Pay Jump

Also known as: pay jumps, ladder jump, pay ladder

The increase in prize money between two adjacent finishing positions on the payout ladder.

A pay jump is the dollar gap between consecutive places — e.g. 9th pays $10,000 and 8th pays $13,500, a $3,500 jump. Pay jumps drive ICM pressure: the steeper the next jump relative to your stack, the more equity you protect by surviving and the higher your risk premium.

Jumps are tiny near the bubble (min-cash steps) but explode at the final table, where the top few spots hold most of the prize pool. This is why laddering one or two spots short-stacked can be worth more $EV than gambling for chips, and why covered medium stacks tighten while chip leaders attack.

Laddering is not always correct: when the next jump is small relative to first-place equity, you accumulate. The trade-off is purely an ICM calculation — compare the Dollar EV ($EV) of a marginal spot against the Chip EV (cEV) baseline.