progressPKO calculator
How much equity you need to call when knocking the opponent out wins you his bounty, compared with a regular tournament. Free for now, no sign-up.
The spot
Bounty
Result
How to read the result
The bounty is cash you win for knocking the opponent out. When you cover him and win the call, you get the pot and his bounty, so the bounty converted to BB is added to the pot. A bigger pot means less equity needed. If you don’t cover him, even a win does not bust him and the bounty does not count. It is a simplified model without ICM (bounty = cash in BB), our own calculation.
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Guide: PKO pot odds and how bounties change the equity you need
Questions
How do you calculate pot odds in a PKO tournament?
Convert the bounty you would win into big blinds (bounty share of the buy-in divided by the value of one big blind in buy-in share) and add it to the pot. The equity you need is your call divided by pot + bet + call + bounty. Example: pot 10 BB, bet 8 BB, call 8 BB, bounty worth 6 BB: 8 / 32 = 25.0% instead of 8 / 26 = 30.8%.
Why does the bounty lower the equity I need?
Because winning the hand pays you more than the chips in the middle: you also collect the opponent’s bounty. The risk (your call) stays the same while the reward grows, so the break-even equity drops.
When should I not count the bounty?
When you do not cover the opponent: if his stack is bigger than yours, winning the hand does not knock him out and you do not get the bounty. Then the spot is a regular pot odds decision. The calculator also ignores ICM, which near the money or at a final table pushes the equity you need back up.
How do I find the value of one big blind?
Divide the cash value of the starting stack by the number of big blinds it holds now. In a typical PKO half of the buy-in goes to the prize pool and half to bounties; if the starting stack is worth 50% of the buy-in and you have 10 BB per starting stack, one BB is worth about 5% of the buy-in. Use the BB mode if you already know the bounty in big blinds.
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.