Tournament solver with ICM and bounties

Start from a tournament preset

The Tournaments tab starts from eight ready games. A preset fills in the whole game, from the payouts to the betting tree, and every field stays editable.

• MTT, 9-max, 20 bb: chip EV far from the money, big-blind ante; open 2 bb or all-in, the small blind may limp, re-raises all-in.
• MTT, 8-max, 40 bb: chip EV, big-blind ante; opens of 2.2 bb (2.5 bb from the small blind), 3-bets of 3x in position and 4x out of position, 4-bets all-in.
• Final table, nine players, 25 bb: ICM on a 30 / 20 / 14 / 10 / 8 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 payout, big-blind ante.
• PKO final table, nine players, 30 bb: ICM with progressive bounties, half of each bounty paid in cash.
• Sit & Go, 6-max, 25 bb: ICM on a 65 / 35 payout, no ante.
• Spin, 3-max, 25 bb: winner takes all, no ante.
• Satellite bubble, nine players, 20 bb: three equal seats for the nine players left; push or fold.
• Heads-up, 15 bb: winner takes all; push or fold.

Each seat has its own stack and, in a knockout, its own bounty. Tables run from heads-up to ten players. The betting tree is yours as well: push or fold, or open raises with 3-bets, limps and cold calls.

The payouts the strategy plays for

Far from the money a tournament plays like chip EV; near the money and at a final table, chips and prizes part ways. The engine prices every result with the tournament's payouts.

• ICM: the standard Malmuth–Harville model, for the players at the table and, with other tables, up to 24 players left in the tournament.
• Progressive knockouts: when a player busts, part of the bounty is paid in cash to the winner and the rest goes onto the winner's own bounty. The cash share is a setting, half by default.
• Satellites: equal prizes for every seat awarded.
• Winner takes all: prize equity equals chip share, as in a spin or a heads-up match.
• Blind pressure (optional): before prize equity is taken, the next hands' blinds and antes are charged as the button moves, so a short stack about to pay the big blind counts for less than its chips alone.

Study a tournament like a cash game

A trained tournament blueprint opens in the Strategy panel. Follow a preflop line seat by seat and read each position's range, action frequencies and EV for every hand.

EVs are changes in prize equity, shown in chip-equivalent big blinds: a share of the prize pool counts as the same share of all the chips in play. Folding reads 0, as in every solver, and calling, raising and going all-in read what they gain or lose against folding under the payouts.

Postflop, Recalculate re-solves a heads-up spot from the blueprint with the same payouts, ICM and bounties included, so a flop, turn or river decision is played for prizes rather than chips.

Access, pricing and system requirements

The tournament engine comes with the NLHE Engine (€299 one-time) and with both engines (€500). The seven-day full trial includes it. Purchases are perpetual licences with 12 months of updates included; see current access and licence terms.

The engine runs in the Windows desktop app and requires 64-bit Windows and an AVX2 CPU. Time and memory grow with the number of players and the size of the betting tree; push-or-fold trees are the lightest.

Tournament solver questions

Do all players need the same stack?

No. Every seat has its own stack, and in a knockout its own bounty.

Can I study tournaments in the browser?

Tournament blueprints open in the Windows app. The Cloud library in the browser has the Hold’em cash game and PLO strategies.

Does it solve multiway postflop spots with ICM?

The blueprint covers every player preflop. Postflop re-solves with ICM are heads-up.

Is the tournament engine separate from the cash-game engine?

It is its own ten-seat engine inside the same app, with its own Tournaments tab. Cash-game blueprints stay chip EV with rake; tournament blueprints play for prizes.