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There are a couple really great points made above. This is the first. All the great EVERYTHINGS learn from the masters and then evolve the artform. Artists, scientists, athletes, poker players. There are concepts like pot odds, implied odds, weak vs strong starting hands, protecting a hand, getting a read and isolating a weaker holding, etc., etc., that are so fundamental to the game that you can't get anywhere without them. These things are, of course, not impossible to discover on your own. But because they are so fundamental, all the self-exploration in the world isn't going to take

There are a couple really great points made above. This is the first. All the great EVERYTHINGS learn from the masters and then evolve the artform. Artists, scientists, athletes, poker players. There are concepts like pot odds, implied odds, weak vs strong starting hands, protecting a hand, getting a read and isolating a weaker holding, etc., etc., that are so fundamental to the game that you can't get anywhere without them. These things are, of course, not impossible to discover on your own. But because they are so fundamental, all the self-exploration in the world isn't going to take

Assuming you're going to keep playing whether you've mastered all the material or not, begin to concentrate on applying the lessons you've picked up ONE AT A TIME.You say you've read through TOP. Good! You're ahead of way more than 9/10 players at your level of play (whatever that is). But reading isn't study. To get something out of it, you have to STUDY it. Meaning (1) read it, (2) re-read it slowly, one-section-at-a-time, (3) apply it.Before your next long session, re-read a section -- ONE SECTION -- you'd like to work on. Read it closely, commit important facts to memory. Highlight

Consider setting aside a portion of your tournament bankroll to play short-handed SNG's on some of the big poker sites. You can start with 5 or 6 people, all equally stacked, and the probabilities and agression patterns should more or less reflect those you find at a final table. (Especially once the blinds go up a bit, and you hit the 10x BB boundary.)Applying the lessons learned there, I was finally able to get over the hump and take down my first (and since, second) MTT. As an added bonus, SNG's are fun and profitable!Check out wmajik's now many-moons-old article here...http://teamfu.fre

The best thing there is the 50NL tables. 10 man rings, with routinely 70%+ seeing the flop, and knuckleheads who will call any all-in just for the rush. As long as you're not too proud to sit at a .25/.50 blind table, you can pretty much take it for as much as you want with a little patience. This site was made for sitting back and waiting for the nuts.