Practising is the key point for improving your game. You've all heard the old saying; "Three rules for becoming a good player? Practice, practice, practice!"

But practising is not only tossing darts on a dartboard for several hours with an automatic getting-better result. Athletes may gain muscle power from repeating the same brain-killing exercises over and over, but darts is not some martial art; it's skill and touch that matters. So dart practice is a different matter, and here are some tips on how you should do it.

How should you plan and handle your practising sessions?

How often, how much? This is one of the standard questions from players. The general answer is of course not surprising: As often as possible and as much as possible.

But how many people have 8 hours or more per day they can use for practising darts? Maybe the pros and some of the unemployed, but hardly anyone else. So you have your own personal answer - use as much time as you can or are willing to donate. If this is 8 hours per day, great. If this is 20 minutes, okay.

However long this time is, you should use it right. It should be intense, aware and motivated. An hour of this type of practice is better than 2 hours of boredom and so-so arrow tossing. And, as in the headline of this paragraph, frequency is more important than quantity. An example: Player A does 7 or more hours of practising each Sunday and nothing during the rest of the week. Player B practices half an hour on workdays, 2 hours on Saturday and then enjoys a lazy Sunday. Guess who uses his time better... yes, frequency is more important than quantity, so player B's regime is much better.

Try to practice each day of the week, with not more than 1 or two days off. Even if you can only spend 20 minutes on workdays this is good practice, although you should then plan at least one longer practice session on weekends, let's say more than two hours if you are serious about improving your game. The frequency postulate can also be used for doing two or more short practice sessions on one day. E.g. play for 15 minutes during lunch hour if you have the chance to, and for another 15 minutes when you come home. Top German player Andre Welge used to get up 20 minutes earlier in the morning to get some additional practising before he went to work. Not anybody's strategy (most people REALLLY hate getting up early), but a good one.

Then, not only is frequency better than quantity, intensity also is. Do your practice sessions on a concentration level similar to your matchplay level. If you find your concentration or motivation dropping during a longer session, go for a pause. 15 minutes up to half an hour are okay for such pausing. You can, and should, pause if your motivation drops during a practice session, and also when you are unhappy with your game. It would be better to stop and try again after a while with new motivation and awareness. Unconcentrated and unmotivated practice is bad practice. Pro Rod Harrington says he doesn't practice when he has no fun doing it. In darts there is no use for forcing yourself to practice. If you don't want to, don't! But of course, if you aren't eager to get to the board again after two or three lazy days you may not have the personality to become a strong player. In many other sports self-torment (mostly to gain muscle power) is a necessity, but not in darts. Darts is touch and co-ordination, not physical suffering.

Practising on your own is much more valuable than practising with friends or by playing as many matches as possible. Matchplay is of course also very important - a good ratio is one third matchplay, two thirds (or even more) solitaire.

The reasons behind this are not entirely obvious, especially because of a lot of players' experiences that they are doing well in solitaire and do relatively bad in matchplay, so they think it's the lack of matchplay practice that causes this. This is, however, wrong. As a matter of fact, every player plays worse in matchplay than in practice. It is of course hard to believe, but even the pros do. And this is not only in darts, it is also valid for any other sport.

To increase your matchplay performance to the level of your practice performance, you must embrace sports psychology. This is because the mental aspects of matchplay are the reason for this phenomenon. However, you can never raise your matchplay level to exactly that of your practice level - it's just impossible. 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 solitaire practising is that important. Practising with partners, no matter if they are better or worse than you, forces you to raise your limit above theirs. Practising alone constantly forces you to raise your limit above yourself, and this limit is higher than you can ever imagine! So you improve your game to infinite levels, but only by trying to continuously beat your own 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 by practising alone.