Changing Your Game

  Some people teach themselves how to play bass guitar. After a while, however, they realize they are terrible bassists. They could plunk away in a punk rock band and sound pretty good, but if someone asks them to do anymore than that, they are totally lost. Then they realize that if they want to be a good bass player they need to begin to take lessons. For the first six months, these lessons are horrible - as they have to completely unlearn everything they thought they knew.  "What does that have to do with poker?" you ask. The answer is nothing. It does, on the other hand, have everything to do with learning. See, for those six months, they hated practicing and thought about giving up almost every single day, but those who stuck with it, and relearned the instrument, now can play (half) decently.  Unlearning bad poker habits and turning your basement game into a casino game will cause you the same troubles. The tricks you knew won't work with the fundamentals you're learning. Basic and boring concepts that you think you already know will have to be studied over and over again to get them right. Ingrained bad habits will take a long time to break.  You can change your game, but just like changing anything, it can take a lot of work.