Poker and Pot Odds

The Independent Chip Model (ICM)


Independent Chip Modeling (ICM) determines your equity share of the prize pool in a tournament based on the stack sizes of the remaining opponents and the probability of your finish. With these probabilities, a dollar value can be associated with your stack size. marked poker

ICM is usually much more prevalent in SNGs, but can also apply when there are large payout jumps at the final table of a tournament. Most experienced SNG players are very familiar with ICM and it’s use, but may not understand the mechanics behind it, or how to calculate it by hand.

The need for ICM stems from a non-linear value of tournament chips. In all SNGs that are not winner-take-all, or in the heads-up stage, the chips that you risk will be of a lesser value than the chips you stand to gain.

For example, in a 6-man $20 SNG, with prizes of $84 for first place, and $36 for second place, you start with 1500 chips worth $20. If you win you’ll finish with 6 times as many chips as you started with (9000), which are worth 4.2 times as much money as you started with ($84). That may not seem fair, but all of the prize money is distributed at the end, so if you know how to use ICM as a weapon, you will end up with the lion’s share of the prize pool much more often than 1 in 6 times.

The Mechanics behind Calculating ICM.
Poker and Pot Odds

In poker there are good bets and bad bets – the game is simply a way of determining who can

tell the difference. This is where the concept of pot odds comes into play. Put simply, pot

odds means is there enough in the pot to call a bet.

The fundamental principle of playing a drawing hand in poker is that you need a pot big

enough to call. When we have a flush draw or a straight draw we will make our hand on the

next card almost 20% of the time (19% for flush and 17% for the straight draw). That is, 20%

of the time we will make our desired hand and 80% we won’t. The ratio 20 to 80 can be

expressed as odds of 4-to-1. Therefore, if the pot is $80 we can almost call a $20 bet to

break-even. I say almost because we have to make a profit so, a call of $20 is appropriate

when there is more than $80 in the pot. marked cards

Know the Odds

You should already know how to calculate odds based upon the number of “outs”. If you don

’t know the odds of hitting certain common draws then please go back and study our previous

lesson on calculating odds and outs in poker. For the benefit of this lesson we’ll include

the handy chart below:

Table: Odds and outs from the flop and the turn to the river:

Chart of common poker odds and outs

PDF chart for poker drawing oddsWe have created a printable PDF version of the poker drawing

odds chart (opens in a new window). You will need Adobe Acrobat on your computer to view it

on screen. We recommend you print the chart and be sure to memorize these odds, particularly

the common draws – as your time is better spent analyzing your opponents’ play rather than

attempting to perform mathematical calculations in your head.