[dom]

So, I'm in the process of designing some custom ceramics (original thread) for use in tournaments and cash games, and before I pull the trigger I wanted to vocalise my thoughts on chip breakdown and get you guys to poke holes in it.

Also, because this forum has started to change me into a horribly addicted person (shame on you all!) I'm considering a second set of chips (before I even have the first; what have I become?!) exclusively for cash games (mockups still to come).

So, without further ado, the breakdowns:

Mixed ceramic set:

I'm thinking a total of 500pc here, although I could be tempted to push it up to 600pc.

150 x T5
150 x T25
100 x T100
50 x T500
25 x T1000
25 X NCV

This totals T52,000 (not including NCVs). If I went to 600, I'd probably go for an extra 50 x T100, 25 x T1000, 25 x NCV. This would make the total T82,000.

The tournaments I plan to use this for will normally have upto 10 players (but I want to be able to support 15 max). They'll be T1000 to T2500, depending on number of players, rebuy/freezeout, and desired length.

Thus the starting stacks for 10 players would be:

15 x T5
13 x T25
6 x T100

This gives T1000. Larger starting stacks would be handled by giving out as many T500s as required.

For 15 players, I'd use:

10 x T5
10 x T25
7 x T100

I'd be 5 T100s short for this, so 1 person would get a T500 instead. Again, larger stacks would be handled with T500s.

The NCVs would mostly be used for things like bounty chips, or a second chance chip in double chance freezeouts.



For cash, I'd be using the T5 as a 5p chip, the T25 as a 25p chip, the T100 as a £1 chips, and so on. The total of the 500 chip breakdown would be £520, and £820 for the 600 chip breakdown. The game we normally play is £10 NLHE with 5p/10p blinds. I'm also hoping to get a regular game of £25 NLHE with 25p/25p blinds going. These would need to run at the same time, so the chipset should support both these games (until I get a second set purely for the larger cash game).

The £10 game should be able to run up to 10-handed, and the £25 game up to 6-handed (until the new set, which will allow for 8-handed comfortably and 10 at a stretch).

The stacks I'd be considering would be as follows (starting at the top and moving down, as more buyins are taken -- initial stacks are chip heavy to get as many out on the table as possible, subsequent players will need to make change from existing players):

£10:
5 stacks of: 30/14/5/0/0
5 stacks of: 0/0/5/1/0
5 stacks of: 0/0/0/2/0
10 stacks of: 0/0/0/0/1

£25:
4 stacks of: 0/20/10/2/0
1 stack of: 0/0/10/3/0
Further buyins and partial buyins using a mix of 500s and 1000s. A total of 13 full buyins would be available this way.

Nb: if we decide to go for 10p/25p blinds I would hand out a few NCV chips to each player to be worth 10p each.

Cash clay set:

I'm thinking 400 chips in the following breakdown would work best:

100 x 25p
150 x £1
150 x £5

This totals £925, which should be enough to play £25 NLHE (25p/25p) 10-handed, and £50 NLHE (25p/50p) 8-handed. The £10 game would continue to use the tournament set above, but would be able to be a little more generous with the T25s and T100s.



If you made it this far, congratulations! Do you have any comments for me?

[NoFear]

I can only comment on the T1000 tourney because we play that way all the time.

Thus the starting stacks for 10 players would be:

10 x T5
15 x T25
6 x T100

No need to keep more than 10 T5 and color up. It is a pain to have too many T5 around. IMO

[wijwij]

For your ceramic set, I am thinking you may want a few more 25, 100, and 500 chips, for flexbility in cash/tourney settings. I would recommend that you get at least 100 ND (non-denominated) chips too.

So I would vote for not getting any T1000 if you must keep your set to under 600 chips.

For example, a 600 chips set could be:

T5 x 150
T25 x 160
T100 x 120
T500 x 70
ND x 100

That lets you do the 15/13/6 tourney T1000 and gives you enough T25 to color up the T5 chips (that's why you bump that up from 150 to 160). You might also be able to do some T2000 or T2500 tourneys that didn't use T5 chips. For example:

12 x T25 + 7 x T100 + 3 x T500 = T2500

The ND chips could be used as T2500 chips if you wanted. Then you could do T5000 tourneys and use 2 ND chips as a rebuy.

12 x T25 + 12 x T100 + 7 x T500 = T5000

That's why I suggest 120 x T100 chips, rather than fewer.

If you want to use your ceramics for higher tourneys, then maybe you would consider the T1000, T5000, T25,000 route. But if your tourneys are under T5000, I doubt you'd need the T1000 chip. But I do recommend above having more T500s to use, since you'll need them to accomplish the larger starting stack tourneys, as shown above.

[However, since your gold T1000 chips is so beautiful, you might consider getting 20 T1000 for fun and just 80 ND chips, without affecting total chip set size.]

You can also use that ceramic set for your cash game with 10 or 25 pound buy-ins, and I'd say go ahead and have your 10 pound buy-in be just like the tourney in terms of its starting stack, rather than overloading the table with 5p chips:

15 x 5p + 13 x 25p + 6 x 1 = 10.00

By having a few more of the T100 chips, you could also have your 25 pound buy-ins like this for ten players:

10 x 5p + 10 x 25p + 12 x 1 + 2 x 5 = 25.00

I don't think it's necessary to give early buy-ins 30 5p chips. I'd just give the first 8-10 players a standard 15/13/6 buy-in or 10/14/6 buy-in or 10/10/7 buy-in.

In cash games, the ND chips could be used as 10p for a 10/25 blinds NL structure (25 pound buy-in), or as a 50p chip for [25p]/50p/100p limit games, where small blind would be 25p, small bets would be 50p chips and large bets would be 1.00 chips (30 pound buy-in).

12 x 25p + 10 x ND (50p) + 12 x 1.00 + 2 x 5.00 = 30.00 (limit)

I don't have comments on your clay cash-only set. Not sure you'd NEED a clay set if you get sufficient ceramics. But this is ChipTalk so that isn't really germane.

[dom]

Ok, you make a lot of good points there about my breakdown. And yes, I concede, I'll end up with a more versatile set if I go for 600 chips, and for the extra 15% cost, it would be a shame to not go for it. The question is, can I be tempted to go above this to improve my set further? Up to about 800 chips I think shipping is the same price thanks to the flat rate USPS box for Europe. So, I could potentially add another 200 chips for just the price of the chips (and import duty). As that famous playwright said, "I can resist everything except temptation."

One thing I hadn't really considered properly until reading your post was that a ND chip isn't really useful unless you have a lot of them. I had them in as a sort of token "this will make my set more flexible" thing without considering how I'd actually use them. Having 80-100 ND chips doesn't change much for tourneys as we're unlikely to get past the total chip values provided by the 100, 500 and 1000 (total 47k - 67k depending on if I take the 1000 chip), but it makes the set *way* more flexible for cash.

I can use it for micro limits when we play heads up in the evenings sometimes (as 1p), as the small blind in a £25 NLHE game (10p or 12.5p), as the small bet in a 50p-£1 limit game (50p), or as a large chip to puff up the value of the set in a £50+ game (£25 or £50).

So yes, I'll definitely get the 80 you suggest of these. I'll probably have to get the 20 token 1000s, because as you say, they're damned beautiful. That's the reason I had the token amount of them present in the first place.

I also like the slight increases you suggest to the 25s, 100s and 500s, in order to increase their flexibility up to 10-handed.

One thing I perhaps didn't make clear is that I'd like to run two simultaneous cash games off this set. One £10 game, and one £25 game (both NLHE). That's part of the reason I am considering a set of clays, with a second reason being that it allows more "secure" running of side games if the ceramics are in use in a tourney, and a third reason being that it would satisfy a craving! Expanding this set to 800 chips would of course eliminate that need for good--but would I rather be a little tight on chips for those evenings to have a justification (if a somewhat flimsy one) for another set?