keeping the pot small...

there was post a while back about the advantages of keeping the pot small.
im not sure who it was originally from but a lot of people contributed to it and even though i didnt fully understand it ,it was quite interesting.
Strasse pointed out that one of the main reasons to keep the pot small is that you have more options to outplay your opponent but he did not elaborate.
couple of weeks ago a hand was posted by Sirio about the 5dimond live event,where he had KK in the hole and not sure about the exact details of the hand but i think there was a raise and he reraised and then the original raiser called.
the flop came Q J x i think and he either checked the flop or checked behind after it was checked to him.
his reason for checking the flop was to keep the pot small and i couldnt understand why?im still unsure of the whole keeping the pot small concept,i mean at what stage should you be looking to keep the pot small ,and not be concerned about giving a free card?
is it a concept that only applies in deep stack play or mid stack or short stack?
i mean i dont think it should apply when short stack ,obviously if your short stack and you have a decent hand your not concerned about keeping the pot small but i would really appreacite it if some one could calrify this concept when a couple good examples?
thanks in advance.

I guess it's partly dependent on the type of player you are. Are you the sort who likes to raise big pre-flop then keep firing off raises hoping to take a big pot down with aggression, or do you prefer to grab smaller pots more frequently with less risk to your own survival?
I personally used to fit the former catagory a lot of the time, but have recently found grabbing what I can here or there works well too. It requires more work taking lots of smaller pots and knowing which scare cards to look out for on later streets. It's a more trappy style of play I think, and one where you need to be more sure of your opponents way of thinking.

You generally want to keep the pot small in situations where you'd like to get a cheap showdown. In other words, you think you probably have the best hand, but it is unlikely your opponent will play a large pot with a hand that is worse than yours. KK on a Q9J flop is a good example of this. You can expect to be good, but you can't expect your opponent to put a lot a lot of money in the pot with anything that you beat, except maybe AQ/KQ. If you inflate the pot on the flop, you may find yourself making a decision for all your chips on the turn or river. Checking or making smaller bets early means that bets on all future streets will be smaller. It also makes your opponent's hand easier to read, as he is less likely to bluff or make a loose call in a small pot.

Another time to keep the pot small is in way ahead/way behind situations. For example, you raise pre-flop with AQ, flop comes A95r, you continuation bet and get called. There are no draws to speak of, so either Villain as AJ/AT and is drawing to two outs, or he has you buried with AK/A9/99/55. In the latter case, you'd obviously prefer not to put any more money in the pot, and in the former, a free card is unlikely to hurt you. Note that this is different from the KK hand, where a free card could be very bad for Hero. That made Sirio's decision much harder, but ultimately he determined that keeping the pot small was more important.

In his book "making the final table" Eric Lindgren does an excellent job of explaining when it makes sense to keep the pot small and when you need to start throwing hay-makers. Basically, in situations where you are either way ahead or way behind (ie. few draws available on the board)it makes sense to either bet small(half the pot or less) or just check and call. His reasoning is that you may lose a little more when you are behind, but you will make much more when you are ahead and your opponent tries to bluff you out of the pot. Also, he feels that you gain a lot more information from checking and calling in situations like this than leading out with a bet. This limits your exposure to the "bluff raise" when your opponent is just trying to use position to steal the pot and you are sitting there with something like top pair and a weak kicker......I suggest picking up a copy of that book. His post-flop strategy is excellent and has really helped my game.

[allenciox]

I agree with you that Eric Lindgren's book is very good and has not gotten the attention that it deserves.

The other advantage to keeping the pot small is variance --- if you are significantly better than your opponents in the tournament, then it is important to keep pots small to reduce variance and to allow your better post-flop reading abilities to take effect. On the other hand, if you are worse than the calibre of your opposition (e.g. you won a satellite into a professional event) then you want to play big pot poker... you can effectively neutralize the better reading abilities of your opponents. This is the basic philosophy behind both Sklansky's System and the Kill Phil book.

[MLG]

The most basic reason to keep a pot small is when you have a marginal made hand. For example you raise from MP aith A8s and the flop comes A93 or something. On the one hand you have a hand that is probably the best, on the other hand if you bet the hand heavily the only hands that will continue to play with you are ones that beat A8. So, it is in your best interest to excercise pot control in this situation.