Question about chopping in local tournament

(If this is posted in the wrong forum section, please move and accept my apologies)

The nuts and bolts ...

Local casino - daily tournament - mostly regular players who normally chop at final table.

One person at final table had around 40% of total chips in play while another had around 20% of total chips in play. The remaining 40% was split fairly evenly among the other 7 players. The blinds were extremely high - to the point where nobody except the top two players could survive more than 1-2 orbits (unless of course doubling up) ... so the 7 short stacks all had around 2-3 BB each.

The "even split" 9 ways was around $330 each. The top two stacks asked for something extra else they would make us play knowing that 1/2 of us would likely bust out the first orbit or so. BTW, the next person out would make only like eighty bucks.

I offered up the following:

Top guy gets 600 and second guy gets 400 (instead of the 'even' split of 330) - which would then leave us 7 short stacks with 280 each.

A couple of the players couldn't seem to wrap their head around "giving up 50 bucks" from the split of 330 ... but, since the 330 wasn't going to happen, eventually they caved in that 280 was better than a possible 80 (for the next out).

What do you think? Was the deal "fair". In retrospect, I would have liked to have suggested that the top guy get 100 extra and the second guy get 50 extra and then the rest split up evenly ... but hindsight is 20/30 and quite frankly I am not sure the top stack would have gone for it since he had enough chips to virtually guarantee third place and likely second or ??

Anyhow, thanks for comments.

I do not have much experience with chopping but I would say the players getting 280 got a pretty good deal.

If you wanted to split by the percentage of the chips, I would have offered that everyone first get next place money plus the percentage of the remaining pot equal to their stack percentage to the chips in play. So with 9 players and one having 40%, one at 20%, the remaining 7 would be roughly 5.7% of the chips in play.

Since the prize pool is $3000. Everyone starts with $80 for the first one out, then players 3rd through 9th would get an additional $130 for a total of $210, Second would get an additional 450ish for about $530 and 1st would get another 915ish for $995.

Picking up the additional $70 worked out well.

There are ways to chop it. Two most used are :
Chip Chop where everyone gets a share depending on chip stack. (This favors the big stack)
ICM which take into account the players overall equity. (This unfavorable to big stacks, most big stacks that agree to this kind of chop will usually ask for something a little extra)

I am going to list out the math for Chip Chop so you get an idea as to how it works out. I am not that expert to do math for ICM.

Both methods can be found on websites with calculators to just input the variable and they calculate for you. I believe there are Apps as well. You will need the actual payout structure to input to get ICM figures. I just made one up that was close to what one might look online.

Check it out here https://www.icmpoker.com/icmcalculator/#hCfx

In case you cannot see website - 631 for first 482 for second 270 each for rest.

I am assuming 3K prize pool and next payout is $80.

Chip Chop Workings

80*9= 720
3000-720= 2280

1st - 80+ 40%2280 which is 80+ 912 =992
2nd - 80+ 20%2280 which is 80+456 = 536

3rd- 9th - 80+ (40%2280)/7 which is 80 +912/7 = roughly 210

To summarize:
$280 was a good deal as ICM is roughly $270 and Chip Chop is $210
I love math and I was bored on ACR Freeroll

Thank you both very much for replies.

I too thought the 280 was in my (our) best interest at that point, but in the interest of making sure I was not being nearsighted, I thought I would ask some of my peers here.

Thanks again.

next time just look up a chip-chop website. There are things you can look up on your phone that based off of the chip stacks you can figure out what should be won by each player.

joeisi said:

There are ways to chop it. Two most used are :
Chip Chop where everyone gets a share depending on chip stack. (This favors the big stack)
ICM which take into account the players overall equity. (This unfavorable to big stacks, most big stacks that agree to this kind of chop will usually ask for something a little extra)

I am going to list out the math for Chip Chop so you get an idea as to how it works out. I am not that expert to do math for ICM.

Both methods can be found on websites with calculators to just input the variable and they calculate for you. I believe there are apps as well. You will need the actual payout structure to input to get ICM figures. I just made one up that was close to what one might look online.

Check it out here https://www.icmpoker.com/icmcalculator/#hCfx

In case you cannot see website - 631 for first 482 for second 270 each for rest.

I am assuming 3K prize pool and next payout is $80.

Chip Chop Workings

80*9= 720
3000-720= 2280

1st - 80+ 40%2280 which is 80+ 912 =992
2nd - 80+ 20%2280 which is 80+456 = 536

3rd- 9th - 80+ (40%2280)/7 which is 80 +912/7 = roughly 210

To summarize:
$280 was a good deal as ICM is roughly $270 and Chip Chop is $210
I love math and I was bored on ACR Freeroll

Click to expand...

Great answer

Anyone got a similar one for ICM? Always confuses me how it works exactly.