time at the tables is more valuable than time with head in a book imo
A lot of your advice has been really useful to me, and the CotW is really going to keep me busy for some time to come, because a lot of the advice in there also seems to be good for tournament play. So thanks for that.
However, I must disagree with people saying that what people need is to play millions of hands, or to subscribe to a coaching site. I think a lot of people forget just how far they have progressed down the road since first starting in poker, and are starting to take their winnings for granted a little bit.
If you are starting off you probably need to learn the basics in order to at least become a break-even player, and you probably don't have money to chuck around. Not only are there a lot of FREE resources available online (such as this site, Pokerstove, various videos as well as
pokerstars Poker School), but a basics book such as Phil Gordon's Little Green Book was, in my experience, a very worthwhile investment. So was HEM Small Stakes.
Maybe once you have reached BE you can start to think about subscribing to coaching sites, and playing millions of hands. If you play millions of hands BEFORE putting in the effort of learning how to play properly then you could potentially end up giving away a lot of money. Learning to play well takes a lot of effort, we all learn differently so different things suit different people, but for me at least books need to be an ongoing part of educating myself.
Having said that, having read tons and tons of theory it is of course then necessary to go and try to put the theory into practice... as they say, practice makes perfect...