What impact does the ICM have on preflop ranges?

[Julio88]

ICM, or Independent Chip Model, has an impact on preflop ranges in poker tournaments. The value of a player's chip stack fluctuates with the size of the blinds and antes relative to the stack sizes of the other players at the table. ICM can be used to calculate the value of a player's chip stack at any given point in time in a tournament. Generally speaking, the impact of ICM on preflop ranges is that players will be more likely to avoid confrontations with larger stacks, and less likely to call all-ins with marginal hands, as the value of chips lost by doing so can represent a significant portion of a player's overall equity in the tournament. Preflop ranges may therefore be weighted more heavily towards hands with higher values relative to their equities than they would be in a non-ICM context.

 

[Crazy_winner]

The Independent Chip Model (ICM) has a significant impact on preflop ranges in poker tournaments . Since ICM takes into account the prize pool structure and stack sizes of players, players will typically have a wider range of hands they can play when they have a larger stack, as the risk of elimination is smaller.