Payouts, ICM & EndingExplanation
ICM and chops, explained
Why chip counts don’t equal dollars at the final table — and how deals get made.
In a tournament with a top-heavy prize pool, a chip is not worth a fixed number of dollars. Doubling your stack does not double your equity, because you can only win each prize once. ICM (the Independent Chip Model) is the standard way to convert chip stacks into a fair share of the remaining money.
Why it matters
- •It’s why short stacks have more equity than their chips suggest, and chip leaders less.
- •It’s the basis for a fair deal (“chop”) when players want to split the remaining prizes instead of playing it out.
- •It shapes late-game strategy — the pressure to avoid busting before a pay jump is an ICM effect.
Chops
A chop is an agreement among the remaining players to divide the prize money. Common approaches: an even split, a chip-count split (proportional to stacks), or an ICM split (proportional to tournament equity). ICM is usually the fairest when stacks are uneven.
To actually apply a deal in Poker Hawk, see Run an ICM chop / deal.
Keep learning
Payout formulas — standard, top-heavy, flat, and custom
What each preset does to your prize distribution, plus a quick ICM primer.
Run an ICM chop or deal
Split the remaining prize pool fairly when players want to make a deal.
Set the payouts
Choose how the prize pool splits — a preset shape or custom per-place amounts.
Run your own tournament with Poker Hawk.
Get Poker Hawk