Christopher Kempf, the statistical analyst of the PDC, takes a look at a potential breakthrough moment for ProTour Order of Merit number one Ian White.
Were it not for a quirk of geography, perhaps White would be better known and appreciated by darts fans.
White, of Stoke-on-Trent, England, has had the misfortune of being overshadowed by two fellow-dart players from his hometown for the past decade - Phil Taylor and Adrian Lewis.
Their rise to win multiple World Championships contrasted White's repeated quarter-final exits, or earlier, of every televised PDC tournament he has played in.
There have always been at least two English players ranked ahead of him on the Order of Merit during his time in the PDC, meaning he has never represented his country at the World Cup.
Even the title of 'best player never to have won a TV title' is not clearly his; Dave Chisnall, from the other tungsten Mecca of St Helens, is a more obvious claimant due to his four final appearances.
Perhaps that is about to change. Coming into the final weekend of Players Championship events, White is perched atop the Order of Merit for that series of events and is likely to be seeded first for the first time in Minehead, having won two titles and reached five additional semi-finals this year.
White even briefly broke into the world's top ten earlier this month, before being replaced by James Wade after his European Tour final appearance in Göttingen.
He has not achieved that number one position by accident - having contested all 20 Players Championship events of 2018 thus far, White has been consistently successful, and not merely for having won two titles and reached five additional semi-finals.
His tour average of 96.94 ranks him third among the 128 tour card holders contesting those events, behind only Michael van Gerwen and Gary Anderson.
His record in last-leg deciders (14-5) is also among the best in the PDC. His 23 100+ averages on tour greatly outweighs his total of averages in the 80s (5), while no player has won more legs, hit more 180s, or collected more money (£52,000) in this year's Players Championships than Ian White.
Perhaps what is most impressive about White's performances has been the level of pressure he applies against the throw.
When an opponent faces White, there is a 10% chance that White will break throw with a 12-darter or better, and a 35% chance of White winning the leg in five visits.
Thus, just to hold throw against White's 99.08 average when throwing second, a player must be prepared to counter-attack with a 12- or 15-darter of his own nearly a majority of the time.
Against White's onslaught of 140s (0.73 per leg, nearly the highest rate in the PDC overall) and 180s (0.30 per leg, a comparable rate to that of notorious maximum hitters Van Gerwen and Chisnall), most players struggle to keep pace, and White, whose averages tend to increase as the size of his lead increases, is all too happy to seize the advantage.
White is unique among the world's top 25 players in having earned such a large percentage of his ranking income from floor events.
Over the past two years, he has built a solid base of income which will guarantee for the foreseeable future that he will not drop suddenly in the rankings due to a single poor showing in a tournament.
Since Van Gerwen and Anderson frequently miss weekends of Players Championship events once they have qualified for Minehead, no other player has demonstrated such commanding performances so consistently on the floor.
The trouble for White is that these events represent a poor return on investment compared to other events on the calendar.
Seven wins in a Players Championship event earns a player the winner's cheque of £10,000 - approximately £150 in ranking earnings per leg contested.
However, with only five matches for seeded players to win on the European Tour, along with the expanded prize fund, per-leg earnings are tripled or even quadrupled. In the PDC's premier events, earning efficiency is still higher.
So although White claimed his first European Tour title this year, and with it the £25,000 top prize, he has left £24,000 in ranking income off the table by failing to win his first match in 12 of the past 25 European Tour events.
And while White should have no trouble qualifying for most televised tournaments, it has now been more than a year and a half since White's last televised quarter-final, and another year and a half since his preceding best finish, in 2015.
The circumstances of his loss to Gerwyn Price at the 2017 UK Open, in which he suffered one of the most brutal reversals in fortune ever seen in professional darts, are not easily forgotten, and his TV performances and income have not been the same since.
But there are reasons to believe White could make a dramatic improvement in his stage tournament fortunes in Minehead this year.
Since he will likely be ranked number one at the end of this coming weekend, he is unlikely to face the two most dangerous players in the field (MvG and Anderson) until at least the quarter-finals.
Minehead was also the site of his last two televised quarter-final appearances, so perhaps the Stoke ace has an affinity for that venue.
If he can bring the venerable performances witnessed in the silence of Barnsley or Milton Keynes to a TV event stage, he could be making many more appearances in major tournaments very soon, and living up to the promise of his remarkable ability.
Follow Christopher Kempf on Twitter through @Ochepedia