INTRODUCTION

A practice schedule is necessary for anybody seriously looking to become a better player. In this blog, I will go over the essential things you need to set up a good practice routine.

DEMO REVIEWING FOR BEGINNERS

Potentially the most overlooked aspect to the training schedule, and arguably the most important. Analyzing your own game has dozens of benefits and will speed up your improvement. While it sounds intimidating to review your own game, it's very easy and can be made simple by following an easy process. The more accustomed you become to reviewing demos, the more obvious smaller aspects of the process will become.

- Positioning: Take note of how you're positioned and try to determine if there potentially was a better position. Look for weaknesses and vulnerabilities that arise in that specific position, like having your back or side exposed to another area.

- Decisions: Analyze how you react to information, your decision making, and how you play off your teammates. Goes hand in hand with positioning.

- Executing: Look at how you put your decisions into practise. Determine what could have been done better, look for unforeseen vulnerabilities, and look at how you worked with foreseen vulnerabilities.

You will need to review your demo/the round twice. While watching it the first time, you'll want to analyze your decisions using the process mentioned above using only the information you had available in game at the time, not with all the information available in the demo.

Looking at Positioning, we want to determine the strong points and weaknesses of the position based on the information at hand. Once more info is gained, we want to look at the Decisions the player made, like when and where the player rotated, which position he moved to, where he attacked, and so forth. Lastly, we want to look at how we Execute these decisions, like successfully clearing one area but missing a crucial weakness, attacking from a disadvantageous position, and so on.

The second time we watch the demo/the round, we will look at it with all the information available, and compare it to what we gathered from following the process the first time we watched it.

Looking at Positioning, we want to look at all the possible vulnerabilities and strong points of the available positions in the situation based on enemy positions, where the bomb is, how many teammates are at which areas, and so forth. Establish which position would have been the strongest, and remember to make the Decision to use it situationally in the future. While Executing, you want to determine if there was a better ultimate course. Presuppose you lost a 2v3 because you ran into the bombsite that had two defenders waiting. Try to determine things like where and how you could have given away information, what the best route would have been, or how you could have approached the situation differently, and then apply this in the future.

AIM PRACTICE

There are tons of great resources for aim practice against bots, like Aim-Botz and Training Center 1.5c among others. These are custom maps with many settings that allow you to easily practise your aim and gun control at your own pace.

It's essential for the player to practise different skills with each main weapon. 200 AK headshots, 200 M4 spraydowns and 100 AWP flicks are a good place to start. Pistol training is also a necessity! This will make a drastic improvement to your aim, and over time you can increase the kill goals for the weapons until you've reached an amount you find comfortable.

Deathmatch is a good place to put this aim training into practise against better opponents. Putting it into practise is important for building the skill, and will also train you to execute the action faster. Reaction time is also a necessary aspect of aim! Adding both bot practice and deathmatch into your schedule will put you on your way to becoming a better aimer in no time.





GRENADE PRACTICE

Another essential for the practice schedule is grenade practice. Knowing how grenades work, how to use them situationally, and learning set grenades are necessary for your practice schedule. They're of great use to you and your team if used correctly. There are many resources available online for set grenades, as well as maps available on the workshop designed to show the player specific grenade spots.

CONCLUSION

Adding these few things to your practice routine will definitely help you improve as an overall player! Remember when practising that perseverance is key to success.

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