ICM Calculator

ICM, the Independent Chip Model, estimates how much prize money your chips are worth in a tournament. It assumes the chance of finishing first is your share of all the chips, then works out the chance of finishing second, third and so on in the same way. The result is your expected prize.

It uses the Malmuth-Harville method. For each finishing place it gives every remaining player a chance proportional to their stack, removes the winner and repeats for the next place. Adding up chance times prize for every place gives each player's expected prize.

The bubble factor is how much more a lost chip costs you than a won chip earns you, measured in prize money. A factor of 1 means chip EV and money EV agree, as in a cash game. A factor of 2 means you must risk twice what you can win, so you need about two-thirds equity to call an even-money all-in instead of 50%.

Because busting out loses the whole value of your stack, while doubling up does not double your prize. The difference is the ICM risk premium: the more the payouts reward surviving (near the bubble or a pay jump) the bigger it gets. The calculator shows it as the gap between the equity you need with ICM and with chips only.

No. A push/fold chart says which hands to shove or call for a given stack. ICM adjusts those ranges: with the same stacks you should call tighter near the money. Charts that ignore payouts are called chip EV charts; ours are explained in the push/fold guide.

It is meant for tournaments with a prize for each finishing place, including sit & gos and final tables. In a cash game every chip is worth exactly its face value, so ICM does not apply and the required equity is just the pot odds.

It ignores skill differences, position, the blinds still to come and how likely each player is to shove or call. In some situations it undervalues the chip leader and overvalues short stacks. It remains the standard first approximation, and solvers use it as the base for tournament strategy.