Commitment Device
An action, arrangement, or self-imposed constraint that removes a player's own future options in order to make a particular course of action the only one available — and, crucially, to make that fact visible and believable to whoever's behavior depends on predicting it. Cortés burning his ships and Odysseus tying himself to the mast are the same strategic logic aimed outward at an adversary and inward at one's own future self, respectively.