Poker Equity & Odds
Short answer
ICM turns chip stacks into prize money. Your chance of winning is your share of the chips, and every lower place is worked out the same way. With 5,000, 3,000 and 2,000 chips and a 50/30/20 payout, the chip leader's half of the chips is worth 38.39% of the prize money, and the short stack's fifth is worth 28.86%.
ICM is a model. It only knows the chip counts and the payouts. It doesn't know the blinds, the button, who plays better or what the next hands bring.
How to use it
- Enter the chip countsType one row per player at a final table, paste a list of up to 2,000 stacks, or use the quick field for a bubble: players left, average stack, yours.
- Set the payoutsPick a preset, type each prize, or paste the payout list, as a share of the money left or as amounts. Prizes already paid to players who are out don't count.
- Read the resultsThe card shows what your stack is worth. The bars put each player's share of the chips next to their share of the money. The table puts the chip chop next to ICM, and the column after it shows the difference.
- Copy the linkThe numbers live in the address, so the link opens the same table on another phone. Nothing is saved on a server.
ICM or chip chop?
A chip chop is quick to explain: everyone gets the smallest prize still in play, and the rest goes by chips. It overpays the chip leader. In the example the leader gets 4,000 from a chip chop and 3,839 from ICM, and the short stack 2,800 against 2,886. Chips you win on top of a big stack add less money than the chips a short stack hangs on to, and ICM prices that in.
Leaving some to play for
Many deals keep part of 1st in play so the tournament still has a winner. Put that amount in the Deal box. With 1,000 left to play for in the example, the leader locks in 3,339 now and has a 50.00% chance at the 1,000, a fair share of 500.
What ICM leaves out
- Blinds and position. A short stack in the big blind next hand is worth less than ICM says.
- Skill. ICM treats every player the same.
- Bounties. Knockout money isn't in the model.
Use the numbers as the starting point everyone can check, then talk.
Questions
Is a chip chop fair?
Not quite. It pays by chip share, but chips aren't money. The leader can't win more than 1st, so each extra chip is worth less to them. With 5,000, 3,000 and 2,000 chips at 50/30/20 of 10,000, a chip chop gives the leader 4,000 and ICM says 3,839. The short stack gets 2,800 by chips and 2,886 by ICM. Most deals start from the ICM numbers.
What is ICM in poker?
ICM, the Independent Chip Model, turns tournament chips into prize money. It says your chance of finishing first is your share of the chips, and works out each lower place the same way among the players left. Your ICM value is every prize times your chance of that place, added up.
What is the difference between ICM and a chip chop?
A chip chop gives everyone the smallest prize still in play, then splits the rest by chips. ICM pays by each player's chance of every place, which moves money from the chip leader to the short stacks. With 5,000, 3,000 and 2,000 chips at 50/30/20 of 10,000, the leader gets 4,000 from a chip chop and 3,839 from ICM.
Is an ICM deal fair?
By the model, yes, and it's where most final table deals start. But it leaves out skill, blinds and position, so a short stack about to post the big blind is worth a bit less than ICM says. Everyone at the table has to agree, and the tournament's own rules on deals come first.
What does "leave some to play for" mean?
The players lock in most of the money now and keep playing for an amount taken out of 1st prize. The calculator splits the rest by ICM and chip chop, and shows each player's fair share of what's still in play. That's their chance of winning it times the amount.
How many players does it handle?
2 to 2,000. Up to 10 players, every finishing order is counted exactly. For bigger fields, like a bubble with 120 left, paste the stacks and payouts or use the quick field (your stack, the average, everyone else equal).
How is this calculated?
Exactly for small tables: every finishing order is counted. For 11 to 2,000 players it uses DE-ICM, a method published by Wataru Inariba of GTO Wizard in 2026 (arXiv:2610.06028, "Near-Exact Computation of Independent Chip Model Placement Probabilities for Thousands of Players"). It turns ICM into a race of exponential clocks and adds the chances up on a fixed grid, and it agrees with the exact count to about 12 decimal places. We wrote our own version from the paper and test it against exact results.
Does the Poker Equity & Odds app have ICM?
No. The app does equity, pot odds and outs for a single hand. This calculator is a free page on the site. It runs in your browser and never sends your stacks or payouts anywhere.
How it's computed. Malmuth-Harville ICM, in your browser. Up to 10 players it's exact: the chance of every finishing order is counted, not sampled. From 11 to 2,000 players it uses DE-ICM from Wataru Inariba, GTO Wizard (2026), arXiv:2610.06028, written from the paper (thanks for publishing it). Both are checked against known results (chance of 1st equals share of chips, equal stacks, linear and flat payouts, satellites, fields with two stack sizes, closed forms at 2,000 players) and against each other, to 12 decimal places. There are no cookies, and your numbers never leave the page.
