Settlement Calculator

How to Settle a Cash Game

At the end of a cash game, each player has a result: the value of the final chips less what the player put in. Settle the results in five steps.

1. Count the Chips

   Count the chips of each player before anybody leaves the table. If the chips have a value in money, type the value of one chip. The calculator then gives the money for each stack.

2. Check the Chips Against the Money

   Calculate the total money that the players put in: each buy-in and each rebuy. The chips on the table must have the same value.

   If the two totals are not the same, find the cause before anybody pays. Often a rebuy is not on the list, or a stack has the wrong count.

3. Check the Sum of the Results

   In a cash game, the money moves only between the players. The players who are up have the money that the players who are down lost. So the sum of all the results is zero. If it is not zero, a figure is wrong.

4. Use the Fewest Payments

   The player with the largest debt pays the player with the largest credit. Then do the same again with the amounts that are left. This never needs more payments than the number of players less one.

   The calculator also looks for small groups of players whose results make zero together. Each group settles on its own, and this saves payments.

   Through the Bank, one player collects from each player who is down and pays each player who is up. This can need more payments, but each player pays or gets money from one person only.

5. Pay Before the Players Leave

   Make all the payments before the players go home. A payment that waits until the next game is a payment that people can forget.