[BluffaloBull]

If you run an MTT, the last players at the final table will have very big stacks as compared to the starting stacks. Then you will need denominations which are not practical to include in the starting stack. For instance, if you play with T5000 for each player and 40 players, you will have T200000 in play. If you start people off with 25s, 100s and 500s, you will have colored up the 25s and 100s, and possibly the 500s. In any case, unless you do anything to avoid it, you have only one denomination in play now (500s or 1000s).

Most people would prefer to play with more than one denomination, and with T200K total there should at least be some 5000s in play at the final table. How/when are these introduced? Is there a "rules based" approach, or do you do simply a "pragmatic" conversion to higher denoms during color-ups?

BluffaloBull

[Sneds]

We chip up usually as soon as they become redundant, which usually coincides with a break in play.

In a standard 25/100/500/1000/5000 chip set we chip up 25's with 500's, using the 100's to make it as close to the 500 as possible if that makes sense...

E.g - If a player has 17 25's (325 total) I would take one hundred from his stack and give him a 500 chip.

This is pretty much the trend throughout as soon as they're not longer in use I bring in a denom x2 what we're taking out.

[MasterBrewer]

Generally I do this when I am coloring up. For example, If I'm coloring up the 100s I generally will try to use 1000s to color up when possible, and the 500s only when completely necessary. This also lets me get rid of a few of the 500s at the same time.

If there are no more scheduled color up's coming and there are still huge stacks of lower denoms in play, I'll generally just start coloring up the low denoms out of the pots during the hand. So if the pot has 5000 in 500s in there ill take the 500s out of play and drop a 5000 chip in there. Obviously this is considerably easier when I'm not still in the game, but it still can be done if you are still playing... just make sure everyone knows and sees what you are doing so there are no questions.

[tomb1]

Do you have $5,000 chips? I'm not sure from your OP if you do or not, but you certainly should for a 40-person tourney. The time to bring them in is when you color up the $500s and then you'll have 2 denoms in play. Am I missing something?

[UsIreland]

I run tournaments for up to 80 players, 3k starting stack with 2rebuys for 3k more (everyone takes them as either Rebuys or Top Up's so its effectively a 9k stack).

I colour up as follows:
25's with 500's and some 100's
100's with 1000's and some 500's (usually only 1000's and if i need 500's i take 2 from a big stack and give them 1 x 1000)
500's with 5000's
1000's with 25000's
5000's with 100k's (never had the need to do this, but this is what i would do if i needed to get rid of the 5k's)

[Sneds]

UsIreland - that's a big big jump at the end. I have 25,000 chips.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by BluffaloBull

How do you introduce high denominations in a freeze-out MTT?

I say, "High-denomination chips... these are 'the guys'. Guys, I'd like to introduce you to the high-denomination chips."

We do the standard colour-up and race. There's at least one article on this around here somewhere...
Here's one: http://www.chiptalk.net/forum/review...e-3-tomb1.html

All my colour-ups occur during a break (the blinds structure is designed this way). Lately we've been selling the obsolete denominations to the big stack so we can skip a denomination (i.e. stacks of 20 x T25s for T500s, etc., as USIreland suggested). This way, we don't end up with unnecessarily many of the lowest denom chips on the table, and there are never less than 2 denominations in play.

For a MTT, if there isn't a designated "tournament director" (who isn't playing), then hopefully there's someone competent at each table who is familiar with this standard procedure. Sometimes I've had to go table-to-table to do it... which sucks (I don't get a break), but whatever works.

Sometimes we pause briefly when a tourney becomes 3-handed or heads-up for one or two reasons: The remaining players might want to negotiate a chop, and/or we might want to colour-up some of the lowest denoms to make counting stacks a little easier. It really depends who's playing. In the last "donkament", I was fortunate enough to make it to the end. I had several mini-stacks of 10 x T100s stacked in pyramids (unfortunately no one took a picture)... so I had 6,000, 10,000, or 15,000 counted out in T100s at any given time. I don't mind having lots of small denoms on the table because I can move around these stacks as though they're single chips... but some people can't keep it straight (keep breaking up their stacks and have to re-count their chips every hand or 2), so we might colour-up most of the T100s to T1000s, leaving just enough for small blinds ors ante or whatever they're still good for.