Explaining ICM to casual players

Last night during my PokerStars Home Game league game I got to talking about ICM with another player who really couldn’t wrap his head around what I was saying in the chat-box. So this morning I shot him an e-mail with the equity calculations for the situation from the previous night’s tournament. Considering I felt I did a good job explaining the situation I figured I would share it here!

Here are the calculations of each players chip stack prior to the hand based on the total prize-pool. These are based on a $50/$30/$20 payout -which is the same as far as equity goes-with the equity of you folding after your raise in parenthesis; dropping down to 5,500:

• Me: 25,000 chips were worth $39.14 ($40)
• Villain 1: 8,000 chips were worth $25.10 ($25)
• You: 7,100 chips were worth $23.47 ($20)
• Villain 2: 3,200 chips were worth $12.27 ($13)

Here is how the equity changes based on the actual result:

• Me: 18,000 chips were worth $34.35
• Villain 1: 8,000 chips were worth $23.27
• You: 15,000 chips were worth $31.87
• Villain 2: 3,200 chips were worth $10.49

And me winning:

• Me: 33,000 chips were worth $44.60
• Villain 1: 8,000 chips were worth $30.90
• You: 0 chips were worth $0
• Villain 2: 3,200 chips were worth $24.46

So, as you can see by playing the hand you through you were risking $20 in equity (the amount you would still have if you folded) for an increase of about $12 in equity. Furthermore, you can see how NOT playing in this spot is extremely beneficial by looking at Villain 1’s and Villain  2’s equity increase if you lose, even though they were not involved in the hand!

Your pot odds are not the chips in the pot -because these do not have a 1-for-1 value in a tournament-your pot odds are based on the above calculations. To make your call correct you have to be certain you are a 3/5 favorite (60%ish) in the hand. Against any two cards ATs is only 65/35, and my three-bet-shoving range is much tighter than any two cards in that spot, even with a 25% range your only getting 55/45 odds, and my actual shoving range there is a bit tighter than that (my actual shoving range makes ATs a 53/47 dog).