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“To repeat, all poker starts as a struggle for the ante. This struggle for the antes is what determines all future action. It is a struggle that increases and builds up, but it should never be forgotten that the initial struggle for the antes is what started the war. Players who do forget this, no matter how well they play otherwise, frequently find themselves in trouble. Most often they play too many hands in relation to the size of the ante; sometimes they play too few. The best way to evaluate the size of the ante is to think about it in terms of pot odds and expectation. Let’s say you sit down in an eight-handed $10-$20 game, and everybody antes $1. That creates an $8 pot. Starting with that $8, you should play your hand in terms of the odds you’re getting for each bet in relation to your expectation of winning. If you bet $10, you are laying $10 to win $8. If someone calls you, he is getting $18-to-$10. The fact that $1 or one-eighth of that ante money was originally yours is of no consequence. In truth, it is no longer yours. The moment you place your $1 ante in the pot, it belongs to the pot, not to you, and eventually to the winner of the hand. It is a common fallacy for players to think in terms of the money they have already put in the pot. They make a bad call because they called one or two bets on earlier rounds. However, it is absolutely irrelevant whether you put the money in there or someone else did. It is the total amount, no part of which belongs to you any longer, that should determine how you play your hand. In home games the dealer often antes for everybody. Some players play much more loosely when they are dealing, thinking that the ante is somehow theirs. But to play differently just because you anted, rather than someone else, is absurd. It is the same amount of money out there, no matter from whose stack of chips it came. On the other hand, when you have the blind in hold ’em, for example, you can and should play a little looser, not because that blind is yours, but because you’re getting better pot odds.”
― David Sklansky, The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One

“The size of the ante in a particular game determines how you play. The larger the ante in comparison to later bets, the more hands you should play.”
― David Sklansky, The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How To Think Like One