Poker Tournaments: Independent Chip Model
January 30, 2012 About Poker Poker Tournaments
Sit n Go tournaments are very popular in poker. New players at some point of time are sure to play these poker tournaments and understand the underlying principles of winning the game. There is one fundamental concept called Independent Chip Model and a player needs to be familiar with. By gaining an understanding of this concept players can make right decisions in the tournament. The true dollar risk is calculated with this method. This further helps to take a call on the game.
The chip stack of the tournament players are given a dollar value by Independent Chip Model which is based on two things:
First, remaining player’s stack
Second, prize pool distribution
To put it in another way Independent Chip Model makes an effort in a tournament to give value on each chip. It is this value that helps in a tournament prize pool in calculating your current equity.
However one of the drawbacks of ICM is that there are no assumptions made the player’s relative skill level and equalises your skill level with average skill level of other participants in the tournament.
This concept of Independent Chip Model is not understood by beginner level poker players. It is only understood by those who have a reasonable amount of experience in poker playing and are expert to some level.
Designed specifically for tournament play, Independent Chip Model can split tournament poker to a science and this helps you in looking at your poker game as to how it was played. Furthermore you can also make decisions with these calculations.
So if you are playing the tournament with beginner level players who have no understanding of this concept, it can become challenging and annoying. However if you are playing with an expert who has spent reasonable amount of time in the game and has a good understanding of this concept, it becomes easier to play against him. There will always be a situation with the novice poker players who will never call with mathematical calculations as their understanding is not there. They will never look at their position or stack size for that matter and this can annoy you to a great extent. These players can never be good for your game and in a nutshell can spoil your game too.
If you are a novice poker player and are not aware of this concept, it makes sense to look for help on this model and learn about it before you get into playing these tournaments. Else you will always be struggling and be unable to become better at the game. There is a lot of information on this on the internet, so do some research and get yourself the help needed. You will be able to make better decisions in the tournament with the help of this model.
