[AtticusFinch]

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Yeah, that has bugged me too. It's like, I have Q9s and 20 BBs on the button and want to make a steal raise, but if I only raise 3 or 4 BBs I'll have to fold to a push from the blinds- I'll raise 12 BBs then my call will be automatic!

Granted this is a bit extreme, but I never quite grasped what he was getting at.

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But in the first case, your fold is automatic, so that's fine. The point is not that you should always price yourself in, the point is that you should try to avoid giving yourself tough decisions.

In live events where you can get a read maybe there's nothing wrong with postponing your tough decisions until later, but in online poker where the decisions are basically binary, you can predict a situation where a raise will leave you in a tough spot, and insulate yourself against it ahead of time, by making your bet either larger or smaller.

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That just amounts to deciding ahead of time what you'll do in case of X, which doesn't make much sense to me. Why decide now, when you will necessarily have more information to work with later? I just don't see it as a positive factor. I think it's a non-starter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for looking ahead and thinking about contingencies, but setting things up so it's "automatic" doesn't make sense. Just bet the right amount for your hand, position, and the stacks.