People think that tournaments or league play will improve their game (which will improve strategy, but not skill). Forget it, the best most efficient way to get better is to practice alone.
Why it should be solitare
practicing alone is the best way
solitare practicing is much more valuable than practicing with friends or practicing only by playing as much matches as possible. Mathplay is of course also very important, but if I should give a ratio I'd say a good one is one third matchplay, two thirds (or even more) solitare.
The reasons behind this are not really obvious, especially because many players experience that they are doing well in solitare and (relatively) suck in matchplay, so they are thinking it's the lack of matchplay practice that causes that. That is, however, wrong.
As a matter of fact every player plays worse in matchplay than he does in practice. It is of course hard to believe, but even the pros do. And this not only in darts, it is valid for any other sport. To increase our matchplay performance to NEARLY (exactly of course would be great but it is in fact impossible!) the level of our practice performance we must mainly use sports psychology, because the mental aspects of matchplay are the reason for this phenomenon (if you are a regular reader of TDT you know that the mental aspect is the most important issue in this project). And note - if you are one of these rare players who say they do better in matchplay than they do in practice, the reason (and the ONLY reason!) is the following: You don't practice enough, period.
But it is still not clear why solitare practicing is that important. As a personal summary, I'd say this: "Practicing with partners, no matter if they are better or worse than you, forces you to raise your limit above theirs. Practicing alone constantly forces you to raise your limit above yourself, and this limit is higher than you might dream of!" So you can nearly infinitely improve your game only by always trying to beat your limit. No matter how good you are, you can always be better. No friendly or rivalry matchplay practice can do this when your opponents stick to their level. To say it literally - the only way to make your current personal limit your future standard is practicing alone.
citation the dart thrower
Why it should be solitare
practicing alone is the best way
solitare practicing is much more valuable than practicing with friends or practicing only by playing as much matches as possible. Mathplay is of course also very important, but if I should give a ratio I'd say a good one is one third matchplay, two thirds (or even more) solitare.
The reasons behind this are not really obvious, especially because many players experience that they are doing well in solitare and (relatively) suck in matchplay, so they are thinking it's the lack of matchplay practice that causes that. That is, however, wrong.
As a matter of fact every player plays worse in matchplay than he does in practice. It is of course hard to believe, but even the pros do. And this not only in darts, it is valid for any other sport. To increase our matchplay performance to NEARLY (exactly of course would be great but it is in fact impossible!) the level of our practice performance we must mainly use sports psychology, because the mental aspects of matchplay are the reason for this phenomenon (if you are a regular reader of TDT you know that the mental aspect is the most important issue in this project). And note - if you are one of these rare players who say they do better in matchplay than they do in practice, the reason (and the ONLY reason!) is the following: You don't practice enough, period.
But it is still not clear why solitare practicing is that important. As a personal summary, I'd say this: "Practicing with partners, no matter if they are better or worse than you, forces you to raise your limit above theirs. Practicing alone constantly forces you to raise your limit above yourself, and this limit is higher than you might dream of!" So you can nearly infinitely improve your game only by always trying to beat your limit. No matter how good you are, you can always be better. No friendly or rivalry matchplay practice can do this when your opponents stick to their level. To say it literally - the only way to make your current personal limit your future standard is practicing alone.
citation the dart thrower
