# ICM deal reserve worksheet

Research date: 2026-09-05. Original synthetic educational calculations by GTO Gecko.

Question: how does a specified finish-by-finish reserve change the guarantee calculated from an ICM payout ladder?

Inputs: A/B/C stacks 60,000/25,000/15,000 chips; original USD prizes 1,200/750/450. Reserve vectors by finish: [0,0,0], [300,0,0], [300,100,0]. Subtract each reserve from its corresponding original finish. This is a declared worksheet convention, not a claim about an operator's specific quote.

The Python generator uses exact rational enumeration of all six finishing orders per case. ICM selects the next finish in proportion to the remaining stacks. There are no random draws, sampled tournaments, seeds, private data or app outputs. The JavaScript verifier independently reconstructs the values by recursion. Exact fractions are authoritative; displayed dollars are independently rounded to cents and are not settlement instructions.

Run in this directory with Python 3.11+ and Node.js 22+ (no external dependencies):

```
python generate.py
node verify.mjs
```

Outputs: results.json contains three cases, the complete finish-order probabilities, baseline ICM, guarantees, expected contingent awards and proportional-haircut alternatives. casebook.csv contains nine player/case rows. MANIFEST.sha256 records the released public files. The original explanatory diagram is an SVG in this bundle and a WebP on the article.

For fixed finish probabilities, original ICM equals the guarantee calculated on adjusted payouts plus the expected reserved awards. This is linearity, not proof that post-deal play has the same real finishing probabilities. Actual guarantees plus each reserved award paid once must equal the original pool. A proportional reduction of every original ICM value changes every finish's payout proportionally and generally differs from a first-place-only subtraction.

Scope: nonnegative descending original and adjusted payout ladders; fixed model probabilities, no skill, position, blinds, taxes, fees, prior payments, bounties, noncash prizes or negotiated adjustments. The worksheet does not recommend a deal, strategy or real-money action.

Primary sources accessed 2026-09-05:
- https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/rules/ (section 8, reserve and reduced-payout context)
- https://www.pokerstars.com/help/articles/trn-deal-explanations/28392/ (continuation and agreement context)
- https://arxiv.org/html/2506.00180v1 (section II, ICM probability recursion)

Original code, data and diagram in this folder are offered under CC0-1.0 for reproducibility. External source material retains its original rights and is not redistributed here.