ICM Calculations

[AceRat138]

I apologize if this has been asked already, but I could not find it in the search function. Can someone point me in the direction of a tutorial on doing ICM calculations by hand. I have used the programs that do these calculations for some time and would really like to understand the math behind it. Thanks.

---AceRat138

[fiskebent]

The best info I've found is here:
http://sharnett.bol.ucla.edu/ICM/info.html

A simple example is doable by hand. You need a computer for more complicated scenarios. But let's take this with 3 stacks and 3 prizes:

Stacks: 1000, 2000, 3000
Prizes: 100, 50, 30

The equity of stack one (let's say that's us) is calculated like this:

We have 1000 out of 6000 chips, so 1 in 6 we'll take first prize. The value of that is 1/6*100.

Stack two takes 1st prize 2000/6000 times. When he does that, there's 1000/4000 chance that we'll 2nd. So that's (2/6)*(1/4)*50.
When stack two takes 1st, then stack 3 takes 2nd in 3 out of 4. And we then take 3rd. So that's (2/6)*(3/4)*30.

Stack 3 takes 1st in 3000/6000. When he does that, we take 2nd in 1/3. That's (3/6)*(1/3)*50. When stack 3 takes 1st, stack 2 takes 2nd in 2 out of 3 and we take 3rd. So that's (3/6)*(2/3)*30.

Our combined equity is 1/6*100 + (2/6)*(1/4)*50 + (2/6)*(3/4)*30 + (3/6)*(1/3)*50 + (3/6)*(2/3)*30
That adds up to $46.67.

You then do the same for the other stacks if you want the numbers for them.

[ShakeZula06]

If you have the money I'd get SNG-PT (sit n go power tools)

[yellowjack]

Thank you very much for this post. I've seen the ICM calculations for months but never knew the math behind it.