Often players categorize themselves as "feel" players. There are many successful players that don't rely on much math and theoretical principles. The game is much more intuitive. They develop the ability to judge frequencies, evaluate equity, determine optimal lines over thousands of hours at the tables. aejones for example, has described this approach as a key component of his success.

It appears that science backs up this theory of learning. There are two main ways we perform explicit learning in poker. Research and pattern recognition development. Examples of research are pokerstove analysis, theory study. Examples of pattern recognition development is learning to identify the correct play. Watching videos, studying hands are ways to develop the ability to make the correct play.

Implicit learning on the other hand is very different. Implicit learning occurs subconsciously and unintentionally. Learning occurs over many many trials. The learner knows the "answer", but has difficulty even verbalizing how they arrive at the answer. It seems impossible to reverse engineer the underlying principles from the knowledge. Psychology studies have shown people can learn games with very complex math underlying it (math they don't even understand) implicitly over many trials.

I guess the moral of all this is that there is definite validity to simply putting in hands. The old motto study/play/study/play is a valid one.

Reference
http://www.brettsteenbarger.com/Lear...to%20Trade.doc