What you get
Real Malmuth-Harville math
The recursive algorithm serious poker tools use. Correct to the cent.
Stacks and prizes in one screen
Every remaining player's chip count and every finishing place's payout.
Live editable
Edit a stack, move a prize, add or drop a paid place. Recomputes instantly.
Chip Chop alternative
Chip-proportional with a minimum-cash floor. Same input, different formula.
Or run the whole tournament in Felt
ICM inputs pre-fill from the live session state.
One-tap chop settlement
Confirms, writes payouts to the ledger, opens peer-to-peer transfers.
What ICM actually calculates
Tournament chips aren't worth face value. Chips late in a tournament are worth more real dollars than the same chips early, because they represent survival closer to the money.
ICM does the arithmetic: given remaining chip stacks and the payout for each place, what is each player's equity in real dollars right now? That's the number that matters at a final-table chop.
Why Malmuth-Harville, not a shortcut
Malmuth-Harville is the standard recursive ICM algorithm. For each possible finishing order, it computes the probability of that order and multiplies by the payouts. Sum across all orderings for the equity per player. Exact for any input.
Faster shortcuts (linear approximations, Chip Chop, lookup tables) drift from the true equity by whole dollars per stack in awkward cases. For a serious chop the drift matters. Felt runs the full recursion so the answer is exact.
The recursion is O(n!) in the remaining player count, which is why every serious ICM tool caps at nine. Beyond that the compute is unreasonable. Felt enforces the nine-player cap so the app never lies about what it can solve.
ICM that already knows your tournament
A standalone ICM calculator is a fine spreadsheet on a phone. The problem is that at the moment of a chop, someone has to type every stack and every prize by hand under time pressure. A finger-slip zero misprices someone by a full buy-in.
Felt's ICM calculator sits inside the app that already knows the current stacks and payout structure. Open the settlement screen and both are pre-filled. Adjust, tap Confirm. Done.
Frequently asked
- What is the difference between ICM and Chip Chop?
- Chip Chop pays out in proportion to chip counts, often with a minimum-cash guarantee. ICM pays out in proportion to expected finishing equity, factoring in the payout structure so short stacks get less and big stacks more. ICM is the standard for serious chops; Chip Chop is faster to explain. Felt offers both.
- Real ICM or an approximation?
- Real Malmuth-Harville. Correct to the cent for any stack shape, any prize structure, up to nine paid places.
- Use Felt just for the calculator?
- Yes. Open a session, enter stacks and prizes, get the numbers. But most hosts use Felt to run the whole tournament, in which case inputs pre-fill.
- More than nine players remaining?
- ICM math becomes unreasonable past nine (factorial recursion). Felt caps at nine. For larger groups, use Chip Chop or run through more busts before opening chop talks.
- Export the chop?
- Yes. The finalized settlement writes to the ledger and exports to CSV or PDF.
- Is it free?
- ICM payouts are Pro (7-day free trial). Free tier includes Equal-split settlement, which is fine for casual home games but not for a serious final table.
A pocket ICM calculator that speaks the same language as the tournament it's running. Type in the stacks, get the numbers, chop honestly.
7-day free trial · Free trial code · Cancel anytime
Related
- Felt vs the other poker apps. Honest side-by-side comparisons.
- Felt vs Tournament Director. iOS native vs Windows PC.
- Splitwise for poker night. How Felt ends the who-owes-who.