The Five Stages of Chip Ownership

The Five Stages of Chip Ownership

So as your love of Poker has grown, it has become a goal of yours to have a home game. Naturally, you'll need chips. So you head down to the local Wal-Mart and examine the offerings. Nothing but plastic as far as the eye can see - and cheap plastic, too. You've seen a few chips before, and these are utter crap.

So it's off to Costco, or (more likely) to eBay, And suddenly the choices are endless. Chips with sports team logos! Commemorative chips! 12.5 gram chips that are "Real Casino Quality"! Your home game will be sure to be envied when you unveil these babies. Look - clay composite, just like the casinos use! And in the end, you order yourself a themed variation of what are commonly called "Dice" chips.

For a time, you are happy. When you pull out your snazzy new chips at the game, everybody comments on how nice they stack. At the same time, they're playing anything bigger than 7/2 off suit (and sometimes that), slow playing aces, and raising 40x the big blind, but they sure do like these new composite clays!

Then you begin to try to learn some poker chip tricks. After all, chip flourishes are a part of the game. So naturally you turn to the internet for some advice on how to do shuffles, flips and butterflies. And in three or four clicks, your perception of chips and what constitutes "quality" is forever altered. Innocence lost.

Thus, you begin your trip through the five stages of chip ownership.

Denial

Your chips are fine. Those chips online that everybody seems to be using are overpriced and unnecessary. After all, they only have one job - to represent a value in the game. Any chip can do that. Hell, you could have just used the Walmart ones, for all that it matters.

At the same time, you find yourself surfing chip discussion sites, manufacturers sites, and reviews, all the while saying to yourself, "There's no harm in education. I'd never spend so much money on chips." And as you surf, you practice your chip tricks. Of course it's starting to become clear that there is something off about them.

Anger

Realization dawns. Nobody likes to be played for a sucker. That guy on eBay charged you far too much for the chips you got. He represented these as quality casino chips, when in fact they are near the very bottom of a very deep barrel. In retrospect, the shipping charges were outrageous. You've finally educated yourself right out of complacency, and you damn well know you won't be satisfied to keep playing with these plastic - yes, I said PLASTIC - pieces of crap.

So you find out that many chip sales companies will send you sample kits containing one chip from up to 20 different lines and manufacturers. You order one, and when it comes you are immediately struck by how much better a Paulson home chip is. You look up the price... and anger is again the order of the day. "How the hell can they justify that? That's INSANE!"

Bargaining

Then it begins. You learn about Nexgen chips, and Faux Clays, and you console yourself with the idea that you can be happy with a lower end chip. After all, they are far better than your current chips. Those drunken fishermen at your home game wouldn't know the difference anyway! In the end you order yourself some lower middle class chips, making an agreement with yourself: "This much will be spent, and then by heavens you will be happy! No more!"

This stage may be represented by bargaining with a spouse. "I promise honey... this is it. Look - I could spend way more than this, but I'm trying to be responsible! These will do fine."

Depression

And so you continue for a while, but you occasionally go back to your sample set, flipping your ceramics and real clay chips, intimately familiarizing yourself with the subtleties of chip design and the hallmarks of quality. And every time you look at the stacks of marginal chips you have a sinking feeling inside. Every time you have your home game you wonder if your friends, who are finally showing some poker skills, are aware of what great chips can be had. You no longer enjoy them.

Acceptance

"You know, a dollar a chip for a really quality product isn't bad at all. And you know what would be really nice? Custom chips tailored exactly to my specification. In fact, even though they might be nearly $1.25 apiece with shipping and artwork fees, I think it'd be totally worth it. A thousand is fine for the home set. Of course I'll only use them once in a while - don't want them getting all damaged. Naturally I'll have to get a good set of Nevada Jacks or some of those terrific Egyptians as my regular workhorses. Hey... nice table these guys are selling. and only $1000! It doubles as a regular table? Well how can I say no? Honey... why are your bags packed?"

 

Well done!

I am all too familiar with those stages, except I skipped the dice chips and went for the much higher quality clay-filled World Poker Tour chips.

Those things were great! For about a month

 

LOL, pretty darn good!!

 

That's pretty much how it's gone for me, except I skipped dice chips and started at ebay with "pure clay" chips.

 

Great Post. I for one went through some of those steps but took a different path on my way here and in poker chip collecting. Luckily I didn't overpay on my original set of dices (those high roller ones) too much: $65 for 500 (bad purchase)...and quickly got from that stage to faux clays (love them).

 

Great, well written post!

 

I feel your pain brotha. This is the exact same thing that happened to me. After I got my stylin new dice chips, I discovered Chiptalk and it sent me down the path you described. Great story!

 

Very good indeed. I'm in the "Bargaining" stage right now. LOL!

 

lol, this is pretty much what i went through. Im glad i skipped the nexgen phase and went straight to clay (pharohs should be here any day) and ceramics (bellagio GB soon hopefully)

 

Same here.....Went from crappy ole dice...to martini club clays. More than happy with that decision

 

True, Sooo True! Well done.

Ranman

 

Wow... reading this... might as well have been reading my diary from 2005 (if I had've kept one). Except all my friends had dice chips and I didn't want the same set as them (for security reasons) so I started the self-education, which lead ot anger (how can they charge that much?) to bargaining (hot-stamped NexGen bees... relatively cheap until you pay taxes/brokerage at the border)... and only then did I find ChipTalk! I haven't gone the route of true customs (yet) but Samurai Palace chips fit the bill... better than any custom chip I could've designed (thanks CnC and everyone else on that project!), and that covers the "workhorse" chip described in the OP.

The only step you missed mentioning is the need to keep "upgrading" your set. For example, I started with 500 or so bees, then needed more (realized my distribution sucked), bought another 250 or so, then needed more (for different tournament structures; bigger multi-table tournaments), and now I'm up over 1200 (and thinking I could probably use 200 more...).

So I'll let you know the next steps in this process.... because I've been through the others, but it doesn't end there!

So with the Samurais, I started with 750 (to fill that sweet mahogany case), then realized I'd bought some of every denom (mainly because my favourite chips in the set are the $0.25 and $1 together and the $500, $1000, and $5000 together) and thus was a little sparse on some denoms, so I bought/traded for another 300+ so I could separate the cash set (of 300) from the tournament set (750+) which is now good for T1,000-T50,000 for 10 players (or more, for some tournament structures)...

Now I just need a good heads up set, a cash set for higher stakes games ($1/2), and maybe a small travelling set. Hmmm... for a small set like that, might as well get REAL (used) casino chips... Repeat above (but due to self-education, there are some twists): "Anger" => getting sniped on eBay and the price shoots up 500% of what you thought they might cost... "Bargaining" => get Paulson cherries... "Acceptance" => label the Paulson cherries... "Depression" => they're still not real custom chips... "Bargaining" => some custom ceramics are quite affordable... "Acceptance" => and now they can do aligned edgespots (although there goes that "affordable" part)! And the wife left ages ago (back around the last big purchase) so there's nothing holding me back now...

(okay, that last bit hasn't happened to me yet, but if she had any idea how much these little chunks of hardened dirt cost...)

 

<searches for camera crew filming my life>

Yes sir this is my story.. almost, I was trying to decicde on nexgen or faux clays when I did the math... and now I am almost 2 months into custom ceramic design. I had to print this out... my buddy up here brought the first dice chips into town and he paid WAY, WAY, WAY to much for them... I am sure this will make him cry (can't wait)

Fantastic post

 

I started with dice. I definately thought they were the best ever. Even with spending so much time on HPT...then I figured out there were more people over here, so I came to CT, and within a week of joining, I bought just over 500 Nevada Jacks.

Now I'm in bargaining. Dammit!

Thanks guys, now I'm really broke!!!

Jason

 

Fantastic post (other than the "lower middle class" jab at the Fauxs.) I'm just glad when I first got my dice chips they were a promo from PSO (I'm still mad I could have had 6000 pts instead, I just didn't know.)
I can't believe how fast I progressed through those stages, I'm pretty close to the custom clay stage now.

Mike

VIVA FAUX CLAY!

 

I started with the PSO NJ promo chips that I still use on a regualr basis. I have jumped into the PNY GB and am now looking at buying some James Bonds that I can oooo and ahhh over

 

Nice , I like that . Sounds familiar.

 

Great post--but what would you call the stage where you have to check out all the latest chip porn on chiptalk and fantacize about having a set of the newest fantasy chips, and how to sneak them past your spouse?

 

Welcome to "Depression".