This Is The End

by Rick Nash

Look...I know I've spent an entire season bemoaning the 'gambling gods' and lamenting their hatred for me. I also understand that this is completely and utterly irrational, fixating on mythical figments of my imagination instead of blaming a combination of poor predictions and shitty luck.

But hear me out this one last time.

Desperately needing a win, last weekend I put a '#JustWin' treble on, not to get good value or win any decent amount of money (as is usually the goal), just to win. That would do.

My picks? Man Utd (won), Everton (won) and...Man City.

For fuck sa..

I then switched attention to the NBA Playoffs. My strategy with playoffs in the NBA/NFL has worked quite well for me in the past. It's simple: imagine you were a new fan to the sport, knowing nothing beforehand, what team would you say seems most likely to win? The reason for this logic is because playoffs in US sport are a different beast to anything we experience this side of the water. Teams that have had otherwise-terrible seasons can go on a run and win it all (shout out to the Baltimore Ravens, who beat my colleague Angry Andy's beloved 49ers in the Superbowl) in spite of form, strength of team or any other reasonable statistic.

With that in mind and, following a fantastic run in the Western Conference that turned them from nobodies into a side inspired by an emerging basketball superstar (Steph Curry), I placed the following bet:

Just put €5 on the Golden State Warriors to win the Western Conference @ 9/1. Sorry GSW, you guys were doing so well until now. #NBAPlayoffs
— Rick Nash (@AMTRick) May 13, 2013

The result? They lost their next two games pretty convincingly to the San Antonio Spurs and got knocked out. Noticing a pattern yet?

Then on Wednesday, I had what I saw as a controversial pick inserted into my online Paddy Power betslip, only to bottle it on account of another gambling rule of mine.

The rule: Never bet against Phil Taylor. (Hey, it worked when I called the World Darts Final to the exact score)

The pick: Michael van Gerwen to win the Premier League Darts playoffs.

Of course, this then ended up happening...

...and Michael van Gerwen is your new Premier League Darts Champion. DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?! WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU GAMBLING GODS!

...ahem.

Premier League Darts Quick Picks

by Rick Nash

Ignore the MVG hype, put your money on the unbeatable Barney

I've loved the first two weeks of the new-look Darts Premier League. The shorter format (without a break in play) has given games a new leash of life, as matches are now blink-and-you'll-miss-it and players are punished for poor starts with little chance of recovery. This leaves favourites like Phil Taylor vulnerable and 'The Power' is fortunate to still be second after having to come from behind in Week One to draw with a sickened Michael Van Gerwen.

That said, the league is taking shape and now is the time to start feeling somewhat confident in your accumulators. The short format still leaves upsets likely, but at least we now have a feel as to how the players are finding form (or not) in front of the big crowds.

As for tonight, I didn't have the bottle to pick between Andy Hamilton and Gary Anderson, simply because in this kind of inconsistent form they're essentially the same player: either a mess or unstoppable depending on whether a crucial double goes their way or not. We've no idea what to expect from either from week-to-week, so given that both are paired together tonight I'll take it as a hint to avoid, avoid, avoid. Let's get to brief quick picks before I'm back later with a full column and the weekend's accumulator tips.

Premier League Darts Preview

by Rick Nash

This week, we switch attention briefly to darts, to mark the start of a new-look Premier League format that kicks off this Thursday in Belfast (and journeys to The O2, Dublin on April 18th with six matches scheduled to take place).

Hardcore darts fans have grown tired of the Premier League in recent years and, it has to be said, it's not an opinion without merit.

For a start, due to the fact that it is an invitation-based tournament (only the top four in the world qualify by rank), it also means that it's essentially meaningless when it comes to ranking points on the PDC Order of Merit. Not to mention the fact that it's looooonnngg: the tournament spans 15 weeks, with 14 devoted to the league itself (formerly of 8 players meeting each other twice; with the top 4 then qualifying for a one-night 'Playoffs' tournament to decide the champion) and, due to the nature of darts, form tends to ebb and flow over the course of those weeks, unlike the exciting nature of Open tournament whereby an off-night could see you out of the running altogether.

This has led to the dominance of one Phil 'The Power' Taylor over the years, the reigning champion who has won all but two tournaments since the format was introduced in 2005. Taylor, in fact, went undefeated in his first 44 games in the tournament before eventually being stopped in 2008 by James Wade. However the long format generally allows players who suffer a dip in form to regress to the mean, allowing the best players to consistently come out on top and making an already-long process seem predictable to boot.

Realising this, the PDC has freshened up the format, introducing an additional two players to the fray, reducing the length of games from 'Best of 14' to 'Best of 12' and introducing 'relegation' where the bottom players don't actually get relegated to any lower league, but instead just drop out of the league altogether after week 9. The shorter format could be a bonus, making it more likely that longer-form players like Taylor will lose more regularly, or a negative in that a lot of matches will end up as draws with players not having time to establish any kind of rhythm or dominance. It remains to be seen.

The case for the Premier League, and I remain a fan myself because of this, is as follows:

Dreams Can Come True...Unless You're Playing Phil Taylor...

by Rick Nash

If you've been following me on Twitter, you'll know that this has been a rough few weeks for me, gambling-wise.

I knew from the offset that it'd either be glorious or disastrous, with four Premier League gameweeks in quick succession and four lucrative accumulators potentially wiping my Christmas debt away from me. Unfortunately, what ended up transpiring was that my Internet will probably get cut off due to non-payment. Turns out that the only apocalypse that happened in 2012 took place within my bank account.