New Player: Qty of each Chip Denomination for 1000 Chip Set (1 Viewer)

Hairy_Crocodile

3 of a Kind
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Hello Everyone!

I am new to the world of poker, and I'm exited to start to really learn and understand this game at a deeper level. I apologize for the long-ish post, but I'd like to be thorough so that those of you more experienced than I can give better feedback and recommendations based off of my needs/wants.

I have played here and there with friends and family over the last few years, but have found a couple groups of players in my friend group that play on a regular basis. Most of these games are low stakes, anywhere from minimum a measly $25 buy-in to standard $100 low-stakes, sometimes $200-$300. However, on the nights we all just want to drink excessively and have fun without worry of having to buy-into games more than once a week, we'll just play for fun with larger denomination chips for the heck of it.

Generally, the nights are groups of either 4-6, 8, and occasionally ~12 or more players if we can get everyone together.
The sets that people have are generally cheap, with the metal cases that barely latch and fall apart after a few months or so of use.
I have always wanted a set of my own, but had never had found anything I liked aesthetically, and wanted something that would last me a long time.

I found a couple sets from BBO that I liked aesthetically, that were ceramic that will last a long while, you can customize how many of each chip you want, and the price point is good for me. ($500 for 1000 ceramic chips seems fine).

I also am curious if my pelican 1485 can fit 1000 chips, I know it can hold 500 no problem just looking at it, but I digress....lets focus on the set and how many I should get first before I go to that part of the forums.

The set has fixed denominations that can definitely be a downside, as you cant just make up what they are per the stakes you are playing at, so they lack flexibility. However, when my friends are at the part of the night where they're 6 double Jack and Cokes deep and lord knows how many beers....., the question of "what is this chip worth again?" again and again gets frustrating, so the fixed numbers are nice for quality of life purposes.

I would like to get 1000 chips to be able to play micro/low stakes games with lots of the $0.25/$1/$5 chips for sure, and also have some of the larger denominations for relatively higher stakes, for fun games where you wanna pretend that $10,000 chip means something ( :LOL: :laugh: ), and because I'd like to have the full set of chips (Love the color combinations and to have the "full collection" if that makes sense).

Because of these limitations I have imposed on myself from wanting fixed denomination chips for a few different uses, coupled with my inexperience regarding chip set ratios, I would like to ask the question: How many of each chip do I get for my set? Are my wants feasible with 1000 chips?

I understand that most sets cut a lot of the more uncommon denominations, but again, i'd like to have the full set for collection's sake.


Off the top of my head, I made something like this as a starting point for everyone to tear apart so we can make a better and more balanced chip distribution than mine:

QTY Denomination:
250 x $0.25
150 x $1
150 x $5
100 x $10
100 x $25
100 x $100
80 x $500
50 x $1000
20 x $10000

What would you change? Any recommendations?
I can't wait to learn more about this game at a deeper level and start to show off some of the cool poker related things I've gotten from my travels. But I gotta start off somewhere first!

I hope that you all have a wonderful day, thank you for reading! Cheers
BBo Poker set.jpg





BBo Poker set.jpg
 
Correction: I didn't realize I typed "I would like to get 1000 chips to be able to play micro/low stakes games with lots of the $0.25/$1/$5 chips for sure" when micro stakes arent possible with these fixed chip denominations.

Please ignore the micro part, we can use actual coins, cheaper sets and possibly get a small set for just micro stakes games. Sorry for that!
 
1) Too many denominations
2) Define your games and total stakes
3) Determining your breakdown will let you spread your budget to better quality chips

You've given us some information do define your game, let me see if I got this right:
- cash games
- minimum 4 to maximum 12 players, assuming 11-12 will be split among 2 tables
- lowest stakes maybe 0.25/0.25 to fit a $25 buy-in, to maybe 1/2 stakes to fit a $200-300 buyin
- budget is around $500
- you want denominated chips

Consider the following as a theoretical 600-chip base:
100x $0.25
200x $1
200x $5
100x $25
Total bank: $3725

When calculating bank, just think of the most amount of money that has been/will be on the table at the end of the night, assuming the maximum amount of players and the maximum amount of reloads, and then add 25-50% in mid-high denomination ships to cover future game growth. Also, will you likely have more players at low stakes, or would you eventually get as many players at higher stakes? Are the games primarily limp-fests that see lots of flops, or does it move quicker and with more action? The breakdown above can be tweaked a bit to accommodate both extremes, with an extra couple hundred chips:

200x $0.25
300x $1
200x $5
80x $25
20x $100
Total bank: $5350, and we're just at 800 chips

$500 budget for 800 chips would give just over $0.60 per chip on average, which can give you a fair amount of choice, but short of fully custom ceramics, customizable clays, or modifiable clays.
 
That was explained beautifully, I cannot thank you enough. I duly apologize for these kinds of questions and my ignorance, I am sure it is frustrating when someone like me glazes over important things that are basic knowledge. I duly appreciate your time.

Since I can get this particular set only in multiples of 500 chips, I probably will look elsewhere for chips so I can get minimum 600. I have found another manufacturer that I really like that has optional denominations. However, the price is slightly higher ($0.80 per chip), so I probably will suck it up and get them without denominations for flexibility (so we can do micro stakes and such too). I assume that in the long run, it'll be better to have flexibility in my first real set and build my collection with more specialized stuff as I improve and get into the game more. I was very dead set on having chip values, but after some thought, it's my first real set...I should become more experienced in what I want and need before I lock myself into fixed value chips, as much as I would like fixed denominations for ease of reference.

I assume based off of your numbers, 600 should suffice with your splits at 100/200/200/100, I can support our average games no problem; I'll stick with 600 and see how well that works for us for the time being. I can upgrade 200 more chips after I'm done with Christmas time.

Games are usually all Limp-Fests depending on who's playing. I'd say most players (including myself) are very green to the game and very casual players; It's more just for the boys to spend time away from the girls and have a night to ourselves to drink and spend time together. Most, but nearly all, of the players lack any real understanding of any betting tactics, terminology, etc.
Two or so out of the group are much higher in experience level, but they kinda just show to play every once in a while, I haven't gotten too much help from either of them due to their infrequent arrivals and me not knowing what to ask or how.

Average number for the $50-$100 buy-ins are 10 people, 2 re-buys that I've seen. Only 2-3 people buy in again on average. We have pool, darts and such to keep people entertained after they are out, and nobody seems to mind losing.

Another separate group of 4-10 is forming as of today that wishes to get together every Sunday. They wish to play really low stakes anywhere from $10-$25 with 2 re-buys.

I haven't been a part of setting up our games I have been a part of (setting the blinds, making starting stacks, calculating chip values before we play, etc), so I was wondering if I could run by these blinds and starting stacks by you to see if they make sense for when I start hosting games myself with friends.

I was thinking something along the lines of:

$25 buy in $0.10/$0.25 blinds
(Or should it be $0.25/$0.25? And not use $0.05 all together?)
10 x $0.05
18 x $0.25
20 x $1

$50 buy in $0.25/$0.50 blinds
20 x $0.25
20 x $1
5 x $5

$100 buy in $0.50/$1 blinds
10 x $0.50
20 x $1
15 x $5

Thank you again for reading
 
$50 buy in $0.25/$0.50 blinds
20 x $0.25
20 x $1
5 x $5

This is the only specific thing I would change. This puts 200 quarters in play, which is a lot for a .25/.50 game - the $1 is likely to be your workhorse there. 100-120 quarters is likely plenty, depending on your players.

As a general thought, you don't need to get married to "starting stacks" as a concept in a cash game. Just make sure everyone gets the chips that they bought in for. What works easiest for our .25/.50 game is to give the first 5 people to sit down a barrel of quarters, and then everyone else just gets dollars and fives (making change at the table for blinds as needed). Also, you don't need to be super rigid about 100bb starting stacks - play around with that and see if your players like deeper or shallower games. Some of my cheap friends prefer .05/.10 for a 20-25 dollar buy-in, because they feel like they can play more poker and do less shoving that way. Others just can't get themselves to care about whether a bet is 3bb or 5bb bet when we play for nickels so they prefer .25/.25. Try both and see what your players like!
 
As a general thought, you don't need to get married to "starting stacks" as a concept in a cash game.
This ^

What I do in my 200 buy-in 1/2 game is to take 200 ones myself and whoever buys in gets 20 fives and makes change with me (or whomever has the most at the time). When/if a second table opens up someone there gets 200 ones etc...

Oh, and the reason I play 1/2 is because I'm such a bad-ass highroller, and has nothing to do with my local currency... :whistle: :whistling:
 
This is the only specific thing I would change. This puts 200 quarters in play, which is a lot for a .25/.50 game - the $1 is likely to be your workhorse there. 100-120 quarters is likely plenty, depending on your players.

As a general thought, you don't need to get married to "starting stacks" as a concept in a cash game. Just make sure everyone gets the chips that they bought in for. What works easiest for our .25/.50 game is to give the first 5 people to sit down a barrel of quarters, and then everyone else just gets dollars and fives (making change at the table for blinds as needed). Also, you don't need to be super rigid about 100bb starting stacks - play around with that and see if your players like deeper or shallower games. Some of my cheap friends prefer .05/.10 for a 20-25 dollar buy-in, because they feel like they can play more poker and do less shoving that way. Others just can't get themselves to care about whether a bet is 3bb or 5bb bet when we play for nickels so they prefer .25/.25. Try both and see what your players like!

I'll make note of this on my cheat sheet for sure, thank you so much for the advice, you have no idea how much I appreciate this feedback.

This ^

What I do in my 200 buy-in 1/2 game is to take 200 ones myself and whoever buys in gets 20 fives and makes change with me (or whomever has the most at the time). When/if a second table opens up someone there gets 200 ones etc...

Oh, and the reason I play 1/2 is because I'm such a bad-ass highroller, and has nothing to do with my local currency... :whistle: :whistling:
I always was worried about starting stacks since the group I started playing poker with first was very big on everyone having the same looking stacks for redundancy and for quality of life reasons. They never wanted to really deal with exchanges and such.

If multiple people say its not a big deal, I'll try and quell their concerns.
 
That was explained beautifully, I cannot thank you enough. I duly apologize for these kinds of questions and my ignorance, I am sure it is frustrating when someone like me glazes over important things that are basic knowledge. I duly appreciate your time.

Since I can get this particular set only in multiples of 500 chips, I probably will look elsewhere for chips so I can get minimum 600. I have found another manufacturer that I really like that has optional denominations. However, the price is slightly higher ($0.80 per chip), so I probably will suck it up and get them without denominations for flexibility (so we can do micro stakes and such too). I assume that in the long run, it'll be better to have flexibility in my first real set and build my collection with more specialized stuff as I improve and get into the game more. I was very dead set on having chip values, but after some thought, it's my first real set...I should become more experienced in what I want and need before I lock myself into fixed value chips, as much as I would like fixed denominations for ease of reference.

I assume based off of your numbers, 600 should suffice with your splits at 100/200/200/100, I can support our average games no problem; I'll stick with 600 and see how well that works for us for the time being. I can upgrade 200 more chips after I'm done with Christmas time.

Games are usually all Limp-Fests depending on who's playing. I'd say most players (including myself) are very green to the game and very casual players; It's more just for the boys to spend time away from the girls and have a night to ourselves to drink and spend time together. Most, but nearly all, of the players lack any real understanding of any betting tactics, terminology, etc.
Two or so out of the group are much higher in experience level, but they kinda just show to play every once in a while, I haven't gotten too much help from either of them due to their infrequent arrivals and me not knowing what to ask or how.

Average number for the $50-$100 buy-ins are 10 people, 2 re-buys that I've seen. Only 2-3 people buy in again on average. We have pool, darts and such to keep people entertained after they are out, and nobody seems to mind losing.

Another separate group of 4-10 is forming as of today that wishes to get together every Sunday. They wish to play really low stakes anywhere from $10-$25 with 2 re-buys.

I haven't been a part of setting up our games I have been a part of (setting the blinds, making starting stacks, calculating chip values before we play, etc), so I was wondering if I could run by these blinds and starting stacks by you to see if they make sense for when I start hosting games myself with friends.

I was thinking something along the lines of:

$25 buy in $0.10/$0.25 blinds (Or should it be $0.25/$0.25? And not use $0.05 all together?)
10 x $0.05
18 x $0.25
20 x $1

$50 buy in $0.25/$0.50 blinds
20 x $0.25
20 x $1
5 x $5

$100 buy in $0.50/$1 blinds
10 x $0.50
20 x $1
15 x $5

Thank you again for reading
First of all, welcome!​
Second, don't buy chips yet. Spend a couple of weeks watching threads here and you can avoid a lot of mistakes.​
Third, go to BRpro poker and get yourself some custom/semi-custom's. You can then order as many as you want, in whatever denominations you want. Want 100 5c? go for it. Also, try and keep the colors somewhat standard. I like non standard for some myself, but you'll want to keep them similar to other sets.​
Good luck, but definitely wait, read threads here and you'll likely save yourself from some mistakes. Feel free to try my chip calculator as well. LINK It'll help with your cost and breakdowns.​
 
If multiple people say its not a big deal, I'll try and quell their concerns.
For tournaments, I see the point of having equal stacks. For cash games, I just want a hassle free process. There are those who still prefer equal starting stacks for cash games, though. To each their own :)
 

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