[Rando]

Okay, I know I've posted something similar to this before.... But I've not yet purchased, and have continued to think and debate how to best put together a decently flexible set of chips.

I'm thinking I'd like to keep costs a little on the low side as this is my first foray into buying "good" chips instead of just using cheap dice junkers. 650 is my target number for this set. There's a few things I'm trying to do with this set, and perhaps I"m trying to squeeze too much use out of it......

Up until recently my group of players has been a predominately tourney style of gaming group. We'd generally be playing 6-8 player sit'n'go style games. Though sometimes we'd end up playing with as many as 18 or 20 players. We've recently started playing ring/cash games, and a good portion of our group are enjoying very much (we are hoping the others come around eventually). I'd like to build a set that can accomodate both tourney and ring games if possible. I'd also like to be able to accomodate ring games at a small limit, and a slightly less small limit. I would like to be able to run both a .10/.20 game and a .25/.50 game with the same set of chips (up to 10 players in either game). And also be able to do a tourney style game with as many as 10 players as well.

Here is the breakdown I set myself for things so far:

Small Cash Game (.10/.20 - as many as 10 players)
White ($ .10) X 10 = $1.00
Red ($ .25) X 8 = $2.00
Blue ($1) X 7 = $7.00

This puts the minimum buyin at $10.00 (giving everyone at least 50 times the big blind - should be enough time for people to be patient if they are catching bad cards intially)

Less-Small Cash Game (.25/.50 - as many as 10 players)
Red ($ .25) X 20 = $5.00
Blue ($1) X 20 = $20.00

This again puts the minimum buyin at 50 times the big blind and is good for the same reasons.

With the above two games, I would *need* 100 whites, 200 reds, and 200 blues in my set. I would flesh out the set to a bigger size to allow for people to rebuy/buyin for higher.

Attempting to add a tourney structure to this kinda trips me up a tiny bit, i'm not completely sure that I'm approaching it with the best design in mind.

Here is what I kind of came to as far as a tourney structure (again, up to 10 players):
Blue ($1) X 20 = $20
Green ($5) X 6 = $30
Black ($20) X 5 = $100

This would put each player at $150 in chips. Below are the blinds that I had intended to use for this:

1/2 ( 500 )
2/4 ( 250 )
3/6 ( 166 )
5/10 ( 100 )
8/16 ( 62 )
15/30 ( 33 )
25/50 ( 20 )
40/80 ( 12 )
60/120 ( 8 )

I've placed the tM values behind each level in brackets (assuming 10 players) Would levels of 20 minutes be too fast for a table with 9 or 10 players? I've tried to even out the blinds a fair bit as they increase, the only time there is a 100% increase is on the first->second level. After that the highest jump is 87% and the lowest in the whole range is 50% (which occurs twice)


Now, looking at all three scenarios above, that puts my "required" chips at 100 whites, 200 reds, 200 blues, 60 greens, and 50 blacks. That's 610 chips. If I total up the values it puts me at $1560 (which leaves me LOTS of room to run a bigger cash game down the road, and also leaves me lots of room for cash games at my current levels to get ridiculous if people decide to play like maniacs). seems to me that buying an extra 40 greens ($5 chips) would round out the set nicely, and would boost my $1560 to $1760.

I apologize for the long long post, and thank you all for reading this far. Is this a near to ideal set of structures I'm looking at here? Or can anyone see a better way to accomodate a .10/.20 & .25/.50 & tourney style game with 650 chips? How does the blind strcutre look? I'm all for a different structure on the blinds (or any of this really). Suggestions?

[wijwij]

Of course if you think it is ideal, maybe it is ideal for you.

I have some ideas for feedback, though. First of all, Matthew has a post in which he suggests a limited chip set that can function as .25-1.00-5.00-10.00 or T25-T100-T500-T1000 and it may be fruitful to look at that.

Another thing I notice is that even with your current set, it will be difficult to color up or offer rebuys at the tournament, since all your highest level chips (green and black) are in play at the beginning.

It sounds like your planned 610 chip set involves 5 colors, and the denominations you propose are slightly non-standard:

100 x white (.10)
200 x red (.25)
200 x blue (1.00)
60 x green (5.00)
50 x black (20.00)

It seems like you are willing to use non-standard colors and denominations. If that is the case, then you might argue that you can play a .10/.20 game and a .25/.50 with the same chips, just making the unit chip have a different value! See suggestion at bottom of this post.

You are willing to have unusual tournament amounts too. Blind schedule looks feasible if you do intend to have a T150 tournament. Some might suggest a more standard tourney amount, but that will require different chips.

I'm not certain, but you breakdown for the .10/.20 game suggests you will be using .10, .25, and 1.00 chips. Maybe you are thinking of a .10/.25 game. Another approach would be to use .10 and .50 chips for a .10/.20 game. I have posted elsewhere about using white-red-green as .10, .50, 2.50 and how it can work. It plays like a 1-2 game but is worth .10-.20. See below for details.

------ suggestion ---------

I guess my first suggestion would be that you find chips you like to use as .25, 1.00, and 5.00 (whether denominated or not). Then I would suggest you get one other kind of chip as either your lowest in your low games (.10 in .10/.25 game) or highest chip in your higher games (something greater than $5, such as $10 or $20). The same chip might function in both roles.

Just suppose you chose orange for your flexible chip. Rest might be standard tourney colors.

[orange = 10]
green = 25
black = 100
purple = 500
[orange = 1000]

For .10/.25, I'd say a buy-in should be more than 50 bb. Try a $20 or $25 buy-in. Starting stacks could be 10O + 12G + 16K = $20. You would want to use purple chips for rebuys. The orange would never be used as $10 chips in that game.

For .25/.25, you could try 12G + 12K + 2P = $25.

For .25/.50, you'd put more 1.00 chips in play. Maybe 12G + 17K + 4P = $40.

So you might need something like

100 orange
120 green
200 black
80 purple

That's only 500 chips and is still quite a usable set. If you want more quarters, that would add action to some games. The following might be more ample at 550 chips:

100 orange
150 green
200 black
100 purple

For tourneys, you would use these chips as T25, T100, T500. Could do tourneys like T2500, T5000, T10000. To make rebuys or do the larger tourneys, the orange chp would become T1000.

I know other people have lots of ideas about the exact breakdown of a four color chip set.

------ another option -------

If you do prefer to go for the non-tourney colors, then you might consider something like a generic casino-color set:

white = 1 unit
red = 5 units
green = 25 units
black = 100 units

You can use a chip set with those colors, and then just adjust the amounts to whatever your buy-ins are. For example, if you want to play 5c/10c game, let 1 unit = nickel. Forget telling people that reds are quarters and greens are $1.25. Just cash it out correctly. To play a 10c/20c game, let 1 unit = dime. To play 25c/50c, let 1 unit = quarter. All those games would be small blind = 1 white, big blind = 2 whites. I don't think blue chips (10 units) would strictly be necessary.

If you go with a set like that, then it would be natural to consider a T200 tournament. I've done this with 10W + 8R + 6G as starting stacks, and using 2K as rebuys. For larger starting stacks you could go for 15W + 12R + 5G or even 20W + 16R + 4G to each person. Blinds would be very similar to your idea, starting at T1/T2.

As far as chip amounts, you'd want to be able to have people buy-in for 100 big blinds, or 200 "units" so the T200 tourney buy-ins give you some guidance. You'd have to decide if you like the bigger or smaller stacks, and how much you want for rebuys (2 black chips per rebuy).

bigger stacks (20W+16R+4G)

200 whites
200 red
80 green (minimum)
20 black (minimum -- only one rebuy)

smaller stacks (15W+12R+5G)

150 whites
150 red
80 green (minimum)
20 black (minimum -- only one rebuy)

Increasing the number of green and black chips would add value to the chip set and increase the number of rebuys, so something like this could work:

150 whites
150 red
100 green
50 black

I know many people here prefer that cash games use chips that represent specific coins and bills, but I think the above method also works fine. Just call the chips 1-5-25-100 while playing. Then cash them out appropriately to the scale of the game.

So this has given you at least two options that require only 4 chip colors and still give you some possible chip sets well under 650 chips that could work for 10 players.

[Big Mike]

That's some nice work wijwij!
But really, why not just get two sets??? Make one of them Faux Clay for cost effectiveness!

[Rando]

Originally Posted by wijwij

Of course if you think it is ideal, maybe it is ideal for you.

I have some ideas for feedback, though. First of all, Matthew has a post in which he suggests a limited chip set that can function as .25-1.00-5.00-10.00 or T25-T100-T500-T1000 and it may be fruitful to look at that.

Another thing I notice is that even with your current set, it will be difficult to color up or offer rebuys at the tournament, since all your highest level chips (green and black) are in play at the beginning.

It sounds like your planned 610 chip set involves 5 colors, and the denominations you propose are slightly non-standard:

100 x white (.10)
200 x red (.25)
200 x blue (1.00)
60 x green (5.00)
50 x black (20.00)

It seems like you are willing to use non-standard colors and denominations. If that is the case, then you might argue that you can play a .10/.20 game and a .25/.50 with the same chips, just making the unit chip have a different value! See suggestion at bottom of this post.

You are willing to have unusual tournament amounts too. Blind schedule looks feasible if you do intend to have a T150 tournament. Some might suggest a more standard tourney amount, but that will require different chips.

I'm not certain, but you breakdown for the .10/.20 game suggests you will be using .10, .25, and 1.00 chips. Maybe you are thinking of a .10/.25 game. Another approach would be to use .10 and .50 chips for a .10/.20 game. I have posted elsewhere about using white-red-green as .10, .50, 2.50 and how it can work. It plays like a 1-2 game but is worth .10-.20. See below for details.

------ suggestion ---------

I guess my first suggestion would be that you find chips you like to use as .25, 1.00, and 5.00 (whether denominated or not). Then I would suggest you get one other kind of chip as either your lowest in your low games (.10 in .10/.25 game) or highest chip in your higher games (something greater than $5, such as $10 or $20). The same chip might function in both roles.

Just suppose you chose orange for your flexible chip. Rest might be standard tourney colors.

[orange = 10]
green = 25
black = 100
purple = 500
[orange = 1000]

For .10/.25, I'd say a buy-in should be more than 50 bb. Try a $20 or $25 buy-in. Starting stacks could be 10O + 12G + 16K = $20. You would want to use purple chips for rebuys. The orange would never be used as $10 chips in that game.

For .25/.25, you could try 12G + 12K + 2P = $25.

For .25/.50, you'd put more 1.00 chips in play. Maybe 12G + 17K + 4P = $40.

So you might need something like

100 orange
120 green
200 black
80 purple

That's only 500 chips and is still quite a usable set. If you want more quarters, that would add action to some games. The following might be more ample at 550 chips:

100 orange
150 green
200 black
100 purple

For tourneys, you would use these chips as T25, T100, T500. Could do tourneys like T2500, T5000, T10000. To make rebuys or do the larger tourneys, the orange chp would become T1000.

I know other people have lots of ideas about the exact breakdown of a four color chip set.

------ another option -------

If you do prefer to go for the non-tourney colors, then you might consider something like a generic casino-color set:

white = 1 unit
red = 5 units
green = 25 units
black = 100 units

You can use a chip set with those colors, and then just adjust the amounts to whatever your buy-ins are. For example, if you want to play 5c/10c game, let 1 unit = nickel. Forget telling people that reds are quarters and greens are $1.25. Just cash it out correctly. To play a 10c/20c game, let 1 unit = dime. To play 25c/50c, let 1 unit = quarter. All those games would be small blind = 1 white, big blind = 2 whites. I don't think blue chips (10 units) would strictly be necessary.

If you go with a set like that, then it would be natural to consider a T200 tournament. I've done this with 10W + 8R + 6G as starting stacks, and using 2K as rebuys. For larger starting stacks you could go for 15W + 12R + 5G or even 20W + 16R + 4G to each person. Blinds would be very similar to your idea, starting at T1/T2.

As far as chip amounts, you'd want to be able to have people buy-in for 100 big blinds, or 200 "units" so the T200 tourney buy-ins give you some guidance. You'd have to decide if you like the bigger or smaller stacks, and how much you want for rebuys (2 black chips per rebuy).

bigger stacks (20W+16R+4G)

200 whites
200 red
80 green (minimum)
20 black (minimum -- only one rebuy)

smaller stacks (15W+12R+5G)

150 whites
150 red
80 green (minimum)
20 black (minimum -- only one rebuy)

Increasing the number of green and black chips would add value to the chip set and increase the number of rebuys, so something like this could work:

150 whites
150 red
100 green
50 black

I know many people here prefer that cash games use chips that represent specific coins and bills, but I think the above method also works fine. Just call the chips 1-5-25-100 while playing. Then cash them out appropriately to the scale of the game.

So this has given you at least two options that require only 4 chip colors and still give you some possible chip sets well under 650 chips that could work for 10 players.

Thank you for the lengthy reply (i'm not being sarcastic - i'd rather have more info/options/suggestions than less). I will have to re-read it later, it's early in the day and I've had only 1.5 cups of coffee so far, so I'm not quite clear in the head yet. I will certainly give your advice a closer look and see if your suggestions will fit with my vision - hopefully they will!

Originally Posted by Big Mike

That's some nice work wijwij!
But really, why not just get two sets??? Make one of them Faux Clay for cost effectiveness!

Well, I was hoping for the first set to be cheap anyways, This is what I was eyeing up.

Discount Casino Gear - 650 13 gm Pro Clay Casino Chips w/ Aluminum Case - www.DiscountCasinoGear.com

Perhaps looking to squeeze this much use out of one set is asking too much and I should look at buying one "good" set (these pro clays) and just continue using my plastic dice chips for my other games. I'd just need to decide if I want to use the new chips for cash, or for tourney play.

I can't dish out too much money in one shot here, I'm due to get married in a couple weeks and will have to balance my "poker spending" with "other expenses" or I'll end up feeling the wrath of the soon-to-be wife.

On a side note, does anyone know a good place to order from for someone in Canada? If I can avoid ordering through the states it's going to make my order quicker, and cheaper too (assuming prices are competitive).

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by Rando

On a side note, does anyone know a good place to order from for someone in Canada? If I can avoid ordering through the states it's going to make my order quicker, and cheaper too (assuming prices are competitive).

Check out straightflush.ca, they are great to deal with.
Prices are higher than discountcasinogear, depending on how large your order is it can actually be cheaper to order from the states even after exchange and UPS brokerage/shipping.
Where are you in Canada? The best thing to do is have someone just over the border who will accept delivery for you and bring them over themselves.

[Rando]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

Check out straightflush.ca, they are great to deal with.
Prices are higher than discountcasinogear, depending on how large your order is it can actually be cheaper to order from the states even after exchange and UPS brokerage/shipping.
Where are you in Canada? The best thing to do is have someone just over the border who will accept delivery for you and bring them over themselves.

I'm in Winnipeg (approx 2 hours north of the Border). I do potentially have someone just on the other side that I could order through/to.

I'll poke around on straightflush and see what they have that I might be interested in. Even if it's a tiny bit more expensive, it might just be worth it anyways due to a smoother transaction and what would likely be faster shipping. Now I just need to decide for certain what I'm going to order =)

[Big Mike]

In order to avoid brokerage and save shipping I've had stuff sent to Washington D.C. (8 hours away) and then just waited till my cousins or my aunt were coming up to Canada to visit.
I just really hate UPS brokerage.

[Rando]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

In order to avoid brokerage and save shipping I've had stuff sent to Washington D.C. (8 hours away) and then just waited till my cousins or my aunt were coming up to Canada to visit.
I just really hate UPS brokerage.

How much can I expect to pay? Is it percentage based, or flatrate? I've not done much ordering from the states in the past......

[dad604]

There is no duty on chips just GST/PST but if you use UPS, they do rip you off on the brokerage charge. On a NJ skull set worth $179, they charge me about $50 brokerage and GST/PST was on top of that. If you can get them to send via postal service, then handling charge from Canada Post is flat $5 plus GST/PST.