Luke Humphries

There you will find everything you could possibly need from the world of darts.

Now, for the kids listening, you're probably thinking that the likes of Luke Humphries and Luke Littler and Jan van Veen and the other superstars which we see on the television are the best players that the world has ever seen.

And maybe you're right.

Well, kind of.

Then perhaps we go and grab the great Phil Taylor from his incredible peak years.

And suddenly, bang, there they are, stood on the stage in 2026.

Eric Bristow, Jocky Wilson, Phil Taylor, standing on one side of the stage, and on the other, we'll have Luke Littler, Luke Humphries, and Jan van Veen, and loads of the other brilliant stars playing darts today.

Can you just imagine the balkons? And imagine poor old Emma Payton trying to explain to viewers how a load of stars from the 1980s, 90s, and the 2000s have just appeared on the same stage as the legends that we've got today? How do we decide who is better? Seriously.

There's often a lot of talk incorrectly about people being nervous.

Now, I spoke with Luke Humphries because we both debuted in the World Championships around about the same time.

And we spoke about that experience on Alexander Palace stage.

And we talked about it from a sense of we expected it to be more than it was.

Oh, yeah, because she played one like two freaks ago or something, didn't she? But definitely the first woman to win a Eurotour game.

Yeah.

what an achievement and then went on to have a really good game against Luke Humphries as well where to be honest it was probably literally nothing she could have done because Luke Humphries was ridiculous and is ridiculous in Prague for some reason he's just almost unstoppable apart from the final where he was stopped by Luke Littler I don't know where to start with both of these Matt because I guess ultimately with both stories there is a level of expectation that both were going to happen

Do you know what? I get it.

You know, he's just, you know, as a punter, you know, a pr- a proven winner, like, you know, f- you know, a fearless, fearless...

You know, he went behind in that final against Luke Humphries on Sunday, just steadied the ship and just, you know, always finds a way.

Um, I love, I love winners, and, um, you know, I suppose I'm a-

Losers are in the bin.

It is just the most brilliant attitude right now.

And like you said, Big Johnny mentions there, if Luke wasn't about Luke Humphries, of course, Jermaine Watemeda then and Luke Hitler would be on an MVG run no look the simple fact is this right as you mentioned the top two are just miles apart but I actually think Barzee I still think there is a gap between Luke H and Luke L I do I'm not saying that it's as massive as it is the gap between the top two and the rest of the field but I'd say that there is about there and Luke Humphries is about there there's still a there's still a gap

Luke, we'll call him Littler and Humphreys.

I'm not being rude, but when they both have the same name, it's a thing.

What could he get beaten? It'd be like, no.

But as it stands, where they're 1-2, unless, I say this, if you don't get one of them early, you're not going to get them.

Where Luke Humphries, someone got him early at the match play.

But the longer the tournaments grow...

To tell you the truth, sometimes the real magic begins when everything goes horribly wrong.

In 2024, the defending champion Luke Humphries faced Steven Bunting.

And Bunting absolutely roared out of the traps.

3-0, first set gone.

The Grand Prix monster had eaten him for breakfast.

I'm not talking about Rob Cross, I'm talking about the tournament.

One year later, Luke Littler came back, reached the final and absolutely funded past Luke Humphries six sets to one to become the 2025 champion.

Luke Humphries knows the secret too.

And then he got to the final.

Obviously, lost to Luke Humphries.

Unbelievable player again.

Love Luke.

You know, if you're playing, at the moment, rank number three, Shiam Van Bain, with the form he's in right now, you're probably thinking, right, it's going to be difficult, but I've got a chance.

Whereas if you're playing Littler, or to a certain extent, Luke Humphries, you're probably going... um nah probably not gonna happen so it gives them an opportunity that's that's all i think anyway

it's an interesting one we'll come on to the thing uh yes the world series final does count uh and the pdc count it um and also good evening mr duff how are you everybody you

know what i've got to hand as well on that subject look at this hey

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Luke Humphries was playing up in Middlesbrough and Luke was playing at Armageddon, wasn't he? I think.

My guess, this is just a hunch, I don't know, but my guess is, is that he's getting paid more than you would do for winning a European tour event for that night.

Then you look at the development tour.

And if you cast your mind back a couple of years ago, We had on the development tour, Ted Everts winning development tours and dominating the system, a system that included Luke Humphries, a system that included Dimitri Vandenberg.

And they went on to achieve more than Ted Everts did.

So a lot of what I'm trying to get across here is don't narrow mind yourself.

which a lot of people do they look at what they can see in front of them right now oh archie self isn't one of the top two players at the moment in the youth dance he's not going to go on and do it that is very narrow minor because he that popcorn he could pop to his peak at a different time so like i say if you was watching luke humphries get beat by ted evans most weeks on the development tour you would think ted evans would go on to be the world champion Didn't work out that way.

He never made the top 32.

He's not got a tour card right now.

Luke Humphries is one of the greatest players of all time now.

101-27, 101-62.

If that was Luke Humphries, we'd be waxing lyrical on what a tournament it was.

Those numbers do not lie.

That is an incredible performance to win a tournament from James Wade.

I'm not saying don't pay first round money on TV events.

But if you only had it in one of those categories, wouldn't it make more sense that it was the pro tour events? yeah a hundred percent captain can have a view i i think if you're only gonna have one it would make more sense to that

yeah a hundred percent so the world series for this year's the events are in the ledger let's go through them mvg won in bahrain luke littler won in saudi arabia mvg won his second in copenhagen luke humphries won in the big apple Johnny Clayton won in New Zealand and James Wade takes the final spot on the winner's roster.

So that gives us the confirmed lineup for the World Series finals at the AFAS Live in Amsterdam.