Following a short turnaround from his UK Championship final loss to Ronnie O'Sullivan, not a single player in the league selected eventual winner Allen for the event in Glasgow, while only one participant fancied Murphy to turn around his poor season. One big mover in the table was Tungsten Darts who is up to joint 7th in a tightly bunched table after picking semi-finalist Judd Trump, quarter-finalist Ryan Day and having another quarter-finalist in Alfie Burden as one of his season picks.
There has also been a change at the very top of the standings with Daz Muckian overtaking Matt Butler, who saw his reign come to a quick end after some poor Scotland picking. In fact some of the picking across the board was below par, with two of the most popular picks being Stuart Bingham and Neil Robertson. Bingham would lose out 4-0 in the very first round, while defending champion Robertson would only go a round further, losing 4-2 to Ross Muir in the last 64.
So, here is how the table looks in full ahead of the Masters:
Daz Muckian 690
Matt Butler 677
Rob Chipp 661
Ryan Duckett 657
LTD Syndicate 651
Kellie Barker 637
Shaun Hunt 630
Tungsten Darts 630
Cluster of Reds 617
Rob Francis 616
FAM147 613
Andy (APB147) 613
Stephen McCabe 605
Voihelevettisua 605
Chris Watts 580
Phil Robinson 577
Munraj Pal 557
Debbie Dymott 553
Phil Mudd 541
Alex Abrahams 533
The Cue View 532
Daniela Reich 523
Anthony (antow73) 520
Kim Kristensen 520
Dani M (esnukero) 512
Anatole Compton 506
Daniel Gavin 490
Steven Bunn 482
Martin Pearlman 457
Pete Tscherewik 455
Square Sausage 436
Andrew Devonshire 422
Markus 420
Kelvin Platten 412
In all, the top 14 in the table are only separated by 85 points, which is not a huge margin leading into a double points, with a further nine events still to come thereafter. The double points offering at the Alexandra Palace may help to open the table up a bit, but with only 16 players to choose from there may also be a lot of repeat picks that could lead to very little separation whatsoever.
The deadline for your two Masters selections is prior to the first match between defending champion Mark Allen and Belgium's Luca Brecel on Sunday 13 January at 1pm. With plenty of points on offer still if you can pick the two finalists it is very much worth studying the draw closely before making the two selections. I would like to wish the very best of luck to all competitors ahead of the Masters, and the next update will follow events in London and lead into the German Masters at the very end of the month.
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