Using the ICM in Tournaments
There are times that poker strategy gets a little too complicated for the ordinary player. While many players pride themselves on knowing the odds and being “math-based,” many others need additional help to compute the correct decision either in real-time or retrospect. One of the most valuable strategies that I’ve always used as a reference point is the Independent Chip Model (ICM).
The ICM explains the value of each and every chip in a tournament. It is not something that tells you how to play, but instead tells you the value of your stack. From that information, you can make the right decision.
When you’re playing in a cash game, you can fi gure out whether a play is correct or not through simple calculation. You can look at the chips that you’d win when you win the pot and the chips that you’d lose when you lose the pot. It’s not simplistic to determine what your opponents could be holding, but you can put them on a range of hands.
To analyze a cash game decision, let’s imagine that you were involved in a pot with $1,000 in the center. You have $1,000 behind and your opponent bets enough to put you all in. You will have to make an important decision for all of your chips. If you fold, you still have $1,000 in your stack. If you called the all in and won, you’d have $3,000, and if you called and lost, you’d have $0. If you win one-third of the time or more, the call is correct. If your estimate of your opponent’s range of hands is such that you don’t win one-third of the time or more, you fold.
Unlike cash games where each chip’s denomination will never change (i.e., a $100 chip will always be worth $100), the value of a chip in a tournament can change with every single hand. Based on the chip stacks of every single player and the tournament payouts, the ICM adjusts chip values and, at times, might show you just how meaningful every pot can become.
The ICM comes into play at sit-n-goes more frequently than anywhere else. In regular multi-table tournament play, one major characteristic we’d focus on is the stage of the tournament. Early in the tournament, when you’re not close to the money, the calculations are essentially the same: the value of each chip is pretty much identical to the face value of the chip. However, with every elimination the players move closer towards the money bubble, and at this point the value of every chip is not just its face value. Instead, the value depends also upon the size of your stack and the sizes of everybody else’s stacks.
Take the same situation you faced in the cash game example above and pretend you’re facing the same decision in a tournament. Now we’ll use the ICM to determine the value of our stack instead of simply counting the numbers on the chips. If there were four players left in a SNG tournament where three make the money the ICM would provide great insight. If you make the call and win, you’ll increase your stack. Yes, you’ll have $3,000 in chips, but there are still four left in the tournament and you are not guaranteed to make the money at all. When you call and win a hand like that, you’ll have three times as many chips in your stack, but the value isn’t three times as high. An ICM calculator would let you extrapolate and let you see what the value would be given your decision. You can use that information to determine whether you should call or fold at that point, helping you to avoid making a mathematical mistake.
To help explain, let’s take a closer look at a real life example. I have a moderately short stack on the bubble of the EPT stop in London. On Day 1 I started with 10,000 in chips worth an expected $10,000 in cash. Now it’s Day 2 and we’re almost in the money. The average stack is up to 100,000 and I only have 35,000 chips. The hand in question begins and I’ve already made the fi rst raise to 5,000 with pocket sevens. Almost immediately, another player has shoved all in. Before reading below, do you think I should fold and keep my stack of 30,000 or do I call and hopefully win a stack of about 75,000?
According to ICM calculations, my stack of 30,000 chips (what I’ll still have when I fold to the raise) is worth about $35,000. If I were to call and win, my new stack of about 75,000 chips is going to be worth about $78,000. I was risking $35,000 to win $43,000 in terms of chip value (not chip stack). I evaluate the hand to see where I stand and the fi rst step is to fi gure out his range. Against my 7-7, I’ve assigned a range of hands to this particular opponent (A-K, A-Q, A-J suited, K-Q suited and pairs from A-A down to 6-6). Against this range of hands, we have about a 40 percent chance of winning when we call.
I’m sitting on the money bubble and need to use the ICM concept to fi gure out the value of our stack when I call and win (70,000 in real chips, $78,000 in value) and call and lose ($0, I’m eliminated). If I think I’m going to win $78,000 about 40 percent of the time, my expected outcome would be $31,200. If I fold to my opponent’s all in, I’ll have a stack that is worth $35,000. Using this strategy, if I make the call here, I’d be making a $3,800 mistake.
The ICM is a critical strategy for every successful poker player to understand. This kind of careful decision making is what we teach at the WSOP Academy and with our help, you’ll be able to take complex decisions and process them on the spot so that you don’t fi nd yourself on the rail wondering if you made the right move.
