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ICM calculator.
Chips are not money. Once a tournament reaches the paid places, the stack in front of you is worth a share of the prize pool, and that share is never the same as your share of the chips. Put in the stacks and the payouts and this page prices every stack at the table.
the calculator
common structures
stacks, in chips
payouts, as a share of the pool
The percentages are normalised, so 50 30 20 and 5 3 2 give the same answer. Nothing is converted anywhere: put the pool in the currency the tournament pays in and read the results in that same currency.
| Player | Chips | Chip share | ICM value | Share of the pool | Against chip share |
|---|
what a double up is worth to the biggest stack
Three players left and a pool of 1,000 is already in the fields, because it is the smallest table where the gap between chips and money is impossible to miss. Press the button, then drag the short stack down and watch how little the leader gains.
how the model works
Your chips buy finishing places, not money.
The model has one assumption and everything follows from it: your chance of winning the tournament is your share of the chips. Hold half the chips and you win half the time. Once you know that, second place is the same sum done twice. Work out the chance that each other player wins, remove him from the table, and ask again who wins the chips that are left. Repeat for every place that pays. Multiply each chance by the prize attached to it, add them up, and you have what a stack is worth right now. That recursion is the Malmuth-Harville method, and it is what runs when you press the button.
The consequence is the part worth remembering. First prize is a ceiling, so chips above the amount needed to reach it are worth progressively less, while every short stack still in the money is guaranteed something. Value drains upwards from the leader and pools at the bottom. In the example below, the leader owns half the chips and 38.4 percent of the money. The short stack owns a fifth of the chips and 28.9 percent of the money. Neither player did anything; that is simply what the payout ladder does to a chip. It also means that the expected value of a tournament pot has to be measured in money rather than in chips as soon as the bubble bursts.
That is also why busting hurts more than doubling helps. Take the leader in that same spot. If he wins a flip against the short stack he gains 56.07 of value. If he loses the same flip he gives up 61.07. He is risking more than he stands to win on a coin flip he wins half the time, which is the whole reason a push or fold decision late in a tournament is not the same decision as it would be in a cash game. The term itself is in the glossary entry for ICM, next to the rest of the tournament vocabulary.
Be honest about what the model cannot see. It does not know the blind level, so a stack about to be swallowed by the antes prices the same as a comfortable one. It does not know position, so being on the button when the money jumps counts for nothing. It assumes every player is equally good. Treat the number as the fair reference point in an argument, which is exactly how it is used when a table wants to split the remaining prize money, and not as an instruction. It also prices one tournament and says nothing about the hundred you will play after it, which is a separate question about how many buy ins you can afford to have running at once.
three players left, a pool of 1,000.00 paying 500, 300, 200
| Stack | Chip share | ICM value | Share of the pool | A straight chip split |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 50.0% | 383.93 | 38.4% | 500.00 |
| 3,000 | 30.0% | 327.50 | 32.8% | 300.00 |
| 2,000 | 20.0% | 288.57 | 28.9% | 200.00 |
The last column is what the same stacks are worth if you divide the money strictly by chips. Compare it with the ICM column and you can see who benefits from which argument at a final table: the leader is worth 500.00 on chips and 383.93 on ICM, and every chip he is short of that first number is a chip that has already moved down the table.
next
Someone at the table just suggested a deal.
Pricing one stack is the easy half. The moment the table stops playing and starts negotiating, you need all the stacks priced at once and you need to know how the other proposals on the table compare. That is the same model with the numbers laid side by side.
ICM questions
What is ICM in poker?
The Independent Chip Model turns a stack of tournament chips into the prize money that stack is worth on average. It assumes your chance of finishing first is your share of the chips in play, then repeats that logic for second place among the players who are left, and so on down the payout ladder. Multiply each finishing chance by the prize for that place and you have the value of the stack.
How do you calculate ICM?
Take your chips divided by all chips in play; that is your chance of winning. For second place, work out the chance that each other player wins and then, from the chips that remain, the chance that you finish next. Keep going for every paid place. This calculator does that recursively for up to nine players, which is the Malmuth-Harville method.
Why is my ICM value lower than my chip share?
Because the chip leader cannot win more than first prize, no matter how many chips he has. Everything above that overflows to the shorter stacks, who are all guaranteed something once they are in the money. In the example on this page the leader holds 50 percent of the chips and 38.4 percent of the prize pool, while the short stack holds 20 percent of the chips and 28.9 percent of the money.
Does ICM say I should fold?
Not on its own. ICM prices your stack, it does not read the hand. What it tells you is that busting costs you more than doubling gains you, so a call that wins chips on average can still lose money. To turn that into an actual decision you need the value of every outcome, which is what a push or fold calculation does.
What does ICM leave out?
Position, the blind level, skill, and everything about how the players behave. The model treats every player as equally likely to win per chip, so a short stack on the button with the blinds about to hit him is valued the same as a short stack under the gun. Read the number as a fair reference point, not as a verdict.
Is this ICM calculator free?
Yes, and there is no account. The whole calculation runs in your browser, so the stacks you type never leave your machine and nothing is stored.
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