Poker school · lesson 6 of 7
Tournaments: stacks, antes and prize money
Why tournament chips aren’t money: stacks in big blinds, antes, push or fold, ICM, the bubble and bounties. 5 min read.
Count your stack in big blinds
In a tournament the blinds rise at every level, so your stack shrinks in value even when you don’t lose a hand. What matters is your stack divided by the big blind.
The same chips at two levels
- 6,000 chips at blinds of 100 and 200: 30 bb.
- The same 6,000 at 150 and 300: 20 bb.
Your stack in big blinds as the blinds go up
You may hear players talk about their M, a measure made popular by Dan Harrington: your stack divided by the cost of one round of blinds and antes. Most players now simply count big blinds, and so does PokerIQ.
Antes
Most tournaments add antes as the levels rise, usually a big-blind ante: the big blind pays one ante for the whole table, normally the size of the big blind.
Antes are dead money: in the pot, but not part of anyone’s bet. With a big-blind ante the pot is 2.5 bb before anyone acts, not 1.5 bb. Stealing the blinds is worth more, which is why tournament opens are smaller and wider than in cash games.
Push or fold
On a short stack, a normal open causes trouble. Raise to 2.2 bb with 10 bb and you have used more than a fifth of your stack; if someone shoves, you can hardly fold. So short stacks move all-in or fold when first in, which uses all of their fold equity.
A little deeper, the re-shove takes over: let someone else open, then move all-in over the top.
PokerIQ’s tournament stack zones
- At or below the push-or-fold line (Tight 10 bb, Balanced 12 bb, Aggressive 15 bb): first in, all-in or fold.
- From the line to 20 bb: open or fold from early seats; from late seats and the blinds, re-shove over opens rather than call.
- 20 to 40 bb: open to 2 bb, and 3-bet all-in rather than call a raise with hands you want to play.
- Over 40 bb: the cash profile, opening to 2.2 bb, a little wider in the blinds.
PokerIQ’s tournament stack zones, by style
Push or foldRe-shoveShort-stackedDeep
Chips aren’t money: ICM
In a cash game a chip won is worth as much as a chip lost. In a tournament it isn’t: prizes are paid in steps, and if you lose all your chips you lose every prize still to come. So the chips you might lose are worth more to you than the ones you might win, and a play’s chip EV can mislead you.
ICM, the Independent Chip Model, turns the stacks into shares of the prize money still to be paid. The usual version, Malmuth-Harville, takes each player’s chance of winning as their share of the chips, then works out the other places the same way.
Three players left, paid 50%, 30% and 20%
- 50% of the chips is worth 38.4% of the prize pool.
- 30% of the chips is worth 32.8%.
- 20% of the chips is worth 28.9%.
Share of the chipsShare of the prize money (hatched)
Bounties
In a knockout (KO) tournament, whoever knocks a player out wins their bounty in cash. In a progressive knockout (PKO) you get half in cash and the other half goes on your own head. Either way you must cover the player and win the all-in, so calling their shoves gets cheaper.
A PKO bounty in the price
- The prize-pool part of the buy-in is £10 for 10,000 starting chips, so a chip is worth a tenth of a penny.
- Villain’s bounty is £10. Knocking them out pays £5 now: 5,000 chips, or 10 bb at a 500 big blind.
- You call 20 bb to win a 41 bb pot. Without the bounty you need 20 ÷ 41 = 48.8%.
- With it you win 10 bb more, so you need 20 ÷ 51 = 39.2%.
A bounty in the price
In PokerIQ
Choose Tournament in the Analyser’s game setup and set the antes; there is no rake. First in at or below your style’s push-or-fold line, rule R8 recommends all-in or fold.
Enter the other stacks and the payouts still to come, and the equity a call needs is worked out in prize money, shown as Equity needed (ICM) beside the chip price. For a satellite choose Satellite (equal seats): rule R10 folds when folding keeps at least 99% of a seat. Add a KO or PKO bounty and the price takes it in.
Practise in the Trainer’s Tournament, Push or fold and Facing an all-in drills. Your style’s stack zones are on the Ranges page under Tournament short stacks.