Poker Basics - Chip Chop Final Table Deals

In our second basics guide on final table deals we look at deals that are based on the percentage of chips each player has.

Last time we looked at the most common form of final table the ICM deal. This time we are going to look at an alternative way some final tables deal, the chip chop method. 

This is where, instead of redistributing the prize pool based on ICM, the players divvy up the remaining prize pool according to the percentage of chips each player has. 

Let's remind ourselves of our example final table from last time, including ICM values:

In this example Amy has 41.7% of the chips in play and the total prize pool is $450, which would get her $187.65. Much more than her ICM payout and close to what she would get for winning. Tim, however, has just 8.3% of the chips in play and as such would get $37.35.

See anything wrong here?

That's a great deal for Amy but Tim is actually getting much less than he would for playing on and busting in 4th. This would be a terrible deal for him, especially as ICM gives him more than double what chip chop does. 

An alternative way to do chip chop is to first award everyone the $50 min cash they are all guaranteed then chip chopping the remaining prize pool. That would look like this:

As you can see that looks a lot fairer and closer to ICM, but it favours the chip leader at the expense of everyone else, which is the opposite of ICM. A reminder that the finishing distributions (below) are a lot closer than a chip leader might think.

This example is quite fair but when the stacks are extreme it is a different story. If a chip leader has a massive chip lead they can walk away with much more (even more than official payout) with a chip chop deal. The short stack, if they are very short, can barely walk away with a min cash. 

You should only entertain a chip chop deal if you are a chip leader as that is the only person who benefits. The only other situation they make sense is heads-up where ICM no longer influences the strategy in a tournament.

On the surface chip chop deals seem fair. A poker tournament is about accumulating chips so a deal based on chips makes sense. But chips are worth more or less depending on your stack size in a tournament which is reflected by ICM. ICM deals are broadly fairer to everyone in a tournament. 

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