Setting up tournament hands


The software also allows for ICM conversions for tournaments.

In order to perform these conversions, the following additional information is required:
- The prize pool
- The stacks of the players that are nót in the tree, but that áre still alive in the tournament



Switch to tournament mode


First, you'll need to switch from Cash Game mode to Tournament mode.
In order to do so, click the "Cash game" button in the upper left.
The program will now switch to "Tournament" mode.




The tournament information window


When in tournament mode, directly above the quick-buttons (lower left) a new information window will pop up.
It contains all relevant information pertaining to the tournament situation.
So it contains information on blinds, stack sizes, prize structure and dead money.

If critical information is missing it will show up in this menu in red.
For example, in the pic below, the prize structure is not yet set.
Also, the blinds are too small at 0.5/1.


And for each type of data, the information window will also show you how it can be edited.
For example, in the first line of the pic below it tells you that blinds can be edited with Ctrl+F1.




The tournament setup dialog


When you press Ctrl+F3 (or the icon) the "Tournament information" dialog will come up.

Here you can edit:
A) the stack sizes for the players that are not active in the tree (but that áre still in the tournament)
B) the prize structure
C) bounties
D) the output mode



A) Stack sizes
In the two columns on the left you can enter/edit the stack sizes of the players that are not active in the tree, but that are still left in the tournament. The players that áre active in the tree are also shown in this menu but are greyed out; they can not be edited here (for example, in the pic above, Button, SB and BB are the "active" players in the tree). The tournament menu is only to edit the non-actives. To edit the stacks of the áctive players, use the "Stacks" menu (Ctrl+F2 or ).

B) Prize structure
In the second section you can enter the prize structure. To save time, you can also quick-load a previously stored structure by using the dropdown in the upper right.

C) Bounty
In this section you can add a bounty to the prize structure. This is treated as a fixed sum of money (not chips) that is paid out when you knock somebody out of the tournament.

As of v3.2.5 the algorithm for ICM conversions with bounties has been expanded. Previously the cash value of a stack was determined as the sum of the ICM value and (if relevant) the bounty won by knocking somebody out. The new algorithm however now takes into account that the cash value of a stack is also determined by the future chance of winning bounties.

The updated algorithm considers the bounty part of the cash value as being proportional to the amount of chips you have.

This addition to the algorithm can be turned ON/OFF with the option "Bounty calcs include future play". It is strongly recommended to have this option ON, given that the future value of winning bounties is a part of a stack's cash value.

Example:
For example, let's say we have a tournament where the bounty is $10. There's 9 players left. Eight of them have a stack of 1000 chips and one has a stack of 2000 chips. The player with 2000 chips will hold 20% of the 10.000 chips. Therefore, the bounty part of the cash value of his stack is considered to be 20% of the available bounties ($90), which comes down to $18. If the ICM part of the value of the stack is, for example, $11, then the total value of the stack will be $29.

Go here for a more detailed example.

D) Output mode
In the lower right you can define how you like the software to present the output. This can either be in the absolute amount of prize money, ór as a percentage of the total prize pool. Here, the total prize pool is considered to be the total amount of money given in the "prize structure" section, including bounties.

Antes?


How to deal with antes depends on whether you've imported a hand history or if you're entering the data manually yourself:

Manually adding antes?
If you are manually entering the tournament situation then you will have to add the money from the antes to the dead money (Ctrl+F1 or ; it's the last field in the dialog called "Add chips to pot").

If you want to do everything perfectly you will also have to remove the antes from the player's stacks (Ctrl+F2 or for the active players and Ctrl+F3 or for the non-actives). However, since the antes are only a tiny fraction of the stacks, the results will only be extremely marginally affected if you leave out this last step.


Imported hand history?
If you have imported a hand history with antes then the antes will be included automatically. They have already been added to the dead money in the pot (Ctrl+F1 or ) and deducted from the player's stacks.


ICM conversions


In smaller fields (up to about 20 prizes and 20 stacks) the algorithm for ICM conversions will give fast and mathematically accurate results.

In larger fields the algorithm will toggle to an approximation, which should be very accurate.

Whenever the approximation will be used, the tournament menu will display a message informing you of this.



If you want to check the accuracy of the approximation, then click on the button "Launch ICM calculator" in the tournament menu. This will load the active stack+prize distribution into the ICM calculator.

The ICM calculator will compare the approximation's results for you with a more accurate (but slower and less consistent) Monte Carlo algorithm.

In extremely large fields (hundreds or thousands of players) it is recommended to use just one average stack size for all non-active players. This will result in very fast and mathematically accurate ICM conversions.

An important note on accuracy in extremely large fields

In case you have entered a large field with several different stacks for the non-active players then a warning message will be displayed:



Should you really want to use multiple stack sizes for non-active players in extremely large fields, then please observe that in some cases the error in the approximation may be larger than usual.

When this warning is displayed, it is recommended to use the ICM calculator in the tournament menu to check if the ICM conversions are accurate enough for your taste. If not, then please consider using just one average stack size.

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