When it comes to reading what players have, does it become easier and natural the more hands you play?

The reasoning behind this little question is because yesterday I amazed myself and actually got a read on what a player had in his hand and took his little stack from him. It might sound a bit trivial, but winning his $8 has stuck in my mind more than taking $50 off other players purely because of the way I worked it out.

Here's how the hand went:

I'm sat in BB with A-10 off suit. Everyone folds around to the button who limps in, the SB folds and I just check. So two of us see the flop. The guy on the button only has $8 in front of him - I think he only bought in for $10.

The flop came down A-K-3 rainbow. Not a bad flop for me so I decide to bet the pot of $1.25 (yep, a big one. lol). The other player then min raises. This totally surprised me. Then came the thought process - that also surprised me. lol.

Looking at that flop, I just couldn't believe he was massively strong. The problem was, he just limped in. So it's easy to rule out AA, KK, AQ and AK. He could have limped with A3 or 33 but then why just min raise? If he had hit it really hard he would either just call to keep me in or shove it all in and hope I call - after all, after the min raise he only had about $5 left.

So I decided he was either testing to see if I really did have an ace, or he had Ace-rag and was hoping to take it with that little raise. I called.

The turn was a J. I checked, he checked. Here I still think I'm in front because that Jack was a high card and I don't think he would have limped with hands like AJ, KJ - J3 possibly if it was suited, but that would be stretching it.

The river was a 5. I checked, he shoved in his last $5. Now here I firmly had him on Ace-rag. The problem is, was it A5? Well his river bet simply wasn't big enough to scare me away - which is one of the downsides to playing a short stack.

The pot was now $10 and it was $5 to call, giving me 2-1 odds. Given the fact he could have A2, A4, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10 and not A5, the odds in my mind seemed good and I called.

He turned over A8.

Now this is such a trivial tale and it wasn't a massive win, but I was so pleased with how I had worked it all out I just had to tell someone. So I apologise if I've rambled on a bit.

If only poker was this easy all time