I've got another tournament tonight and, if I'm being honest, I don't have particularly high expectations.
The reason isn't because I've lost confidence or anything like that. It's simply because I haven't picked up a dart since last Thursday's tournament. Not a single dart thrown all week.
The strange thing is that I don't actually expect to play much worse than I did last week. Equally, I don't expect to play any better.
That got me thinking about something I've heard countless times in darts.
You'll often hear good players say they hardly ever practise. Some will tell you they only really throw darts when they have a match. Others claim their darts barely come out of the case between tournaments.
At the same time, I've known players who seem to spend hours at the board every week and still don't reach the level they want.
So what is actually going on?
I think one of the problems is that different people mean different things when they talk about practice.
For some players, practice means standing at the board every night throwing hundreds of darts. For others, practice means playing in the local league once or twice a week. Some players don't count matches as practice at all, even though they're getting regular competitive darts against decent opposition.
If somebody tells me they never practise, my first question would probably be whether they play regularly.
If they're playing two league matches and a local knockout every week, that's still a lot of darts. They're still under pressure. They're still having to score, finish and deal with nerves. That's not the same as doing doubles routines at home, but it's certainly helping maintain their standard.
I also wonder whether people focus too much on what they've done recently and not enough on the years that came before.
A player averaging 80 or 90 might genuinely not practise much now, but what about the previous ten or twenty years?
Most good players didn't simply wake up one morning and start averaging big numbers. They've usually spent years playing pub leagues, local competitions, county matches or practising at home. The experience has already been built.
Once you've thrown hundreds of thousands of darts, I don't think a week away from the board suddenly erases all of that.
It's a bit like riding a bike. You might be slightly rusty after a break, but the basic skill is still there.
What tends to disappear first isn't the ability itself. It's the sharpness.
You might miss a few more doubles than normal. Your throw might not feel quite as smooth in the opening few legs. You might struggle to find a rhythm straight away.
But that's very different from suddenly becoming a poor player.
Of course, there is also the question of natural ability.
Whether people like admitting it or not, some players seem to improve much quicker than others. We've all seen players who have only been playing a few years but somehow make the game look easy. We've also seen players who work incredibly hard and never quite reach the standard they would like.
Practice matters, but I don't think it's the whole story.
The best players probably have a mixture of talent, experience and hard work. Remove any one of those and it becomes much harder to reach a high level.
My own view is that short-term practice is probably overrated, while long-term accumulated experience is underrated.
Missing a week doesn't concern me too much.
Missing six months probably would.
The reason some experienced players can get away with practising less is because they've already spent years building their game. They've already put the work in, even if they're not doing it right now.
So tonight will be an interesting little test.
I've not thrown a dart for seven days. Maybe I'll be a couple of points below my normal level. Maybe I'll play exactly the same as last week.
Either way, I suspect one thing.
The result will tell me far more about the darts I've thrown over the last few years than the darts I haven't thrown over the last seven days.
