No one thing should be relied on completly. Books are good, but there are no absolutes in Poker so they can only take you so far. Nothing makes up for experience. I would put watching on TV last.What you see on TV can get you in trouble more often then not. Why is that? Thought you'd never ask. Poker on TV is highly edited: you only see a handful of the more "exciting"
hands. Most poker, even in tournaments is more grind it out, make small pots, steal blinds kind of play, not exciting but the nuts and bolts of poker. This is why we see so many all-in moves online. They think this is the way to play because that's what they see on tv. Often what you see is different from the way most of the tournament was played: On the wpt for example the blinds raise much faster on the final tv table then durring the rest of play. During the tournament blinds increase every 90 mins, in the final tv table they increase every 30 mins. This greatly changes the play and forces players to make moves and push in their chips. Also, alot of what you see on tv is short handed. WPT tv final table is 6 players. Most
wsop event shown are final tables which of course get widdled down to one. Short handed play is vastly different than full table play but many people that only get their poker knowledge from TV don't understand this. And finally: Just because Gus Hansen does it doesn;t mean you should. Many pros play a looser more maniac style than most new players should even though they emulate it. Pros that play loose like this have a couple thoughts in mind. One; they need to get a large stack fairly quickly to be successful so they don't mind taking chances early. They would rather bust out in the first couple of hours trying to accumulate chips then limp into the money with a short stack. Understand that that is why they play like that if you want to play like them. Understand that you will be busted out early very often in MTT play. Another thing about these pros is that they are very good at reading other players. They know when to give up their rags and when they can
bluff the other player. It's a skill most of us don't have at their level so trying to play their hand selection without their skill sets is asking for disaster.
Overall I would say the best way to get better; play, play, play, read everything you can find, including chat forums and short articles, but understand that every single situation is different and anything you read or hear is a guidline and not the gospel.