[erikk]

OK so I'm an idiot. I got a 1255 piece set of pharaohs for a tournament set and cash game set at the same time. I host a 40 person tourney every few months and I start with t10,000 like the WSOP: 8 $25, 8 $100, 4 $500, 2 $1000 and 1 $5000. I was originally going to use $5 red chips as $5000's but since then I got 60 Egyptians plaques to use. So my breakdown is:

Blue - $.25 - 200
White - $1 - 100
Red - $5 - 75
Green - $25 - 320
Black - $100 - 320
Purple - $500 - 160
Orange - $1000 - 80
Plaque - $5000 - 60

So I have the exact starting stacks for all 40 players, 20 extra $5000 plaques and a cash game set made of $.25, $1 and $5 that can play for $525 in cash (that's a little weak also, I realize that).

So how am I an idiot? Anyone see it coming? Ok, how do I color up? I only got enough chips to exactly buy in everyone and then 20 extra plaques and the plaques really aren't any help coloring in $25 chips. And without coloring up the greens I really don't have enough cash chips to handle the side cash game; with the greens I'm fine there tho.

So I think these are my options:

blow the wad: buy 80 more $100 blacks to color up the $25 greens directly AND buy 80 more $500 purples to color up the $100 blacks; plus buy 200 more $1 whites and 25 more $5 reds
middle ground nice: buy 80 more $500 purples to color up both the $25 greens and $100 blacks (requires making change with the big stacks); buy 100 more $1 whites and 25 more $5 reds
middle ground cheap: buy 80 more $500 purples to color up both the $25 greens and $100 blacks (requires making change with the big stacks)
be a cheapskate: don't buy anything, wait until we've got huge stacks and color up by making a lot of change with the big stacks

So what does anyone think? Which would you do? Any other alternatives I might have overlooked? Buying 40 $1000's to do the color-ups? Something else like that (40 $500's and 20 $1000's)?