[Matthew]

Introduction

I wanted to write a follow up article to the original “Advice on Chip Colors and Breakdowns for Home Games” published on chiptalk.net back in October of 2005.

This article is meant to specifically address single table games with no more than ten players. I want to explore two scenarios, a $20 buy-in cash game using 25¢-50¢ blinds and a T5000 tournament with a single re-buy or add-on. This article is meant as advice, and approaches chip denomination amounts in a logical way. My intent is to optimize a set of 400 chips that can be used in a $20 buy in cash game and another to be used as a T5000 tournament. If you have more chips available, by all means use them.

Tournament

I am using a T5000 tournament structure for the example in this article as it can be scaled up or down for the readers use. Again, this recommendation will be for a single table tournament of up to ten players with chips available for one rebuy or add-on per player. Alternatively, this can be a T10,000 freeze out. In this structure I am assuming T25-T50 blinds to begin. Therefore, a T25 chip will be your lowest denomination and the progression will be T25-T100-T500-T1000. Recommended starting stacks are 12 x T25, 12 x T100, 5 x T500 and 1 x T1000.

The T25 chip will only be used in the initial rounds and will be colored up as it becomes unnecessary. For ten players enough T25s to cover the starting stacks is all that is required. The recommendation for the T25 chip is 120 chips total. The value of all the T25 chips is T3000.

The T100 chips will be around longer in the tournament but will also most likely be colored up and removed from play. To cover the starting stacks, 120 chips will be required. Please note, when the T25 chips are colored up, six T500 chip will need to be introduced since all of the T100s will already be in play. The starting stack value of the T100s is T12,000.

Fifty T500 chips will be used in the original starting stacks and thirty chips are required to color up the entire value of the T25s and T100s. Rebuys or the add-on should be done with two T500s and four T1000s. This adds 20 chips to the quantity required bringing the recommendation for the T500 to 100 chips.

For a 400 chip set this leaves room for sixty T1000 chips. The starting stack requires ten chips and the rebuy or add-on requires another forty, filling it out with ten extra chips.

• 120 x T25
• 120 x T100
• 100 x T500
• 60 x T1000

Cash game

Most home cash games I read about on chiptalk.net are single table games with a $20 buy-in. As with the first article, my intent is to optimize the selection of chips to ensure you have enough to cover reasonable starting stacks and enough chip value to cover the amount of money in play at most home games. Typically, home games use 25¢-50¢ as the small blind and big blind. Obviously, your smallest denomination chip will be 25¢. This type of game therefore requires a chip progression of 25¢ - $1 - $5 and starting stacks of 12 x 25¢, 12 x $1 and 1 x $5 work very well. This gives plenty of quarters to have in play for the entire game.

Keeping the focus on the quantity of quarter chips required, having ten players dictates 120 chips needed to start. This gets all 25¢ chips initially in play and it is easy enough to make change with another player as necessary in a friendly home game. The recommendation for 25¢ chips is quantity of 120, giving $30 in play.

Addressing the $1 chips, I again recommend 120 chips simply to cover the starting stacks using all 120 chips. This leaves rebuys using the $5 chips. These 120 chips bring your total in play to $150.

I recommend a full rack or 100 chips for the $5 chip. The starting stacks take up a single chip and you can use four $5 chips for the rebuys. Additionally, consider later in the game players may rebuy for more than the original $20. With 100 $5 chips, the total available for the game is now $650.

This leaves room in a 400 chip set for sixty chips. A $10 chip is useful here, giving an additional $600 available. Again, please keep in mind, as more money comes into play, players that get felted may be buying in for more than the original $20.

In summary, for a 25¢-50¢ game for up to ten players, I recommend 400 chips total with a cash value of $1250.

• 120 x 25¢
• 120 x $1
• 100 x $5
• 60 x $10

Conclusion

As many may have noticed, the 400 chip sets I outlined above are very similar. The quantities of the T25-25¢, T100-$1, T500-$5 and T1000-$10 are identical. This allows the tournament denominations to be divided by 100 for use in the cash game. If you're on a budget or looking for your first set of nice chips, consider the tournament denominations with the flexibility to be used for your cash game as well. Most regular readers of chiptalk.net have multiple chip sets dedicated to cash games and tournaments. However, my purpose here was show that with some planning an expensive set of 400 chips can be reasonably utilized for different games for up to ten players.

Additional Recommendations

As always more chips are better and if you have the means for dedicated cash and tournament sets, by all means use them. However, I still recommend at least 400 chips for cash set with the following adjustments. Use a $20 chip instead of $10 and slightly adjusting the quantities to 120-180-80-20 for the four denominations of 25¢-$1-$5-$20. This still allows the 12x25¢ 12x$1 and 1x$5 starting stacks for a $20 buy in plus six stacks of twenty $1s and plenty of $5s and $20s for reloads. This breakdown has $1010 avaiable for play.

For a dedicated tournament set, it is advantageous to include an extra thirty T100 chips to color up the T25 chips. Adding an extra forty chips to the T500 count to increase their use as rebuy / add-on chips. This leaves room for thirty additional chips in a 500 chip set to which I recommend twenty additional T1000 chips and adding ten T5000 or ten non-denominational chips for a breakdown of 120-150-140-80-10.

Please note and as a reminder, the above starting stacks and rebuy thoughts are based on 10 players, with more regulars in your game you can easily scale these recommednations up or down. For 25¢ or T25 chips take the number of player times 12 for your starting stack requirements. Do the same for the $1 and T100 for your starting stacks but Include enough extra T100 chips to color up all the T25s and include enough extra $1s to get enough chips in play through reloads. Cover yout intial stacks with the T500, add enough extra to cover rebuys or add-ons. Fill the cash set out with enough $5s and $10s or $20s to cover what you'll have in play and fill out the Tournement set with enough T1000 to have resonable stacks when it gets to heads-up play.

[mattman]

nice article.....i was debating this very issue.

[polar22]

Thank you for your post, it was a good way to optimize every chip rather than buy pre selected chip sets with random amounts. I ended up buying my first set of chips, Paulson 05 James Bonds x400. Since these chips were on the expensive side, it was nice to know I can do 10 person home games with only 400 chips. Although chip stacks are start out small, we sometimes do a T10,000 freeze out when we have a small amount of players.

Here is the breakdown of chips that I bought:

125 - $25
125 - $100
100 - $500
50 - $1000

Thanks again!