Chopping with ICM

[kevkev60614]

There are a surprising number of 2+2ers who don’t know how to do this, so I’m going to show the best way to chop (IMO) when it’s down to four players or less in five easy steps.

IF THERE ARE TWO OR THREE PLAYERS
1) Click here.

2) Enter the dollar payouts under 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

3) Enter the chipstacks for the (two or three) remaining players and press compute. I find it’s helpful to enter my stack under “Stack 1.” The number next to your stack is your ICM fair dollar value.

4) Remember to breathe. Yes, it’s a big payout, but wetting yourself would really spoil the moment. Skip ahead to Step #5.


IF THERE ARE FOUR PLAYERS
1) Click here.

2) Divide the payouts for each of the top three spots by the total prize pool to arrive at the percentage payouts.

2) Enter the percentage payouts (calculated in step 2) in decimal form under 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
They will not add up to 1 in most MTTs. It might look something like 0.2025, 0.1275, 0.079. You must not skip this step. While the relative payouts for large MTTs are close to 50%, 30%, 20%, they are often not exactly that. 1st place payouts on Stars range from 48.0% to 53.1%. This is no time to approximate.

3) Enter the chipstacks for the four remaining players and press compute. I find it’s helpful to enter my stack under “Stack 1.” The number next to your stack is your ICM fair percentage.

4) Multiply your ICM fair percentage from step 4 by the total prize pool. The result is your ICM fair dollar value.


5) If the chop is netting you an amount greater than your ICM fair dollar value, you should probably be okay with it. This calculation doesn’t account for two things, however, which you should be aware of. One is position, which probably has a relatively small impact unless the blinds are very large relative to stacks and the game is still four-handed. The other is relative skill levels in short-handed play. If your opponents are terrified of busting next, for instance, and you can completely terrorize them with your big stack, you should adjust your ICM fair value dollar payout upwards. It is extremely difficult to quantify mathematically how far upwards you should adjust, however. In addition it may be difficult for you to decide how large a skill advantage you have because you haven’t seen your opponents play short-handed for very long, presumably.

Uhhh... yeah. I hope this helps someone.

[AceLuby]

Maybe should (also) be posted in MTT community.

[rabbitlover]

I'm missing something. I just tried this for 3 players and the player with 62% of the chips has the lowest $EV. Is this supposed to generate a real $ figure for the chop; like Party software does for some tournaments?

Thanks

[kevkev60614]

Well post the details and we'll walk through it. It's not impossible that I made an error. I probably should've given an example, anyway.

[rabbitlover]

Tried it several times since original post and everything works fine and makes sense. Thanks for your efforts.