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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[UATrewqaz]

Yes this does happen, you have to go through the growing pains of doing things the right way.

Here's a good example.

I bowled alot during college with friends but wasn't that good, I averaged like 100-110, which was pretty good for our little group actually.

Anyway several months ago I went bowling with a friend who is really good, averages like 190 adn he pointed out that I was bowling off the wrong foot. I'm right handed therefor I need to be throwing off my left foot, but I wasn't and he was amazed I could even throw it straight. Basically he showed me the proper steps/approach/footing and the first couple of games doing it this way felt really awkward and I was bowling like 60-70. Basically I had gotten USED to the wrong way and it was so engrained in my brain that the righ tway felt odd. ANyway after a few times of going and doing it thr right way I began improving rapidly. I had plateuaed at around 110 the wrong way but I started bowling like 120, 130, 140 etc with the new proper way.

The crap had to be torn down so the good stuff could be built up.