Solitaire practicing is much more valuable than practicing with friends or practicing only by playing as much matches as possible. Math play is of course also very important, but if I should give a ratio I'd say a good one is one third match play, two thirds (or even more) solitaire.

The reasons behind this are not really obvious, especially because many players experience that they are doing well in solitaire and (relatively) suck in match play, so they are thinking it's the lack of match play practice that causes that. That is, however, wrong.

As a matter of fact every player plays worse in match play 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 match play 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 match play are the reason for this phenomenon (if you are a regular reader of TDT you know that the mental is the most important issue in this project). And note - if you are one of these rare players who say they do better in match play than they do in practice.

But it is still not clear why solitaire practicing is that important. 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 match practiceways 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.

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How often, how much? This is one of the standard questions I get from players. The general answer is of course not surprising: As often as possible, as much as possible.
But how many people have 8 hours or more per day they can use for practicing darts games? Answer: Maybe the pros and some of the unemployed, but hardly anyone else. So you get your personal answer - use as much time as you can or are willing to afford. If there are 8 hours per day, it is great. If there is 1 hour, it is ok.
However long this time is, you should use it right. 1 hour of intense, aware and motivated practice is better than 8 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 practicing 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.

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There are some general notes for the coming dart sessions.

First, we should 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 plan at least one longer practice session on weekends, let's say more than 2 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. German top player Andre Welge used to get up 20 minutes earlier in the morning to get some additional practicing before he went to work. Not anybody's strategy (at least not mine, I REALLY hate getting up early), but a good one.

Second, it not only is frequency better than quantity, intensity also is. Do your practice sessions on a concentration level similar to your match play level. If you find your concentration or motivation dropping during a longer session, go for a pause. Again 15 minutes up to half an hour are okay for such pausing. You can and should also pause if your motivation drops during a practice session, and also when you are unhappy with your game. Better stop and try again a while later with new motivation and awareness. Unconcentrated and unmotivated practice is bad practice. Pro Rod Harrington told me he doesn't practice when he has no fun doing it. In darts there is no use for forcing oneself to practicing, but of course, if you aren't eager to get to the board again after one or two lazy days you will hardly 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 coordination, not physical suffering.

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Warming up before league play and tournaments is very important and worth a special paragraph. You should at least do half an hour of concentrated warm-up before important league matches or tournaments. E.g. the pros playing the World Championship are warming up for several hours before the dart match. Eric Bristow used to feel ready for battle only when he got 4 or 5 hours of practice before one single match (which then lasted even shorter than his practice session before). He won the title five times so he seemed to know what he did. Of course such extreme warm-up is rarely possible with tournament starts at AM and league nights right after work.
Once you know your most common problems you will develop your own warm-up routines, like hitting each double at least once or twice or playing round the boards and so on. Of course warm-up is also a situation where you may and should go for increased scoring practice, but still doubles (or trebles for cricket) are more important. If diddle for middle is the rule or if cricket will be played of course bull is important, too.

Remember before the tournament or league it still is solitaires that rules! It is especially dangerous here to stick too much to match play for warm-up because warm-up is a situation where you need to get rid of possible technical problems as soon as possible. This requires your full concentration, and warm-up matches are very likely to put your concentration on winning them instead of fighting your problems! You can of course switch to playing them once your feeling and technique are set for the day, but not earlier.

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