How To Be A Second-Rate Checker Player

I do all this writing about checkers and maintain this web site, which, I must modestly say, has earned a compliment or two. Yet I'm admittedly I'm still a poor player.  Why so?

I think I understand the reasons, and will share them with you here:

• When doing book study, I flit from book to book and page to page, aimlessly moving the pieces around without real concentration, or making any effort to understand the moves.
• I try lots of different openings instead of learning just a few, but learning them well enough to be used over the board.
• When practicing against the computer, I go click-click-click, oh well I lost, instead of taking each game seriously.
• I don't bother to go back and review my games to see what I might learn from them.
• My method of problem study is to look at the diagram, think for ten seconds, and then read the answer--- without bothering to try to visualize the moves.
• I don't play very often, thinking that a little disorganized study is just as good as real practice.

Is all of this what I really do?  Well, no, it actually isn't, although some of the items apply at times.  But I've presented a surefire recipe for being, and staying, a second-rate player.  As they say in the Talmud, "Learn from this."