Why 'price yourself in'?

[Gorvacofin]

In HOH2, Dan Harrington talks about raising a certain amount preflop so that the pot odds compel him to call an all-in bet if someone comes over the top of him. I've read other accounts where people say they raised a small amount so they can 'get away from the hand' if re-raised.

How can you tell which of these strategies is appropriate?

If a raise commits you to the pot anyway, isn't it always better to go all-in yourself? Admittedly you might discourage action on your big hands, but then treating your monsters differently is going to make you a lot easier to read..

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Depends. If you have a really big stack on the button, and the BB has, say 10% as much as you. You might raise an OK but not monster hand just enough that it would tempt the BB to push over the top with a wide range but give you pot odds to call.

[Cry Me A River]

Yeh, it's all about relative stack sizes.

If you're a medium or big stack playing against another medium or big stack and the blinds are not pressuring you, you're not going to want to play for stacks without a big hand/read so you're going to try and position yourself so you can get away from hands.

OTOH, if you're a big stack playing against a small stack (or sometimes if you yourself are a short stack) you're going to want to be playing for stacks a lot. This is when you'd try to price yourself in.

[Richas]

Harrington is a pretty conservative guy but the point he was trying to make was that you should think ahead when you raise, if you are raising to steal/bully the small stack spend less if you plan to fold to the push, if you are happy to take the hand to the felt for the lot then make sure your decision for the reraise is easy.

I like the approach of trying to make sure they make the tough decisions and you give yourself easy ones, if you are the one making tough decisions you can be a great player but still end up as the on who makes the mistakes.