Why It Should Be Solitare

Practicing alone (solitare) is much more valuable than practicing with friends or practicing only by playing as many matches as possible. Mathplay is of course also very important, but if I were to give a ratio to it, I'd say a good one is one third matchplay, two thirds solitare practice.

The reasons behind this are not really obvious, especially because many players experience that they are playing well in solitare and not so well in matchplay, so they think it's the lack of matchplay practice that causes that. That is, however, wrong.

Every player plays worse in matchplay than he does in practice. It is hard to believe, but even the pros do. And this is not only true for darts, it is valid for other sports. To increase our matchplay performance to nearly 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 one of these rare players who say they do better in matchplay than they do in practice, the reason is the following: You don't practice enough, period.

But it is still not clear why solitare practicing is that important. You can nearly infinitely improve your darts 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.

Until Next Time!
Tony