The "One Step Back and Two Steps Forward" syndrome

This is a curiously occuring thing that annoys my quite a bit, because it does highlight a certain flaw in my character. You might also know of it as "if it isn't broken, don't fix it", or something else clever.

It goes like this:

Something is working, but it could be better. Making it better means first breaking it, then investing alot of effort building something new, that you hope is better that what you had in the first place.

It happens alot when writing software, and is just something you have to learn to accept. Or you become a dinosaur, live in the past, and coworkers make fun of you when they're drunk. Aaaanyway..

I am experiencing the same phenomenom when I'm playing poker. Now, I'm pretty n00bish, having only played online for 8-9 months or so, but at the moment I'm fairly confident playing 3-4 tables at $.25/.50 or $.50/1 NL, and I'm making an ok profit.

The thing is that I want to improve my game, and I feel that getting a good read on an opponent is a reasonable next step. This means I have to pay alot more attention, which means I have to start playing just the one table, and have to start trying to figure out what starting hands my opponents might be playing, if they hit the flop or are just bluffing, and things like that. I basically have to break something that's working, in hopes of improving.

The guy over on http://blog.pokerodyssey.com/ had a related post a couple of days ago, and at first I thought that it was spot on. Then it struck me that sometimes I'm actually quite content with the pseudo-automatic play, and not really up for that much of the mental wrestling match that alot of the tougher games appear to be. The plot thickens..

And yes, this is one of my biggest problems at the moment :P