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It would be incredibly remiss of me to ignore perhaps one of the greatest achievements of the year so far in this blog. I know that many of you will look at Darts as a non sport but it is a mind game that involves both physical and mental stamina so that has to qualify the game as a sport.

But last week Phil Taylor achieved something that no other player in history has ever done……..make two 9-dart finishes in the same match. To put this into context, the 9-dart leg has been compared to a 147 maximum break in Snooker in terms of its difficulty.

No Snooker player has ever made two 147’s in the same match on television although it has happened numerous times in practice matches and in exhibitions. So Taylor has done something very unique here and it needs to be commended.

When a Sky commentator asked Taylor after winning the World Title yet again in January if he had any plans to retire, his response was…… “you must be joking”. He thought that he could get even better and you have to give it to the man because he is still at the top of his game and producing standards that even he has never matched before.

Often with sporting events where current players are compared with players from the past, there can often be arguments as to who is the greatest. Darts is a rare exception because there is no doubt. When the current PDC World Champion has 15 world titles and the next highest is on 5 world titles then there can be no argument whatsoever.

Phil Taylor may be current but he is also the greatest ever.

I was tuned into the BDO World Darts final last night and I didn’t mind the result either way. I would have actually backed Dave Chisnell but he was slightly odds on so I didn’t bother.

This was rather fortunate for me seeing as he was beaten 7-5. I really do think that there is a certain level of steal to the game of Martin Adams now when he wobbles which he tends to do when players come back at him.

There are not many fields where a player can be a World Champion at 53 years of age. Phil Taylor has just won the PDC version at 49 years of age so they are definitely keeping the young guns at bay for now.

What struck me though was the amount of prize money for the two versions of the World Championship. Taylor gets £200k for winning the PDC and Adams gets £100k for winning the BDO.

Whitlock gets £100k for being runner-up in the PDC (same as BDO winner) and Chisnell gets by comparison a poor £30k for coming runner-up in the BDO.

Chisnell though looks a star of the future and had he combated his nerves better on the night then he would have beaten Adams. He gifted Adams a 3-0 lead by missing numerous shots at doubles and you cannot do that against a player as solid as Adams.

Poor old Chisnell even had to watch Adams take away the £3k prize that he held for the highest check-out of the week. Adams checked out on the maximum 170 to beat the 164 of Chisnell.

But in my view the BDO need to do something to combat the proposed huge increase in PDC prize money otherwise the gulf will just be too big. I think what this week has shown though is that there are some great players in the BDO.

The thing is though that many of them don’t have the big game experience of many of the top players in the PDC.

See you soon

Carl
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With the PDC World Darts Championships in full flow, it is difficult to see who will stop Phil Taylor from adding to his haul of World Titles. His latest win in the Grand Slam of Darts was impressive even by Taylor standards.

I watched the final against Scott Waites and Waites could do nothing about Taylor’s form. He just stood there grinning when Taylor stepped up and took a leg away from him with a 170 check-out.

To cap it all, Taylor almost rounded the tournament off with a nine darter and missed the big double twelve with the last dart. No one has ever won a major tournament while finishing on a nine darter but Taylor duly planted the very next dart into double twelve for a ten dart finish.

That was still a record and became the first time that a major tournament was won with a ten dart leg. I opposed Taylor last year much to my pain as I thought that he may struggle with the advancing years but no one seems capable of stepping up to the mark.

His results have surged on over the past 18 months and when you listen to his interviews, he still wants more. He was annoyed to have missed the nine darter in the Grand Slam after he had missed another nine dart finish to win the tournament in another ranking event some months earlier.

But when you listen to him, he is still not happy with his three dart averages and thinks that he can reach 115+. I don’t know what makes Taylor so much better than the rest and this is something that is rare in any sport.

To get a competitor that is head and shoulders above tens of thousands of other top players and hundreds of top professionals is a rarity. Although Usain Bolt is starting to do that in Athletics but you can bet your life that he will not dominate for as long as what Taylor has.

I don’t know if backing Taylor is value as the bookies will know who the public want to back and squeeze the odds accordingly. As usual the value should be in opposing him and that is where you will find value.

See you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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