Playing and not losing money in poker is long, frustrating journey. There is pretty much no way to get better in poker other than playing hundreds of thousands of hands and developing the logic and intuition for the game through a heuristic approach. Intelligence and math--without experience--will not be enough to make you a winning player.
Also, by pure mathematics, the average poker player is a losing poker player because of rake. This applies in even the most elevated circles of play.