Payout formulas — standard, top-heavy, flat, and custom
What each preset does to your prize distribution, plus a quick ICM primer.
The four presets
- •Standard: traditional 50/30/20-ish curve. Rewards 1st place but still pays 3 or more.
- •Top-heavy: most of the money at the top. Good when players want a big first-place payday.
- •Flat: narrower gap between places. Softens bad-beat sting; popular in recreational clubs.
- •Custom: you set each position yourself — either a fixed cash amount or a percentage of the pool.
Custom: fixed amount or percentage?
Pick Custom in setup and you get a choice of how to enter it. Fixed amounts are literal prizes — "1st $100, 2nd $60, 3rd $40" — and they pay out exactly as typed, no matter how many people show up. Percentages are a split — "50% / 30% / 20%" — and the app turns them into money against the real prize pool as entrants arrive.
- •Use fixed amounts when you have already promised specific prizes, or the pool is topped up to a guaranteed number.
- •Use percentages when the field size is uncertain — the split holds whether 8 or 30 players turn up, so you never have to retype anything.
Either way you can still adjust individual places mid-event in Live Tournament → Financial Controls, and a percentage split carries over cleanly when you rerun the game with "Same as last tournament".
A word on ICM
ICM (Independent Chip Model) is how the poker world values chip stacks in tournaments with top-heavy prize pools. It matters most at the final table and in deal-making. Poker Hawk doesn't auto-chop with ICM yet — but understanding it helps you set payouts that feel fair.