MonthlyJoyride Darts Tips

Haupai Puha looks a big price for the win here to me. He pushed Luke Littler all the way to a last leg decider last week and, in truth, had his nose in front for enough of that game that he should probably have taken a couple more chances and claimed a huge shock. Humphries was not at his best, laboring to a 92 average win in his opening round game last week before falling completely flat the next day and going down to a 6-0 defeat to Mike de Decker. Puha can claim a scalp here if Humphries is still not operating at 100%.

Haupai Puha +3.5 legs in a race to 6 looks nice to me here as he will be riding high in confidence having taken 5 legs from Luke Littler last week. Now playing in front of his home crowd may provide the extra spurt in him to go one better, but I certainly like his chances of at least getting 3 legs very often here. He is used to playing elite level players as a tour card holder and has a winning record over Josh Rock as an example of what he is capable of.

I like the over here for Cleaver to make this one somewhat competitive along the way in what will surely and ultimately end in defeat. He has played on the World Series stage before, taking part last year, and he threw a fairly solid average of 83.23 in a 6-3 defeat to Dimitri van den Bergh on that occasion.

Luke Littler was the winner of yet another title last week and is amongst the favorites again here this week. He is up against home hopeful Mark Cleaver, who does have experience of playing on the big stage, having taken part in the World Cup representing New Zealand. I think odds against, and relatively chunky against, is value here for him to pick up a couple of legs along the way.

Simon Whitlock +2.5 legs here in a race to 6 looks good. He actually played really well last week even in a 6-1 defeat to Josh Rock. He bettered the Northern Irishman for scores of between 100-139 and was simply just blasted off the board by Rock throwing 4 180's in 7 legs and finishing at a rate of 75%. Whitlock can still compete when motivated, and he is always that when competing on or near home soil in the Southern Hemisphere.

Simon Whitlock looks too big of a price here to me for a win against a Chris Dobey who on the regular World Series stage has a split record of 5 wins and 5 defeats. Dobey has won 4 of his 5 opening round games on the World Series but has lost the only real match of any caliber he has faced in Raymond van Barneveld. Across his 10 matches, he is only operating at a 92.98 average, which is certainly a level Whitlock can both compete with and better.

Stephen Bunting has reached the final in 4 of his 6 World Series events this year with 2 wins and a couple of final defeats. He has one of the more difficult home nation players in Ben Robb first up, but he should have far too much for a player who has always flattered to deceive on the big stage. He finds himself on the opposite side of the draw to what are arguably the other 3 form players in the world right now alongside him in Littler, Price, and Rock, who have to fight it out on the other half of the draw to potentially face Bunting in the final. At these odds, I like Bunting to make it a hat-trick of World Series titles.