Ok, developing feel.

I can use my example of the 'PSB' raise from above. If you read through my explanation you see why in the example it is correct to raise to $4 when the pot is $1 and the bet before you is $1. You understand that bet sizing along those lines comes from wanting to put the villain to the same type of decision (a pot sized bet) as the one he was confronting you with - instead of one that offers him favourable odds. In reading through it I hope you jump from bettor to caller more times than I described and imagine how it would look with one number or another going up or down - and how that would change the balance and the meaning of the bet in terms of pot odds and so on. You might do the corresponding example with an initial half PSB and doing a half PSB raise and an initial half PSB and doing a full PSB raise. $1 pot, $0.5 bet, raise to $1.5 (1/2 PSB) or raise to $2.5 (PSB raise) and based on all the numbers get a basic understanding that for a raise to be a properly sized bet the same way a 1/2 PSB to PSB is you would normally end up betting somewhere between 3 and 4 times the original raise.

That's your shorthand - that's what you can apply as 'feel' at the table. If you raise to something between 3 and 4 times what the initial bet was you're probably in the right ballpark. You can now forget all the detail about how to figure it out, use the 3-4 times guideline and focus on other parts of your game for a while.

Later on you'll come back to bet sizing and re-analyze the area and plug some leaks and so on, but for now the rough guide to raise 3-4 times the initial bet (assuming it's not too small) is sufficient - if you want to raise. And if someone bets $0.1 into a $1 pot you already know enough that even though you would normally follow the 3-4 times rule you know exactly why, intuitively - using 'feel', this is a case where you wouldn't do the 3-4 times thing but rather semi-ignore the initial bet when you make your own bet.

In the same way you go laboriously through calculations and examples hoping to build an understanding of principles. Sometimes (most times) you go through a careful analysis and think you come up with the right answer without really feeling that you've understood a new principle. But it's gradual - it's growing - and most things that do translate into a shorthand form or understanding a basic principle isn't something that you voice so clearly. Often it is when you read a post from someone much better that you spot that you actually understand what he's talking about and the lesson you've been learning crystalizes into something short and to-the-point that you can express and understand.

This is when your reply to threads such as this becomes: "Make a proper raise" or "raise more" without even thinking that the beginner might not understand why he should be betting $1.96 (ignoring his actual stack for now) instead of $1.02. You just 'know' without thinking that $1.02 is wrong - there's your 'feel'.

It's just basic learning really. One thing that is very useful for a learning poker player (or learning anything else) is knowing things about yourself - knowing which things you learn from and which types of learning for you goes in one ear and out the other - and then structure your studies in a way that you effectively learn. Just because we all say that study is good doesn't mean that the way I study or someone else studies will work best for you.