Grand Slam of Darts 2024 Predictions: Back Cool Hand to defend his title

One of the biggest events of the Darts calendar takes place this week, with the Grand Slam of Darts which takes place in Wolverhampton and runs from Saturday 9th to Sunday 17th November. As always, we've asked our darts expert Sean Rafferty to preview the event and give us his Grand Slam of Darts Predictions, which contains a very familiar name.

History, Location and Format

The 2024 Grand Slam of Darts is the eighteenth running of this PDC event, having debuted in 2007 and was originally a tournament where the best of the now-defunct BDO Tour would be invited to take part against their PDC rivals. That agreement ended in 2020 when the BDO went into liquidation.

The tournament is held at the Aldersley Leisure Village, Aldersley, Wolverhampton, with this year's event running from November 9th to the 17th and will be shown on SKY Sports in the UK.

The field of 32 is comprised of the finalists from a number of televised PDC events over the year, as well as Euro Tour and Pro Tour qualifiers, with the players separated into eight sets of four, who play each other in a round robin format. There are eight seeded players, who are each placed into one of the eight groups.

The top two from each group qualify for the knockout stages, which follows a standard format, eventually ending in the final on Sunday 17th November, which is played over a best of 31 legs distance.

There have been three multiple winners of this tournament including Phil Taylor (six times), who won the first three staging's, as well as Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price (three times)

The defending champion is Englishman Luke Humphries, who defeated his compatriot Rob Cross 16-8 in the 2023 final.

Prize Money

There is a total prize fund of £650,000 on offer to the 32 participants.

Draw

Grand Slam of Darts Odds

5u Luke Humphries to win @ 11/4

This won’t come as a massive surprise but 'Cool Hand' is going to be my main pick of this week. Over the past year or so his major record is unrivalled - he has won the World Grand Prix, PC Finals, Grand Slam, World Championship, Betfred World Matchplay and World Cup since last October. He’s also made the final of the UK Open, Premier League and World Grand Prix this year.

His consistency in these biggest events is far superior to anybody else in the field. He looked the likely winner of the European Championship a couple weeks ago, coming into the QF stage as many inexperienced players were still in, but suffered a shock 10-4 defeat to Jermaine Wattimena. Humphries hasn’t played since then and will be looking to right that wrong.

That defeat to Wattimena ended a run of seven games in a row where he averaged 100+, so the form is very much at a top level just now and the two week break will surely only help him, as he’s previously spoke of feeling fatigued due to an overload of events.

His chances of reaching the latter stages are extremely high in my opinion as his quarter of the draw looks inviting for him - him and James Wade should comfortably progress through Group A, with the other opponents Mickey Mansell and Rowby-John Rodriguez not offering a great deal to this group based on what they’ve achieved in the past in televised events and general form this year.

Potential opponents in the Last 16 could be any of Danny Noppert, Martin Schindler, Cameron Menzies or Beau Greaves. I think he’d be very confident of seeing off any of them in a best of 19 legs match. He’d then face one of them or likely James Wade in the QFs, by this stage we’ll have stepped up to best of 31 legs, a format I genuinely believe Humphries is close to unbeatable in - if he plays to his usual high level.

All the players that you could argue can match Humphries best level (Luke Littler, MVG, Gary Anderson) are all in the opposite half of the draw, so Humphries can’t play anybody in scintillating form this year before reaching the final.

He’s finally been made tournament favourite ahead of Littler, which is quite right in my opinion. With his reliability in these events I give him at least a 50% chance of picking up the title next Sunday night, so 11/4 is generous enough in my opinion for Cool Hand.

1u Rob Cross e/w (1/2 - 2 Places) @ 20/1

A player I’ve been very fond of previously but haven’t backed for a wee while now. It’d be fair to say Voltage isn’t having his best year - a European Tour title and World Series title are the only silverware he’s picked up in 2024 so far, which isn’t a great deal for a player of his calibre. However, still winning two titles perhaps says a lot about his character as he’s really not found his top form at all this year.

The Pro Tour is where he’s really struggled, failing to go beyond the Last 16 stage in any of the 20 PC events he participated in. The World Series events over the summer months is where he had most joy, making three finals in total. He made the final of this last year, falling short in the final to Luke Humphries, despite averaging 103.61 himself in a defiant display.

This year he’s helped massively by the draw - in my opinion he’s been placed in the weakest group in the tournament. His opponents are Peter Wright who looks miles short of any form recently, averaging mid 70s in his last televised event at the European Championship. Martin Lukeman, who hasn’t gone beyond the QF stage of any televised tournament before and has limited experience in these big events and finally Leonard Gates, who hasn’t achieved anything at this level in darts, despite his success on the Seniors and CDC Tours.

Cross really should top that group or at least progress through it, however, his potential Last 16 opponents are all tricky but I couldn’t choose between the Group D players to confidently back one - Dave Chisnall, Ross Smith, Richie Edhouse and Connor Scutt. Although they are all tricky opponents, Rob does have a superior record in majors over all of them and has the added bonus of an easy path to the knockout stages.

I’m going with experience over form with this one, 'Voltage' is no stranger to the latter stages of a major and at 20/1 he looks the most sensible punt in this section.

0.75u Dimitri Van deb Bergh e/w (1/2 - 2 Places) @ 50/1

I’m sure this selection will ruffle a few feathers and perhaps raise a few eyebrows. However, this isn’t as rogue a pick as it may seem.

Despite having no impact yet again in the floor events and even the Euro Tour, Dimi has quietly had a strong year in the biggest events - of course he won the UK Open back in March in a dramatic final against Luke Humphries. He’s backed this up pretty well with a QF at the Betfred World Matchplay and SF at theWorld Grand Prix last month, also making the SF of the World Cup and The Masters.

Incredibly, The Dream Maker hasn’t qualified for this event since 2020, where he made the semi finals that year. This means it’s a good chance to haul himself up the rankings where he currently sits 11th, as he isn’t defending any ranking money from two years ago.

He could put himself on the outskirts of the top 4 with a run to the semis or better here, as most of the guys between himself and the top 4 aren’t qualified for this event, so will have money dropping off if anything. I’m sure Dimi will know this and will view it as a big opportunity for himself.

At first glance, his group looks a bit daunting with teenage sensation Luke Littler being in there. However, the other two players are Keane Barry and Lourence Ilagan who have made minimal impact in televised events, especially in comparison to Dimi. I fancy Dimi’s chances of coming through the group, perhaps as runner-up.

Potential Last 16 opponents are Michael Smith, Mike De Decker, Wattimena or  Mensur Suljovic. On his day, he can beat any of them and I’m sure he’d like to get revenge on his fellow countryman De Decker for that SF defeat at the World Grand Prix. Smith isn’t in great form and hasn’t been for some time, whereas  Suljovic hasn’t done anything notable in a televised singles event for a long time and Wattimena has limited experience of going deep in televised events, despite reaching the European Championship final last month.

Dimi may need to get the better of Littler at some point if he wants to reach the SF stage again, however, Littler has had some indifferent performances recently in the bigger events and Dimi has given him a run for his money on the two occasions they’ve met this year, so I wouldn’t say it’s unachievable.

Again, I’m going with experience and a strong majors record over current form with this selection. But lets be brutally honest, nobody wants to play Dimi and be bogged down with his slow play and antics, he’ll be tough to beat if he can find a solid mid to high 90s average, I’m happy to take a chance on The Dream Maker at 50/1.

Darts Odds

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