as a big game player and if there was ever a stat support this statement then this could be the one!
There’s also a couple of other players who stand out at being able to achieve this feat on stage compared to the floor and they are MERVYN KING and MAX HOPP. King has registered the match treble on stage in 33.3% of matches he’s played, compared to just 17.5% of his matches on the floor. A finalist in the most recent event, the Players Championship Finals, he heads into the Worlds in good form and this could be worth noting as the tournament draws ever closer.
Likewise, Hopp has also a 33.3% record at achieving the match treble on stage compared to just 7.9% on the floor. What’s more remarkable about this increase is that on stage the German has done so on four occasions from just 12 matches during 2020, once more than he’s managed to carry it off on the floor from 38 matches.
To finish I’d like to add an honourable mention to two players who may go under the radar slightly in relation to this statistic and that’s JAMES WADE and MAIK KUIVENHOVEN. ‘The Machine’ has never been the biggest of 180 hitters and during 2020 he’s only managed to hit the most 180’s in 38.1% of his matches. Amazingly however he’s still managed to pull off the match treble in 23.9% of his games, suggesting that if you can identify the match he’s likely to dominate on the 180 front, he’ll also likely go close in the match treble market.
Similar remarks also apply in relation to the somewhat lesser known Kuivenhoven. Individually in both the 180 and highest checkout match betting markets he’s managed to come on top in these in just 49.2% and 47.5% of his games respectively. Yet once again his match treble percentage for 2020 remains relatively high at 24.6%.
Whilst backing the match treble proposition relentlessly might not be a profitable venture and at times a value bet, identifying the selective opportunities where the bet represents good value could be. Hopefully this article will be a good starting point!
