progressICM calculator
Stacks and payouts in; prize pool equity, required equity, risk premium and bubble factor out. Free, no sign-up.
Presets: Top 3Winner takes allFinal table 9
Enter the big blind in chips and we send these 9 stacks and payouts to ICM training as a custom table (free account needed).
Call an all-in: required equity, risk premium and bubble factor
Enter stacks as they are now, behind the blinds and antes. Put all blinds and antes in the middle field. It assumes you and the opponent have put in the same amount so far.
Worked example: a final table call
Nine players, payouts 28/19/13/10/8/7/6/5/4%, blinds 50/100 with a 12.5 ante, so 262.5 chips are in the middle. You have 1600 and the 3000 stack goes all-in. Chip EV asks for 46.2% equity. ICM asks for 63.9%, so the risk premium is 17.7 points and the bubble factor is 1.77. Your stack is worth 12.1% of the prize pool after a fold, 16.7% after a win and 4.0% after a loss.
Open this example in the calculator or read what the risk premium means.
How it works
The calculator uses the Malmuth-Harville model: the chance of finishing first is your share of the chips, and the same rule is applied again to the players left for second place, third place and so on. The result is your ICM equity: the average share of the prize pool you can expect. Big stacks are worth less than their chips suggest, and short stacks are worth more, which is why calling all-in with an ordinary hand can be a mistake near the money.
Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. Want the bubble factor of every player against every other at once? Use the bubble factor table.
Known limitation
ICM models predict tournament results more accurately than a simple baseline model, but in one large study of tournament results they underestimate the results of players with larger stacks and overestimate those who are short-stacked (Kim 2025, arXiv 2506.00180).
New to the model? Read what ICM is in poker or how to use an ICM calculator, then see how payout jumps change final table play. The preflop book itself is chip EV; its limits are listed here.
Free 7-day ICM course by e-mail
One short lesson a day, each with a worked example in exact numbers: chips vs. money, the bubble factor, who feels the pressure, payout structures, satellites. No account needed.
Questions
What is ICM in poker?
ICM (Independent Chip Model) turns tournament chips into prize pool equity. Because chips you win are worth less than chips you lose in a payout structure, tournament decisions are tighter than chip EV near the bubble and the final table.
What is the bubble factor?
Bubble factor is the cost of losing chips divided by the gain from winning the same chips, measured in prize pool equity. A bubble factor of 1.5 means you need to win much more often to break even on an all-in call.
Is this the exact answer?
It is the standard Malmuth-Harville ICM, which is an approximation of real tournament results, but it is the model most players and tools use for payout-aware decisions.
What is the risk premium?
The extra equity ICM asks for beyond pot odds, in percentage points. If chips alone need 46 % to call and ICM needs 64 %, the risk premium is 18 points. See our guide to the risk premium.
How much equity do I need to call an all-in?
Pick yourself and the all-in player, enter the chips already in the middle, and the calculator shows the equity you need under ICM next to the equity you would need in chips.
How do I enter blinds and antes?
Enter the stacks as they are now, after the blinds and antes were posted, and put everything that is in the middle into the field called chips already in the middle.
Can I use it for any payout structure?
Yes. Type the payouts in order, from first place down, for up to 10 players. They are scaled to 100 % of the prize pool.
Free tools by progressGTO. The preflop charts come from our own solution book (8-max MTT, 12.5% ante from each player, chip EV): an approximation with a modelled postflop, not an exact solution.