Breakdown Advice: 40 Player Pharaoh's Tournament

[Big Jilm]

I already have 1000+ China Clay Pharaoh's chips (and it is NOT enough!!). I was curious what you guys thought of # of chips/denoms to support a 40 player tournament with appropriate chip ups (we will race for this). We would use $25, $100, $500, $1K, and $5K chips plus the $25K plaques ($5K and $25K for chipping up only). I like the following starting stacks with 20 minute rounds for a 4 to 5 hour tournament with starting blinds of $25/$50 (M would be calculated to make the tourney last 5 hours max):

#16 $25 (This would be #640 for the set)
#16 $100
#4 $500
#2 $1000

I can do the math for the most part, but it seems to me that it would be better to have more of the high denoms versus buying enough chips to chip up every chip denom below it (ie. buying #800 $100's to support the starting stacks plus chipping up for the $25's)
Please let me know what you think about total quantities of each denom to support such a tournament, thanks in advance!!

James

[DarPodo]

When I joined ChipTalk I had a similar situation. I was hosting a bachelor party tourny with 40 people expected to play and wanted to know what chips to buy and how many. I ended up with 1,000 china clay desert palms.

Starting stacks of
8x25
8x100
4x500
2x1000
1x5000

10,000 starting stack, 25-50 blinds to start. I know many people might complain about the small amount of chips given out, but I didn't experience any problems with people making change.

What is your 1,000 chip set breakdown?

[Big Jilm]

My current breakdown is a 1124pc set (plus a 300pc high roller set with 40 plaques) as follows:

#312 $25
#443 $100
#220 $500
#96 $1000 (plus #200 in high roller set totaling 296)
#13 $5000 (plus #100 in high roller set totaling 113)
#24 NCV plaques (high roller set used as 10K)
#16 $25K plaques (high roller set)

Thanks for the reply.

[jldecarlo]

For large tournaments, I recommend (for a T10,000) setup:

8 x T25
8 x T100
6 x T500
6 x T1000

Also get enough T5000 chips to color up all the chips. By that, I mean 80 x T5000 for 40 players.

You really don't need any extra chips to color up. When you want to color up the T25 chips, take a single T5000 chip to the table and buy 5K of chips from the chip leader (including all of the T25 chips). Use these chips to buy the remaining T25 chips from the other players. Alternatively, you can have the chip leader buy all the T25 chips from all the other players and then buy the 5K chips from him, including all of the chips to be colored up. This may sound confusing, but it works very well in practice. So no extra chips smaller than T5K.

L

[albie]

16/16/4/2 is a weird looking starting stack & T6000 is a strange size tourny. Is there a particular reason you like this set-up?

Clearly you like a lot of chips on the table; a more standard way of achieving that would be
12/12/7/5 (T10000)

You'd need
T25 x 480 (500)
T100 x 480 (500)
T500 x 280 (300)
T1000 x 200
T5000 x 80 (100)

2100 chips. This would cover a 6 table tourny with 8/8/4/2/1 (10 players get 8/8/2/3/1).

If you wanted to get the set into 2 carriers (at the expense of clean racks)

12/12/5/6
480/480/200/240/100

colour up how jldecarlo said.

[Krafticus]

My current tournament set is as follows:
440 x T25
460 x T100
300 x T500
400 x T1000
100 x T5000

I just hosted a 43 person tournament a few weeks back, and had no issues.

I started half (21 people) with starting stacks of 12/12/3/7 and the other half with 8/8/4/7. This put plenty of the lower denominations on the table for change.

I personally HATE starting a T10k stack with a 5k chip. I mean, half of your stack value is contained in 1 chip. As soon as it goes in (and if the person has no 25/100 chips), making change can be brutal.

Even with 10k stacks and 43 players, I have no need for a T25,000 chip. Heads up, I had 30 T5k in play and just under 300 T1000 in play.

Total chips needed: ~ 1600 total.
Agreed though, 80 x T5000 would be the most you need to cover the table.

Mark

[Big Jilm]

Thanks guys for chiming in. So, this might clear things up a bit....we HATE making change. The reason I like 16/16/4/2, is that we almost never have to make change. In addition, it gives those 25's and 100's more value in relation to the rest of the starting stack for those early rounds. It makes us feel like those chips are actually worth something. These stacks are for ~18 player tourneys at just 3 to 4 hours. Players that don't make a deep run in the tournament get a chance to actually play before they get knocked out and feel like they got a good chance to at least have some fun. I feel that with just 8 each of the 25's and 100's people may complain about not having enough chips and not have as much fun, which I feel may affect my tournament turnout.
I can see doing a 12/12/7/5 T10,000 for 40 players and just increase the blinds such that M<10 at about 4 hours. I think that will work!! Thanks guys!

[GameShaman]

If you like deep starting stacks where you won't have to make change, I would recommend getting 2000 chips with this breakdown:

800 - $25
800 - $100
200 - $500
100 - $1000
50 - $5000
50 - $10000

Have everyone start with:

20 x 25 = 500
20 x 100 = 2000
3 x 500 = 1500
1 x 1000 = 1000
1 x 5000 = 5000

Here is the breakdown of chips in play after each color up:

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 120 160 200 0 0
1000: 40 40 100 100 0
5000: 40 40 40 50 50
10000: 0 0 0 5 15

If you want other options with starting stacks of 3000/5000/10000 for players from 40-60 using the chip set mentioned above, these work out well (obviously less than 40 can use the 40 starting stacks):

40 person - 3000 chip
===========================
20 x 25 = 500
20 x 100 = 2000
1 x 500 = 500

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 40 80 200 0 0
1000: 0 0 20 100 0
5000: 0 0 0 4 24
10000: 0 0 0 0 0


50 person - 3000 chip
===========================
16 x 25 = 400
16 x 100 = 1600
2 x 500 = 1000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 100 140 200 0 0
1000: 0 0 50 100 0
5000: 0 0 0 10 30
10000: 0 0 0 0 0


60 person - 3000 chip
===========================
12 x 25 = 300
12 x 100 = 1200
3 x 500 = 1500


25: 720 0 0 0 0
100: 720 800 0 0 0
500: 180 200 200 0 0
1000: 0 0 80 100 0
5000: 0 0 0 16 36
10000: 0 0 0 0 0


40 person - 5000 chip
===========================
20 x 25 = 500
20 x 100 = 2000
3 x 500 = 1500
1 x 1000 = 1000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 120 160 200 0 0
1000: 40 40 100 100 0
5000: 0 0 0 20 40
10000: 0 0 0 0 0


50 person - 5000 chip
===========================
16 x 25 = 400
16 x 100 = 1600
4 x 500 = 2000
1 x 1000 = 1000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 200 200 200 0 0
1000: 50 70 100 100 0
5000: 0 0 10 30 50
10000: 0 0 0 0 0


60 person - 5000 chip
===========================
12-16 x 25 = 300-400
12-16 x 100 = 1200-1600
3-4 x 500 = 1500-2000
1-2 x 1000 = 1000-2000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 200 200 200 0 0
1000: 100 100 100 100 0
5000: 0 4 20 40 50
10000: 0 0 0 0 5


40 person - 10000 chip
===========================
20 x 25 = 500
20 x 100 = 2000
3 x 500 = 1500
1 x 1000 = 1000
1 x 5000 = 5000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 120 160 200 0 0
1000: 40 40 100 100 0
5000: 40 40 40 50 50
10000: 0 0 0 5 15


50 person - 10000 chip
===========================
16 x 25 = 400
16 x 100 = 1600
2 x 500 = 1000
2 x 1000 = 2000
1 x 5000 = 5000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 100 140 200 0 0
1000: 100 100 100 100 0
5000: 50 50 50 50 50
10000: 0 0 5 15 25


55 person - 10000 chip
===========================
50 stacks:
16 x 25 = 400
16 x 100 = 1600
2 x 500 = 1000
2 x 1000 = 2000
1 x 5000 = 5000
5 stacks:
20 x 500 = 10000

25: 800 0 0 0 0
100: 800 800 0 0 0
500: 200 200 200 0 0
1000: 100 100 100 100 0
5000: 50 50 50 50 50
10000: 0 2 10 20 30


Hope that helps.

~Jeff

[BPTDirector]

I've always done 8/8/6/6 for T10k and we rarely have to make change. But lately I've done 12/12/X/X for different sized stacks because my crowd has dwindled and I still have all the chips from when the game was bigger.

My main reason for 8/8/6/6 is that I buy chips that run at least $1.50 each for my custom ASM set and still have a 30 player tournament to supply chips for. If they were .32 or .35 each(not reality based wish here) instead then I'd love to go the 20/20/x/x route.

BPT