Independent Chip Model in SNG

A common concept in sng-poker is the ICM (Independent Chip Model). With the ICM you are able to calculate how much your stack is worth in dollars.

Imagine that we are playing a sng with 10 players ($10+$1). You’ll get a 1000 stack for that.
The amount of money in the prize pool is $100. If everyone was as skilled as everyone the value of your stack would be $10(your sng equity). In reality that never happens because there will always be players who are better than others. Every move that occurs at the table will influence your sng-equity.

Example:

It’s your first hand and you have a $1000 begin stack (the blinds are 10/20). Everyone folds but the button(hero) opens to 3 times the BB with pocket fours. The SB folds and the BB moves all in. Assume that we know for 100% certain that he has AQo.
Pokerstove:

equity
Hand 0: 46.320% AQo
Hand 1: 53.680% 44

You would think with the percentages given above: snapcall!!! However nothing is what it seems. The amount of chips you’ll make when you double up doesn’t equal to the doubling of your sng-equity(from $10 to $20). You could say that the chips you’ll lose will influence your sng-equity more than if you would win them. The reason is simple. In a cashgame it doesn’t matter if you lose your stack at first or as second or as number 38. In sng’s it does. Whenever players get busted your sng-equity will rise, and it doesn’t matter if you bust him or someone else does.

Example: bubble fase

We are in a $10 sng (10 players). The prize pool is as followed: 50%, 30%, 20% and there are only 4 players left. The blinds are 200/400 with an ante of 50

Player A: 900 stack ( SB )
Player B: 1700 stack ( BB )
Player C: 4500
Player D 2900( button , hero)

We assume in this example that all the players are decent ones.

Example bubblefase:

10$ 10 man sng. price devision 50%,30%,20%. 4 man left. 200/400 ante: 50

Player A is in a hard spot. He is the shortstack and has only 2BB after the SB and he will be called with any two cards when he shoves. He will have to double up in the next orbit. If players C and D fold their hands he must shove with any two here.

Player B is also a shortstack with 4,25BB. He will have to call shoves from players C and D tightly because player A has only 2BB behind. However… if players C and D decide to fold then he will have to call the shove from player A with any two.

Player C is in a nice spot. He will get a lot of “any two spots” one of the reasons is because the blinds are pretty high. Players D and B will call tight even though they have less than 7BB. That is because player A is playing with a small stack. It’s the best for him when the bubble takes as long as possible and the blinds get higher. Lucky player D, he has position on player C. If player C doesn’t use his chiplead in a good way then player D can easily take control of this. If player C uses the bubble in a good way then player D will have a tight calling range against player C. Imagine that the positions of player C and D were the opposite… then player D would be in a hard spot.

Example 2

We are in a $10 sng (10 players). The prize pool is as followed: 50%, 30%, 20% and there are only 4 players left. The blinds are 200/400 with an ante of 50

Player A: 3800( button )
Player B: 3300( SB )( hero )
Player C: 2600( BB )
Player D: 2300

Notes: the shortstack is weaktight and wants to end up ITM badly. The others are playing solid.

What is your gameplan?
In a situation where 4 stacks are pretty close to each other one part of the ICM drops. In this situation almost everyone will stack you of lightly. Let’s try to use that in our advantage. You could even make some –ev pushings here. This has got to do with future EV. Once you have the chiplead it’ll get easier for you to walk over the table. This will make up for those couple of –ev pushings.

What kind of a rol plays ICM on what kind of SNG

For this you will have to look at the ITM/entrants ratio (ITMER). By a 6max sng for instance the ITMER is 2/6 or 1/3 ( 2 players will end up in the money). If we look at a 180 players sng the ITMER is equal to 18/80 or 1/10. If the ITMER is high then you will have to evade a lot of marginal spots(like calling an AI with AQ pre flop or 3betting against a nit). If the ITMER is low(by a 180 players sng) then you will have to take a lot more of marginal spots. So therefore you can conclude that at a 6-9 players sng: tight = right.

You can calculate the ICM precisely. We will talk about that in the next article. However it is way too much work to calculate that for every situation. Therefore you can work with online programs such as SNG-Wizard. One disadvantage of this application is that it doesn’t calculate the playing style of the players along.