You can't win unless you know how to lose." -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Learning how to fail time and time again, standing up after each fall, and being persist will lead you to success. If you don't know how to lose, the circumstances that lead to failure, you do not understand the game well enough to win. I am a good player who has fallen enough times to learn to get back up and start all over. Understanding all of the circumstances which causes failure, learning how to avoid or overcome failure, and ultimately win are the keys. You may have a plan or strategy that sounds good theoretically, but you do not know whether it will really be good in practice until you have tested it, and looked for its weaknesses. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.