[BrettButter]

I just purchased a new set of chips to be used in tournaments, but am having a little trouble with exactly how I want the blinds to go. This used to be my structure:

T1000 tournament

Red = 5, 10 per player = 50
White = 10, 10 per player = 100
Green = 25, 10 per player = 250
Blue = 50, 6 per player = 300
Black = 100, 3 per player = 300

Blinds up every 20 minutes, starting at 5/10, 10/20, 15/30, 20/40, 25/50, 30/60, 40/80, 50/100

The new chips I bought are WSOP replicas, and I wanted to keep a similar structure, while also having like a mini-WSOP tournament. In trying to keep pace with what our usual game was, I think I may have over-bought on "25" chips. I see a lot of tournaments where people start with like 20-30 actual chips per person, and I don't like the idea of cutting it down that much, since my friends all seem to like playing with chips a lot. Here is the tournament set up:

T10000 tournament

25, 20 per player = 500
100, 15 per player = 1500
500, 10 per player = 5000
1000, 3 per player = 3000

I'd like to keep the blinds up every 20 minutes, but the thing I am struggling with is the "25" chips. How long should I keep them in play? Normally, we don't chip up the red 5s until blinds get to about 50/100 and we want to speed up the game, in the old structure. I got extra of the 25s due to lack of 50 denomination chips, and I want to put them in good use. Should I go straight from 25/50 - 50/100 - 100/200, or throw a 75/150 in the middle? Same thing one more up, go from 100/200 - 200/400, or stop with a 150/300 in the middle? Since I have the most "25" chips, I want to keep them in play for a while, and make sure that they're used, but I don't want them to be in the way either.

Any help is appreciated, and please, be brutally honest

[wijwij]

I understand the impulse to "keep all your chips in play" -- and to make use of the various colors you have. But the reality is that people are used to the idea that they will start out with a lot of the smallest-value chip (25s in your case), but after 3 or 4 blind levels, these will be colored off the table. No need to keep them around after they are needed.

Here's where you get to decide just how many levels you want to keep them.

Some tourneys go: 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, 200-400 ... right away. For a tourney like that, you'd only use for 2 levels.

Consider instead: 25-50, 50-100, 75-150, 100-200, 150-300, 200-400, ... and color up the 25s after 5 levels.

Another option for T2500 or T3000 tourneys is to start with 25-25 as a first level.

Yet another option is to use the T25 chips as ante chips for later levels.

Honestly, having so many chips on the table in the later levels will just make it harder to count all-ins. Coloring up is mostly for efficiency. Along these lines, you may want to try less than T10,000 tourneys and only give out green, black, and purple, saving your T1000 or higher for effect later on.

[A-Ro]

Originally Posted by BrettButter

T10000 tournament

25, 20 per player = 500
100, 15 per player = 1500
500, 10 per player = 5000
1000, 3 per player = 3000

I'd like to keep the blinds up every 20 minutes, but the thing I am struggling with is the "25" chips. How long should I keep them in play? Normally, we don't chip up the red 5s until blinds get to about 50/100 and we want to speed up the game, in the old structure. I got extra of the 25s due to lack of 50 denomination chips, and I want to put them in good use. Should I go straight from 25/50 - 50/100 - 100/200, or throw a 75/150 in the middle? Same thing one more up, go from 100/200 - 200/400, or stop with a 150/300 in the middle? Since I have the most "25" chips, I want to keep them in play for a while, and make sure that they're used, but I don't want them to be in the way either.

Any help is appreciated, and please, be brutally honest

You could start the blinds at:

25/25
25/50
50/100

Then color up after 1 hour....I don't even use 25's in my t10,000 game (I start blinds at 100/100 which still gives everyone 100 times the big blind). Everyone get's:

15 $100
9 $500
4 $1000

[BrettButter]

Thank you both for your opinions and help.

The only reason I got so many 25s, was the lack of a 50 chip. Also, the most players we've ever had for a tournament at my house is 10 people, with maybe 3 rebuys. I have some extra 1000 and 5000 chips for chip ups, but I have so many of the 25 chips I just hate to take them off the table after only 3 levels. I love having lots of chips in front of me, even if the value is a little lower. This looks like what I am going to go with for right now:

Old (blinds up every 20 mins) New (blinds up every 15 mins)

5-10-------25-50
10-20------50-100
15-30------75-150
20-40------100-200
25-50------150-300
30-60------200-400
40-80------250-500
50-100-----300-600
--------- 400-800
--------- 500-1000

Our blinds don't usually get past 50-100 in a 10-man game, but when they do we speed them up to 75-150, 100-200, etc. The same will go for this one, from 500-1000 to 600/1200 to 800/1600 to 1000/2000.
-------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully this encourages more play in the early levels from everyone. As far as chipping up, I still like the idea of having the chips on the table for a while, and I can't imagine it being too much more of a hassle than the "5" red chips were in my old setup. Lots of times we went entire tournaments without eliminating them, and actually we end up splitting towards the end anyway. If I need to get them out, I'm looking at after level 7 for right now.

A-Ro, I just don't like the idea of starting with so few chips in front of you. The guys I play with are kind of stubborn in their ways, and it took me long enough to even convince them that it was okay for me to switch my chips. I am most likely going to keep the starting stacks how I have them, until I can make an alteration to how many I have of each chip.

Thanks again for the help guys!

[BrettButter]

I looked back over it, and realized that I'm stupid. I have a bunch of extra 25s, and I need to deal with it. Oh well. I've changed it to this:

T10,000 - 25 x 12, 100 x 12, 500 x 9, 1000 x 4 (Thanks to Matthew for the starting breakdown, borrowed from another thread where you suggested it) - 37 starting chips, our old tournies had 39 starting (10, 10, 10, 6, 3)

Blinds up every 20 minutes still

25/50
50/100
100/200
150/300
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000

Like I said, the tournaments usually have 10 people. With the chips available to me, I can make 11 starting stacks with this breakdown. I'll have 68 extra 25 chips, 18 extra 100 chips, 1 extra 500 chip, 6 extra 1000 chips, and my 25 5000 chips (2 used for a re-buy, general chipping up when we get really late in tournaments) - so it looks like I may want to get an extra 25 of 100s, 500s, and 100s just to be safe somewhere down the road, and I'm stuck with some 25s.

I think I like how this turned out now.

[the3rd]

If you want to keep the T25s in play you can always add an ante to a T10,000 game.

[PinataUT]

Is it worth the hassle of everyone posting if the main reason is to keep the extra chips in play? Will the ante impact play since there are more chips in there? Do you care?

Good idea, but not sure if it is worth the hassle.

I grok the 'too many chips' because I have 4 racks of '50' chips in plain red and haven't come up with a structure that uses them well.

Sigh.

[Jambine]

Originally Posted by BrettButter

I just purchased a new set of chips.......Any help is appreciated, and please, be brutally honest

There is a lot of good (general) advice so far, but maybe I missed something. Two critical questions:

How many chips do you have?
How many players?

[BrettButter]

I put the structure above in play last night and it worked out pretty well. I have 45 of the 25 chips that will never see play, but I have to live with that I guess.

Usually 7-10 players.

25 x 200
100 x 150
500 x 100
1000 x 50
5000 x 25 (they were pretty, not very useful unless it's very late in a tourney, we busted out 3 of them last night)

I chipped up the 25s after a while, but they still saw a lot of play.

I have enough chips to support 11 starting stacks right now of 25 x 12, 100 x 12, 500 x 9, 1000 x 4. I'm hoping to be able to trade my extra 25s for some 100s/500s.

[Jambine]

Originally Posted by BrettButter

......I have enough chips to support 11 starting stacks right now of 25 x 12, 100 x 12, 500 x 9, 1000 x 4. I'm hoping to be able to trade my extra 25s for some 100s/500s.

Actually, you can use those $25’s.

Your distribution above (25 x 12, 100 x 12, 500 x 9, 1000 x 4) assuming 10 players that leaves you short to color up the $500’s and $1,000’s.

You have enough chips to go with this distribution (25 x 20, 100 x 10, 500 x 5, 1000 x 1, 5000 x 1) and color up all the way through