Free tool
ICM calculator
Chips are not money. Enter the stacks and the payouts, and see what each stack is worth in the currency that actually gets paid out.
Stacks
Chips left in front of each player.
Payouts
What each finishing place pays.
What each stack is worth
100,000 chips, 2,000 in the pool.
| Player | Chips | Chip share | ICM value | vs chip chop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| You | 42,000 | 42% | 692.8 | -147.2 |
| Player 2 | 31,000 | 31% | 608.98 | -11.02 |
| Player 3 | 19,000 | 19% | 472.18 | +92.18 |
| Player 4 | 8,000 | 8% | 226.04 | +66.04 |
The last column is the ICM tax. A chip chop would split the pool by chip count; ICM splits it by how often each stack actually finishes in each paid place. The chip leader is always worth less than their chips suggest, because they can only win first prize once, and every short stack is worth more.
The number that changes tournament decisions
In a cash game a chip is a dollar and every decision is a chip-EV decision. In a tournament that stops being true the moment the money bubble is in sight. The chips you win are worth less than the chips you lose, because busting costs you every pay jump you had a claim on and winning only moves you closer to a capped first prize.
This is why a call that is clearly correct in a cash game can be clearly wrong at a final table with the same cards and the same odds. The arithmetic did not change. The currency did.
What ICM does not know
It assumes finishing order follows stack size and nothing else. It does not know that you are the best player left, that the short stack is about to be blinded out, or that the player on your left folds too much. Treat the output as the price of risk, not as a verdict.
Common questions
What is ICM in poker?
The Independent Chip Model converts tournament chips into money. Chips are not money because you cannot cash them out: doubling your stack does not double your equity, since first prize is capped and the extra chips only help you win places you might already have won. ICM prices that.
Why is the chip leader worth less than their chip share?
Because they can only win first prize once. A player with half the chips in play does not win half the prize pool, they win something closer to a third of it, and the difference is spread across the short stacks who still have a claim on the money. This calculator shows that difference directly.
How does ICM change how I should play?
It makes calling worse and folding better near a pay jump, especially for medium stacks. A coinflip that is break-even in chips is a clear loss in money when busting costs you a laddering spot. It is also why a big stack can apply so much pressure on the bubble: their risk is measured in chips, everyone else's is measured in money.
Which ICM model does this use?
Malmuth-Harville, computed exactly rather than sampled, over up to ten players and eight paid places. It is the model every tournament tool uses as its baseline. It assumes finishing order is driven by stack size alone, which ignores skill and position, and that is its known limitation.
Your tournament session, debriefed
ICM prices one decision. A debrief reads the whole session: the hands that decided it, reviewed street by street, and your leaks priced in big blinds. The first one is free and complete.
No card. No subscription. $3 a session after that, and credits never expire.