Drill PokerIn the middle of a tournament a chip is worth a chip, and "shove or not" is settled by a table. On the bubble, in the money and at the final table that stops working: busting one step short of the money costs your entire payout, and doubling your stack brings far less than double the money. The gap between chips and money is called ICM, and it is why strong tournament players play these stages differently from the rest.
This trainer teaches you to see the gap — in concrete hands, not in theory.
How the training works
The trainer deals a spot: the tournament stage (bubble, in the money or final table), the payout structure, every stack at the table and your hand. There are two spot types — an open shove when nobody has entered before you, and a call against someone else's all-in. You answer: push, call or fold.
After you answer, the trainer returns two verdicts. Chip EV — what would be correct if the stack were counted in chips. With ICM — what is actually correct, adjusted for the payout structure. The 13×13 grid switches between the two modes, and the hands that are "yes by chips, fold with ICM" get their own legend: those are exactly the hands that bust players on the bubble.
If the verdicts match, the spot is labelled "Matches chip EV" — ICM doesn't matter here and the ordinary chart decides. If they diverge — "ICM pressure": look at how much the range shrank and why.
What exactly you train
Calling under pressure. The main ICM lesson: it barely changes the shove but sharply tightens the call. The caller always risks his stack, and proximity to the money makes that risk more expensive. The trainer forces you to fold hands that were obvious calls mid-tournament — and shows what the "always call with an ace" habit costs in money.
Reading stacks. The same 10 BB spot plays differently depending on who is shoving: a big stack that can't be hurt, or a medium one for which busting is a catastrophe. The trainer rearranges the stacks so you look beyond your own cards.
Stage as a variable. The bubble, the first paid places and the final table are three different pressure regimes. On the bubble it peaks, at the start of the money it almost vanishes, and at the final table it returns with every pay jump.
Example: pushing and calling on the bubble
Action
My stack
Opponent stack
Watch the medium stack against the big one: it's the only direction where the shove is tighter than the base chart, and the call is far tighter than chip EV — small pairs and weak aces turn into folds. The big stack in the same spot does the opposite, shoving into medium stacks wider than Nash allows — they have no answer.
What the trainer doesn't do
There are no raise and re-shove situations here, no postflop, no satellites with equal payouts (where ICM bites even harder — that's a separate topic). The calculations are approximate: exact ICM for a specific stack configuration takes dedicated software; the trainer teaches the principles and the standard spots.