In poker, the classic joke is that the answer to any question you may ask is “it depends”. While it may seem silly at first glance, there is much truth to that statement. Nothing in poker is an absolute, and the ICM is no exception to this, as we've covered in the last article in the series.

In the first article of this series entitled The Independent Chip Model – An Introduction, we investigated the roots of the Independent Chip Model (ICM), and we also explored an example of when ICM contradicts a decision justified by the conventional method of calculating pot odds. Now, let's expand on this idea further, and evaluate a situation with four players remaining.

I'm certain many people have read through the online forums on occasion, and have seen a glimpse of something referred to as ICM. Upon reading further into a jumble of decimal numbers, people typically end up doing one of two things: scroll to the bottom to find the actual decision decided through ICM in plain English, or give up altogether, and assume that since there was so much heavy math involved, it wasn't of too much use at the table.

So, upon my nightly perusal of the ITH Forums, a post by Mecil caught my eye. I'm always a sucker for aptitude tests, as long as they're not general IQ tests - I'll rant about them shortly. I've seen my fair share of poker aptitude tests, and most of them fall well short of interesting, but this sets the bar fairly high.

Living in South Florida, the only live poker near me is at the Hard Rock Casino. The problem with this is the State of Florida. There's a law in the books that limits bets to $2, and 3 raises are allowed per betting round. Of course, the casinos get around this by offering SnGs with anywhere from 20% to 40% rake. Right.