PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf explores the head-to-head matchups between the world's top 16, through the lens of ranking money won and lost.
A professional darts player lives and dies by their Order of Merit ranking. Their averages, maximum tally and high finishes are all vanity in comparison with the necessity of accumulating ranking money.
As a result, while form rankings have their place in satisfying our curiosity about which player is hitting the most trebles or doubles, the most vital statistic in PDC darts is denominated in pounds sterling.
This comes into clearest focus when looking at head-to-head matchups and calculating the amount of ranking money that one player has 'pinched' from another.
Additionally, considering how that income, awarded differently, might have resulted not only in different seedings and qualifications, but may have also altered a player's career trajectory or personal prosperity?
Michael van Gerwen's victory over Nathan Aspinall in the World Grand Prix final earned him £60,000, on top of the £60,000 collected from defeating four other opponents en route to his sixth double-start title.
In the 17 matches and 283 legs comprising their past match history, the Dutchman has won only seven more legs than Aspinall, but has collected 98.6% of the ranking money on offer in their meetings - £242,250 out of £245,750.
In total, the 138 legs that Aspinall has taken off Van Gerwen in his career have resulted in earnings of only £3,500 to bolster his position on the Order of Merit.
In contrast, Rob Cross has enjoyed far less success than Aspinall against the three-time World Champion - Cross only boasts five career victories in 28 matches against Van Gerwen [Aspinall has five wins and a draw over the space of 17 matches].
However, two of those victories secured Cross whopping amounts of ranking money.
He picked Van Gerwen’s pocket for £60,000 by winning last year's European Championship, and accrued £85,000 in memorably defeating him at the 2018 World Championship - only barely exceeded by the Order of Merit income won by MvG against Cross in 12 different matches.
Can the career series between these two World Champions really be said to be so lopsided if the two have come away with approximately equal amounts of ranking prize money?
The most frequently-contested matchup in darts - the 95-match Van Gerwen vs Peter Wright series - has allocated nearly £1,000,000 in ranking income to the two elite players.
Wright's ranking total of £375,000 amounts to around 35% of all of the ranking money ever won in a match against Van Gerwen by every player currently in the PDC’s top 32.
It was not always thus – the Scot had accumulated less than £40,000 over the first 10 years of his rivalry with Van Gerwen, before turning the tide against him at the 2020 World Championship with a £300,000 haul.
After a demon-slaying whitewash in the 2021 World Championship, picking the Dutchman's pocket for £50,000, Dave Chisnall has now snapped up a respectable 22% of the ranking money on offer in his contests against Van Gerwen.
It is against Gary Anderson that he has left the most money on the table: three defeats in the late rounds of the World Championship have ceded over £200,000 in ranking money to the veteran Scot.
Only this year has Chisnall got himself on the board with the first ranking victory of his career - for £500 - 0.24% of the total shared out in their ranking matchups.
It is the most lopsided cash differential between any two active players involving a total of more than £100,000.
Meanwhile, in matchups against the other 31 players currently comprising the top 32, only five players are currently in the black when it comes to career ranking earnings.
Four of them are World Champions [Van Gerwen, Price, Wright, Cross - each earned more than £200,000 from winning a World Championship final] and the other is José de Sousa, who has never advanced beyond the third round at Alexandra Palace.
De Sousa has nonetheless managed - in less than 4 years - to claim ranking wins against 28 of the top 31 players and secured 57.5% of all the ranking money on offer in those contests.
When a 180 is thrown in a match, the darts remain in the board for a few seconds and are then removed, leaving the dartboard looking as though that feat of scoring never occurred.
It is only if that 180 results in a leg won, and if that leg won contributes to a match-winning effort, that the peculiar alchemy of transforming tungsten into gold takes place.
Maximising the frequency and efficiency of that transformation is the true indication of the professional.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia