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What is ICM? > How to use ICM

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• ICM in the Early Phase of a Poker Tournament or Sit and Go Still using the traditional 9 man SnG as an example, each player starts with 1500 chips, and if they are all equally good, then they each have an.
• ICM Unmasked - Upswing Poker Start making optimal decisions when the when big money is on the line. Learn to think about the Independent Chip Model (ICM) like a super high roller champion.

Easy-to-understand guides for the independent chip model (ICM) in poker are few and far between, so I'm going to try hard to keep this article as concise and relevant to improving your Sit and Go tournament game as possible.

In this article I aim to answer the question 'what is the independent chip model?' and also highlight how you can go about working it out.

In the next article, I will explain how ICM can be used in tournament poker to help you make profitable decisions near the bubble. Let's get started...

What is the independent chip model?

The independent chip model assigns $ value to your chip stack in a tournament.

How much are 100 chips worth in a tournament? How about 10,000 chips? Well that all depends on a few things:

• The amount of chips in play.
• The prize pool distribution.

The amount of chips in play.

If there are only 1,000 chips in play, then those 100 chips are quite valuable. However, if there are 100,000 chips in play, then 100 chips isn't really going to be worth all that much at all.

The prize structure.

Lets say you have 100 chips (out of 1,000 left at the table), there are 5 players left and only 1st place pays. The $ value of those 100 chips is not really a lot, as your chances of walking away from the tournament with some money in your pocket is quite slim.

However, if there are 5 players left and there is an equal payout for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, the chance of you winning some money is not so bad, so your chips are worth a little more in terms of $ overall.

Think about it, would you rather take a player's 100 chips when only 1st place pays or if 4 places pay equally (with 5 players left at the table)? You're going to see a better ROI in the long run by taking the player's chips when 4 places pay as opposed to 1.

In the following section I will use the ICM idea of each chip being worth something in terms of $ for working out our overall prize pool equity based on the size of our chip stack.

Icm Poker

Using ICM to work out prize pool equity.

If you have 5,000 chips and player B and C each have 2,500 chips, how much is your 5,000 going to win for you in the long run?

In a tournament it's not like we can cash out our chips at any time for what we think they're worth. We have to continue playing to see whether we take down 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize in the tournament. Of course, the more chips we have compared to the other players the more likely it is we will win one of the top prizes.

To put it another way, using the ICM we work out our prize pool equity, which is the amount of money we expect to win from the tournament on average based on:

• The current size of our stack.
• The current size of the other players' stacks.
• The amount of money in the prize pool and how much you get for coming 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on (prize pool distribution).

Basic prize pool equity example.

At the very beginning of a $20 tournament before any cards are dealt, each player has the same stack size and therefore will have the exact same equity of $20 in the tournament. Easy enough. To give another similar example...

There are 4 players left at the table in a $10+$1 SnG at PokerStars. The total prize pool is $100 with a standard 1st, 2nd and 3rd payout of $50, $30 and $20 (but that's kinda irrelevant for this example). If all the players have an equal amount of chips, their prize pool equity would be exactly the same:

• Player A: (2,500 chips) = $25 equity.
• Player B: (2,500 chips) = $25 equity.
• Player C: (2,500 chips) = $25 equity.
• Player D: (2,500 chips) = $25 equity.

This equity business obviously gets more complicated as each player's chip stack varies, but I hope this gives you a basic idea of prize pool equity.

How to work out prize pool equity.

As we have just mentioned, we want to work out how much $ equity we have in the tournament based on the size of our stack and our opponents' stack sizes.

When we work out our prize pool equity all we care about is the current size of the stacks. We then use that information to work out how much money each player is expected to win from the tournament on average. The more chips you have, the more money you are likely to win.

Each individual player's skill is not factored in to the equation. It's quite basic, but the more chips you have the higher the probability is that you're going to win one of the top prizes.

Furthermore, ICM doesn't factor in any luck that will be involved in the tournament. We're just looking at stack sizes for an indication of how much money each player will be winning on average, nothing else.

Working out prize pool equity example.

We're at the final stages of a $10+$1 Sit and Go tournament with 3 other players (we are Player A). The stack sizes and SnG payout's are as follows:

• (HERO) Player A - 5,000
• Player B - 2,500
• Player C - 2,500

• 1st place - $50
• 2nd place - $30
• 3rd place - $20

As you can guess, Player A will have the most prize pool equity and players B and C will have an equal amount of prize pool equity. Now, I could work the prize pool equity for each player out by hand by doing a bunch of mathematics, but I'm not going to do this for 3 reasons:

1. It requires a hefty amount of mathematics and it's quite possibly the least fun thing to work out in the world.
2. You're never going to want to work it out by yourself anyway. It just takes ages.
3. ICM calculators make working out prize pool equity super easy.

I'm going to input the numbers in to this awesome ICM calculator and skip to the results. I might create a walkthrough to working out ICM by hand in the future, but until then this ICM calculator is good enough for now.

So, I input the prize pool structure and the chip stacks and let the ICM calculator do the magic:

• Each player's equity results.
• Player A: (5,000 chips) = $38.33 equity.
• Player B: (2,500 chips) = $30.83 equity.
• Player C: (2,500 chips) = $30.83 equity.

Therefore, with 5,000 chips Player A expects to win $38.33 from the tournament on average. Player B expects to win $30.83 on average and so on.

Try playing with the ICM calculator yourself to see how much money you expect to win on average from different payout structures based on how many chips you and your opponents have. It's pretty cool.

Evaluation of ICM.

So that's a quick overview of the independent chip model and ICM for you. Nothing groundbreaking, but the sole intention of this article was to give you a basic understanding of the independent chip model and prize pool equity.

Working out each player's equity in the tournament is cool and stuff, but this information isn't very practical just yet. In the next step I'm going to use this information to work out whether or not you should risk chips by calling all-ins toward the end of a tournament.

The how to use ICM in tournaments article will essentially help you to answer the question 'is the risk worth the reward?' when faced with tricky all-in decisions in Sit and Go tournaments.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

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Written by Lars Kyhnau Hansen

If you have ever played poker tournaments, you have probably heard the term ICM. It stands for Independent Chip Model, but what is it actually?
And how should it influence our strategy, if we are a cash game player mixing in some tournaments on the weekend or getting a ticket for a freeroll?
ICM exist in tournaments that pay more than one place, because this means that even you win all the chips, you don't win all the money.
Using a traditional 9 man SnG (Sit and Go) as an example, these events typically pay 50% to the winner, 30% to the runner-up and 20% to the third place finisher.
So when the last hand is dealt, and the event is over, each chip is only worth half of what it was at the beginning.
This means that in poker tournaments losing chips is always more bad than winning chips is good, especially if you are playing for your entire stack or a significant amount of it.
And therefore as a general rule we want to be more risk averse in tournaments.
To some extent this is common sense. If we lose our last chip, then we are out. But as long as we have “a chip and a chair”, then there is still some hope for a comeback.
There is however also some math behind it, which I am going to dig a bit deeper into in the rest of this post.

ICM in the Early Phase of a Poker Tournament or Sit and Go

Still using the traditional 9 man SnG as an example, each player starts with 1500 chips, and if they are all equally good, then they each have an expected share of the prize pool of 11.1%.
This is the ICM value of their 1500 chips.
If 2 players go all in against each other, and one of them wins, then this player now has 3000 chips, and the remaining 7 players still have 1500 chips each. I am ignoring the blinds and antes to make the math simpler.
If we plug this into an ICM calculator, then we find that the player with 3000 chips now has an ICM value of 20.3%. So even though he doubled his stack, his ICM value only went up by 83%.
This means, that if for instance you find yourself in late position with a hand like AK, and some goofball decides to open jam from early position with his whole 75 BB stack, you should lean even more towards folding, than you would in a cash game.

ICM on the Bubble of a Poker Tournament or Sit and Go

As the number of remaining players is reduced, and the payout are closer, ICM becomes even more important.
Still using the 9 man SnG as an example, when it is down to 4 players, each have an ICM value of 25% of the prize pool assuming equal stacks.
If one player busts another in this situation, then his ICM value is now 38.3%, so it only increased 53%, even he doubled his stack.
At this point the blinds and antes are typically a lot larger relative to the players stacks though, which does make the situation a bit better for the player doubling up.
But unless the blinds are really large, like they might be in a hyper turbo tournament, then you should be extremely conservative about risking all your chips in this situation.
This is something that Daniel Negreanu actually discusses in much greater detail by the way in his new poker training course.
You should be especially conservative about calling is what I mean though. If you are the one jamming (shoving), then there is always the chance that everyone else folds.
So even though it is somewhat counter intuitive, jamming is often less risky than calling.
This is also why, you see good players use smaller open sizes in tournaments, when stacks get short. If you still use the traditional 3BB, as you perhaps do in cash games, you simply lose too many chips, when someone jam on you, and you have to fold because of ICM considerations.
Since it's very bad to get called, unless you have a really good hand, you also want to consider, who the other players are.
Just like in cash games many fish don't like to fold, so jamming on them with a nice bluffing hand like A♥5♥ can be a bit suicidal.
If they call you with J♣8♦, because they think you are a bully, you are probably actually losing money when ICM is taken into account.

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Independent Chip Model With Uneven Stacks

So far I have assumed that everyone has equal stack sizes, but as a tournament progresses, that is almost never the case.
If we again use the 9 man SnG bubble as an example but assume that one player has 10% of the chips, and the other three each 30%, ICM become even more important.
The 3 large stacks now have 29.1% of the prize pool each in ICM value and the short stack has 12.7%.
Note that the short stack now has more ICM value than he had at the start, even though he has actually lost some of his chips. This is the value of simply outlasting 5 other players.
If two of the big stacks go all in against each other, one of them now has 60% of the chips, one player has 30%, and the short stack still has 10%.
The player with 60% of the chips now has an ICM value of 41.2%. So even though he doubled his stack, his ICM value only went up 42%.
The ICM value of the short stack however went up 96%, so he benefited more from the elimination than the large stack guy, who did the job and took all the risk.
This is kind of common sense, because the short stack now folded his way to the money, while the guy who had 3 times more chips but risked them and lost, is out of the tournament without cashing.
For this reason you need to be even more conservative about risking all your chips, when you are at the bubble or a significant pay jump and someone else has a much shorter stack than you.
In this kind of situation, which commonly occurs at the final table of a large poker tournament, there are plenty of spots where you should consider folding versus value bets by a big stack to make sure you can get to showdown without risking all your chips.
Or in some cases you might avoid playing marginal hands against the chip leader altogether, because its so easy for him to take advantage of the situation and push you around.
By the way, I have already written the 'ultimate guide' to micro stakes poker tournament strategy covering every situation possible. You can find that right here.

Poker Independent Chip Model Hand Example - ICM Suicide

BU (Hero): 1,495 (50 bb)
SB: 3,115 (104 bb)
BB: 4,390 (146 bb)
Pre-Flop: (57) Hero is BTN with 9

Icm Poker Meaning

♥ Q♠
Hero raises to 90, SB calls 75, BB 3-bets to 360, BU (Hero) folds, SB calls 270
Flop: (822) T♠ 5♦ 8♣ (2 players)
SB bets 30, BB raises to 660, SB calls 630
Turn: (2,142) 9♣ (2 players)
SB bets 30, BB raises to 3,366 (all-in), SB calls 2,061 (all-in)
River: (6,324) Q♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)
Showdown:
BB shows K♥ K♣ (a pair of Kings)
SB shows 7♥ 9♠ (a pair of Nines)
BB wins 6,324
This hand is from a 6-handed $3.50 SnG I played recently on Pokerstars, and it illustrates the importance of simply preserving your stack for ICM purposes.
After just 17 hands 4 players had already busted, and even though I had not accumulated any chips, 35% of the prize pool was now mine. Only two places pay, so the loser of this hand failed to cash.
In a cash game this would also be a badly played hand especially preflop, but getting it in on the turn with a pair + draw would only be a marginally losing play long term.
In a tournament however it's ICM suicide, because his last 2061 chips was worth so much more than the chips he was trying to win!

ICM at the Final Table (Heads Up)

Ok so you played wisely and got lucky, and now it's down to you and another guy. Here ICM is very simple, because it simply does not exist.
To win the first place prize, you need to win all the chips, so each chip now has the same ICM value. Heads up poker is very different from ring games, but that is outside the topic of this post.
If you want to learn the strategy specifically suited for ring games (cash games), check out Modern Small Stakes.

Final Thoughts

One important limitation of ICM is that it does not take future playability into account. I already mentioned how you want to avoid big pots against the chip leader if you are a middling stack.
So it also stands to reason, that you also gain large advantages, if you build a big stack and become that “chip bully” who everybody loves to hate.
Some of the winners of the WSOP Main Event in recent years seem to have been using this as part of their overall strategy.
It's difficult to quantify, but there is something to be said for ignoring ICM a little bit in the early phase of a big tournament and adopting a “go big or go home” mentality.
However when you get near the bubble, or when you are at the final table, you absolutely must take ICM into account, if your goal is to win money in poker tournaments.
Lastly, if you want to know how to consistently make $1000 per month in low stakes poker games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
Let me know how you use ICM in poker tournaments or SnGs in the comments below.

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Lars 'fundiver199' Kyhnau Hansen. Lars is a part time online poker player from Denmark currently playing 10NL and 25NL. Lars excels at the math side of the game.