play worse after reading poker books - !?!

I have been reading Harrington on Hold'em V1, and Sklansky's Theory of Poker in the last few weeks. I have found that found that my game has actually suffered after reading those. I suppose its because I need be more patient and take the time to incorporate ideas from the books into my game. I can spot mistakes and better understand what other players are doing, but I have problems taking advantage.
Any thoughts?

[mudbuddha]

going out of your way to apply concepts youve learned in the books will also cause you to play worse..

haha when you truly understand hte concepts you wont have any more problems and you will actually improve

[Shandrax]

There is a funny analogy in chess. Sometimes you can watch the development of a player who is playing nothing but offbeat openings - usually incorrect stuff, far away from the mainstream. He got some results with it, but nothing spectacular. At one day this guy decides to improve his game, so he goes out and buys a book on openings. He memorizes the theory of some mainstream openings and starts playing. Usually his score will go down for a while.

There are two reasons for this:
A. He doesn't have the feeling for the resulting positions yet.
B. Since he is now playing popular mainlines, his opponents will have experience with these positions, because they have played against them more often.

In the end it pays off to play "correct" openings, but it takes lots of effort and lots of patience to master them.

[hansdebelge]

that wasnt funny

[PairTheBoard]

I think a lot of times when you learn a new idea or principle you almost have to experiment with it. You won't have time at the table to really analyze whether it applies so you say, let's try it and see what happens. You learn by experience when it works and when it doesn't. In the short run you might be better off just leaving it alone. But in the long run you perfect it and it becomes a valuable new weapon in your arsenal. You can minimize the learning cost by putting in the time away from the table to think about and analyze how you've been using it.

PairTheBoard

[KidPokerX]

Consider your readings to be a concrete foundation for your game. The theories behind it are as solid as ever, the approach in caryying out this duty, however, is not. If you are a strictly-by-the-book player you probably will not turn much profit past a certain level.

[davet]

Remember that these books teach you to play more aggressively, and to squeeze every penny of value from your game.

Realize that this will cause higher fluctuations, which makes you think you are playing worse.

[benkahuna]

I don't know about you, but sometimes I overapply a concept I read about in a book, causing problems. Not every book, but some. HoH, esp vol 2 was nothing but good for my tourney game though.

I find that the first time I read a book and it makes me think of different ways to play my game tends to go off for a while, however when I then re-read the book it kind of falls into place and then i can see if the different plays work for me. This happens on the re-read because of the experience gained during live play, I'm just not good enough to read a book and then seamlessly alter my play without having a few problems.

[benkahuna]

I think rereading can certainly help, especially if you're at all unclear. I've reread parts of books when I was a little confused. And I don'think anyone can usually apply new concepts seamlessly. HoH vol. 2 was just so good that even partly mistaken application (I hope to a small extent) was still better than none at all.