Luke Littler forgets which tournament he is playing at after stunning darts win over Mike de Decker

Luke Littler Forgets Which Tournament He Is Playing At After Stunning Darts Win Over Mike De Decker

Luke Littler delivered one of the performances of his career in Kraków on Saturday night — and then proved that even the world’s best player is not immune to getting his tournaments mixed up.

The two-time world champion swept past Mike De Decker 6-1 with a staggering average of 113.84, hitting all six of his doubles and landing three 180s in a display of clinical, controlled brilliance that underlined exactly why he remains the runaway favourite to win every event he enters. It was the kind of performance that silenced any suggestion his early-season stumbles in the Premier League had knocked his confidence. The only thing Littler got wrong on the night was what tournament he was actually playing in.

Speaking to the media after his victory, Littler said he was glad to have put on a show — “not only for myself but for the fans” — and reflected on why the occasion had taken on extra meaning. “It’s not gone my way for the first few weeks in the Premier League,” he said, “but it’s Poland’s first World Series and I know myself, I always want to win the first World Series of the year.”

There is just one problem. The SUPERBET Poland Darts Open is not a World Series event. It is the opening round of the PDC European Tour 2026, making it the first-ever European Tour event to be held in Poland — not a World Series event, which is an entirely different category of tournament. The World Series is the international circuit that takes the PDC’s stars to venues in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and elsewhere. This is Kraków, in February, in a 2,000-capacity expo hall.

It is, it should be said, an easy enough mix-up to make. Littler plays so many tournaments, in so many different countries, across so many different formats and competition structures, that keeping track of what is what requires almost as much concentration as hitting a double-10 under pressure. The European Tour, the World Series, the Players Championship, the Premier League, the majors — the PDC calendar is relentless, and the sheer volume of events that top players contest across the year makes the occasional slip of the tongue more than forgivable.

What made the moment amusing rather than embarrassing was the contrast with the precision Littler had shown for the previous 40 minutes on stage. The same player who had just strung together six consecutive doubles without a miss, who had set up a 171 and pinned double 10 with his very first dart to move 5-1 ahead, who had given De Decker virtually nothing to work with throughout — that player then walked off stage and confidently told reporters he was playing in the wrong competition.

The performance itself was a reminder of how far ahead of his peers Littler remains when he is operating at full capacity. De Decker, the 2024 World Grand Prix champion, had spoken carefully in the build-up about not wanting to say anything that might fire the world number one up. He kept his counsel, the plan worked for a while, and then Littler began and De Decker could not do much about it regardless. Their head-to-head record stands at nine wins for Littler now without a single defeat, and nothing in Kraków suggested the Belgian will be finding a way past him any time soon.

Littler had come into the weekend having skipped four successive Players Championship events, meaning he was carrying more rust than usual, and having endured a miserable opening three weeks of the Premier League. He lost his opening match to Gian van Veen and was thrashed by Jonny Clayton in week three, results that briefly prompted talk — quickly dismissed — of the two-time world champion being in some sort of crisis. Saturday night was his answer.

He faces Ross Smith in the last 16 on Sunday afternoon as he pursues what he described as a victory in the “first World Series of the year.” His colleagues on the European Tour, for their part, are presumably hoping he remains confused about what competition he is playing in — because on this form, it will take something exceptional to stop him regardless.