[Rosencrantz1]

Just a thought, but remember that in televised poker you are seeing a small percentage of total hands played. Because of this, it's easy to get a skewed perception of how people *really* play. For instance, from watching on-line it looks like Gus Hansen plays 80-90% of his cards. Truth is he probably plays a much lower percentage (30%?) but many of those hands never make it to air. Harrington discusses this briefly in HoH-1.

To answer your question about post-flop play, I do think what several of the other respondants have said is dead-on. Reading other players is part of it, sure, but also having an excellent grasp of the odds and how the texture of the board is influencing the hand are big factors as well.

Harrington talks about this a bit too: namely, that you are better off being faced with EASY decisions on the flop rather than hard decisions. This principal (which Ed Miller uses, really, as the cornerstone of his NL Cash strategy in GSIH) is what informs Harrington's starting hand recs (which are fairly conservative/tight). With really great players, they are better at navigating those TOUGH decisions post-flop than a beginner.

I see it in my own game when I am able to check from the BB with a marginal hand (that I would have folded otherwise) and then hit the flop, but not that hard. For instance:

4 limpers and I check from the BB with J9 off. The flop comes QJ2 with two cards suited to my 9. I now have middle pair with a medium kicker at best and a backdoor flush draw and I'm first to act after the flop.

Me: can't play that situation very well.
Professional: can.