The amount you can subtract from plain pot-odds required equity, on a clean covering all-in, once a bounty is added to the prize on offer: bounty chips / (pot + bounty chips).

When does the bounty adjustment apply?

Only to a clean covering all-in that would knock the opponent out on a loss — the bounty is only won by eliminating them. It does not apply to a bet that leaves either player with chips behind.

What if there is no bounty on the line?

A bounty of zero chips returns an equity drop of exactly zero, so the bounty-adjusted required equity equals plain pot odds unchanged.

Is this calculator free to use?

Yes. It runs entirely in your browser using the same maths engine as the rest of the site, with no sign-in and no limit on how many times you use it.

PKO Equity Drop Calculator

Work out how much a covering bounty lowers the equity you need to call profitably, on top of plain pot odds.

Plain required equity (%)

Bounty, in chips

Pot (chips)

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Why a bounty lowers your required equity

Ordinary pot odds tell you the equity a call needs to break even on chips alone: the amount you must call, divided by the pot after you call. In a PKO tournament that is only half the picture whenever the call is a clean covering all-in against a shorter stack — winning the hand does not just win the pot, it also wins the opponent’s bounty in cash, on top of the chips. A call that is a small loser on chip equity alone can still be a clear profit once that extra cash prize is added in, which is exactly why PKO players are willing to make calls a standard freezeout never would.

Equity drop measures that effect directly: it is the amount you can subtract from the plain pot-odds figure and still be calling profitably overall, once the bounty is converted into the same chip units as the pot and added to the prize on offer. The bigger the bounty relative to the pot, and the higher your plain required equity to begin with, the bigger the drop — a call that only just clears pot odds gets a much smaller boost from the same bounty than one that is already a heavy underdog on chips alone.

How to read the two numbers

The calculator above needs your plain required equity (from the Pot Odds Calculator, or worked out directly as bet divided by pot after calling), the bounty already converted into chips (from the Bounty Chip Value Calculator, since a raw dollar figure cannot be compared to a chip pot directly), and the pot itself. It returns the equity drop — your plain required equity scaled down by the bounty’s share of the combined pot-plus-bounty prize — and the bounty-adjusted required equity, which is simply the plain figure minus the drop, floored at zero so it never reports a negative requirement.

That adjusted figure is the number to compare against your actual estimated equity in the hand, in place of the plain pot-odds figure, whenever the call is a clean covering all-in that would knock the opponent out on a loss. It is not a replacement for pot odds; it is a correction on top of it, specific to the PKO format, that only applies when a bounty is genuinely in play.

How this is calculated

equity_drop = pot_odds × bounty_chips / (pot + bounty_chips); the bounty-adjusted required equity is (pot_odds − equity_drop).max(0.0). Bounty chips must already be in chip units — convert a cash bounty with the bounty chip value formula first. A bounty of zero chips is a valid input and returns a drop of exactly zero, so the adjusted figure equals plain pot odds unchanged.

Known omissions: this figure assumes a clean covering all-in, so it ignores partial coverage (a call that does not actually risk your opponent’s whole stack, or vice versa), own-head half-bounty splits, and any ICM interaction with the surrounding payout structure.

Worked equity drop examples

Example 1
A covering shove with a meaningful bounty attached
Plain pot odds require 30% equity, the bounty converts to 40 chips, and the pot is 200 chips: equity drop is 30% × 40 / (200 + 40) ≈ 5.0%, so the bounty-adjusted required equity falls to 30% − 5.0% = 25.0%. A call that looked marginal on raw pot odds is a clearer profit once the bounty is priced in.
Example 2
No bounty on the line
With bounty chips at 0, the equity drop is exactly 0% for any pot odds figure, so the bounty-adjusted required equity is identical to the plain pot odds number. The bounty term only ever lowers the bar, and it lowers it by nothing at all when there is nothing to collect.

Frequently asked questions

What is equity drop?: The amount you can subtract from plain pot-odds required equity, on a clean covering all-in, once a bounty is added to the prize on offer: bounty chips / (pot + bounty chips).
When does the bounty adjustment apply?: Only to a clean covering all-in that would knock the opponent out on a loss — the bounty is only won by eliminating them. It does not apply to a bet that leaves either player with chips behind.
What if there is no bounty on the line?: A bounty of zero chips returns an equity drop of exactly zero, so the bounty-adjusted required equity equals plain pot odds unchanged.
Is this calculator free to use?: Yes. It runs entirely in your browser using the same maths engine as the rest of the site, with no sign-in and no limit on how many times you use it.

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