Deal-making on final table

I have been fortunate enough to make a few final tables this week and on a couple of occasions I've been asked by other players if I wanted to deal or not. Normally I don't bother dealing but as it was getting late I decided to agree.
When the administrator arrived and asked how would we like to proceed, the other players all said by 'ICM'. When I asked what does this mean, no one had the English to be able to explain to me what it meant. So I've come here to see if someone could explain what icm is, and to see whether dealing is a good move or not?

heres the definition for you.


In poker, the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is a mathematical model used to calculate a player's overall equity in a tournament. The model uses stack sizes alone to determine how often a player will finish in each position (1st, 2nd, etc.).

using your chip count to decide the payout split, so i would only agree to this kind of split if all stacke were pretty close to the same size, if there was one person or two people with a much shorter stack size i would offer them a smaller part. and if i was the smaller stack size i would not take this deal, cause you very well might be able to come back and be a chip leader.

Ive had people in live games want to split equally when we were down to just a few players, and i would say no to that and offer a smaller cut to the smaller stacks, but they were generally decline. or i would take the split if the jump in payout wasnt much of a jump sometimes its just a matter of a 100 to a few hundred then might as well because its just not worh the time.

hope this helped gl and nice job

ICM is pretty standard for final table chops, and it's very easy to research the details, much easier than asking a question in a forum. Calculators are readily available as well.

ICM is purely mathematical though, with no account for skill. If you're better than the other players then you have reason to hold out for more.