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Hello from New England, USA (1 Viewer)

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HelloGamer2

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Hello, I’ve just got into poker recently. I’ve played less than 500 hands, mostly on Zynga for free to get experience. Played a few $10 buy in games with friends too.

I see the social gathering potential from running poker games so I would like to invest in a 600-1000 chip poker set, that’s what I’ve been researching this past week incessantly. Been looking into China Clays, Apache Poker Chips, Straight Poker Supplies.

I love thinking about hosting poker games at my house, getting the boys together, making new friends. I would like to impress the guests with somewhat decent chips. Thinking about how I would be able to provide food & drink, it makes sense to say it’s free to come and play, but if you want to eat and drink, throw in $15-$20 into the community chest so we can be fair. Especially if it’s going to be on a somewhat reoccurring schedule.

I feel like the Royal Card Room line from Apache is the best china clay from what I can tell. Ideally I would be interested in buying those, and relabel a few of the denominations with the help of @Gear to fit my preferences.

If not the Royals, I’d go with Phoenix Card Room chips as they look to be much less costly. As long as they stack well and don’t have oblong shapes I would be fine getting the Phoenixes.

For sb/bb preferences, from my research on the forums here I’m leaning towards running NLHE 10c/20c games. 80bb minimum buy in, 200bb maximum buy in. Rebuys allowed at any time.

I will definitely grow into 25c/50c games, possibly even 50c/$1 games. Probably not any more than that unless I win the lottery or something and want to piss money away.

When it comes to denomination preferences, I have a mindset of wanting a unique experience for my home games, basically want to feel rich with the way the chips are dealt. For example counting the $10 chips as 10 cents, $100 chips as 1 dollar, etc.

It seems like white $1 chips and red $5 chips are way too common and it wouldn’t feel as special compared to throwing in two nice $10 blue chips every time you call pre flop(shudders.) And it would make the bets feel more substantial when you’re playing with large sums of $$$$. It’s not authentic but it should feel fun imo.

I could see chip colors becoming a problem if someone is used to playing poker in the casino and easily recognizes the common red 5s and green 25s. But I don’t really care about that too much.

Still want to get a set together with chip values ranging from $1 to $5000, for flexibility if I ever want to change things up.

Thank you for reading fellow chip enthusiasts! May the clay be with you.
 
Welcome!​

The Royals with custom Gear labels is a great chip experience. Here is a custom set from one of our members, with gear labels on the Royals. I'm not sure of your budget, but the cost is a little over $1 per chip.

1750421376318.png


I wouldn't go too heavy on the chip count. I would start with only what is needed, which you could get by with 600. While the photo above is meant to showcase the label, its a 800 chip set. You can find my post about the optimal cash breakdown in my signature, which is landscape-oriented on mobile.

Poker isn't meant to be free, and I wouldn't host free games. It also doesn't need to be that much, several members host a $25 buy-in and play .05/.10. You want there to be some risk or it gets old quick.

Hosting can be a bit overwhelming, and it might not be your cup of tea. Secondly, sometimes finding players can be like searching the desert for life. Again, I would only buy 600 chips.

I would stick with the standard denominations; it can be confusing if the denominations don't match the value. If you don't like hosting or can't find players, you'll want to be able to sell the set, which will be easier if it conforms to typical denominations.

Colors, as you can see, these are not standard colors, while there are some unspoken rules about colors and chip denominations, mostly you can do whatever you want. I would advise against using the base color white for any chip other than a $1 or $100 chip. Most people would likely avoid a green $20 chip, but that didn't deter the member with this The Office set. Blue is typically a 1, but could be used as a 5; there is a small cult here that prefers a black 1.

In any choice you make, it is never a good idea to put $10 on a label.
 
legend672 said:
New England USA. Are there other New England’s I don’t know about ? I’m thinking Cow Hampstah or maybe the Nutmeg state
Click to expand...

xD good point. Basically the North East part of the country.

‘New England is a northeastern region of the United States comprising the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It's known for its Colonial past’
 
@Machine thank you for the recommendations.

I meant it would be free to join the table, but since there’s costs to hosting I would probably ask guests to contribute 15 bucks towards the burgers & beer fund if they wanted to eat.

Currently I’m leaning towards a 700 chip set. So at 65 cents per chip from Apache and 45 cents per 2 labels, it would cost $1.10 per chip. About $770. I’m fine paying for it especially if I’m going to have a sweet custom brand/name on the inlay.

Speaking about inlays, do you have any good ways to get inspiration for label designs? I don’t know where to start tbh.
 
Instead of .10/.20, I highly recommend .25/.25 instead. It plays virtually the same, and you don’t need any 5c or 10c chips. A whole lot more efficient and easy to keep track of as well.

I played in a casual game this weekend and it was .10/.20 with denominations of 10c, 20c, 50c, $1 and $5…it was quite cumbersome. No need for all those lower chips.
 
@Colquhoun I feel like no matter the stakes, the values could be adjusted proportionately to make the game feel exactly the same as a higher stakes game. Only there’s less personal investment as players aren’t risking their financial health lol.

Here’s what I have planned out, to support 10c/20c games.

IMG_3226.jpeg
IMG_3227.jpeg
IMG_3228.jpeg
IMG_3229.jpeg
 
A max buy-in limit of 600bb-800bb seems appropriate to prevent people from going on massive loss streaks and leaving on a bad note. No buy ins if your stack is above 200bb too.

800bb at 20 cents = $160

Eventually if I run 50 cent bb, 800bb would = $400 ☠️ that’s pretty darn close to being too much.
 
HelloGamer2 said:
xD good point. Basically the North East part of the country.

‘New England is a northeastern region of the United States comprising the states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. It's known for its Colonial past’
Click to expand...
So all 6 states are considered NewEngland ? Amazing !
 
Colquhoun said:
Instead of .10/.20, I highly recommend .25/.25 instead. It plays virtually the same, and you don’t need any 5c or 10c chips. A whole lot more efficient and easy to keep track of as well.

I played in a casual game this weekend and it was .10/.20 with denominations of 10c, 20c, 50c, $1 and $5…it was quite cumbersome. No need for all those lower chips.
Click to expand...
Id recommend this advice over an unconventional .10/.20 structure. Play .25/.25 and use $25 chips if you want the fantasy of playing bigger stakes. Buy 600 chips which will cover both cash and tourney
 
ssanel54 said:
Id recommend this advice over an unconventional .10/.20 structure. Play .25/.25 and use $25 chips if you want the fantasy of playing bigger stakes. Buy 600 chips which will cover both cash and tourney
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, may I ask the specifics of why you recommend that? To play the fantasy of bigger chips I could use $2.50 $10 $50 $250 $1000

For the 10c/20c game, the $10 chip will be worth 10c

For the 25/50 game, the $2.50 chip will be worth 25c

Outside of having uncommon denominations I don’t see a downside. Each chip would be worth 4-5x more than the previous denomination.
 
I guess I’m not getting the reason for “fantasy”.,.but if you’re just looking for higher numbers, it would be easier imo to do the more standard numbers of 25,100, 500, 1,000, 5,000 as 25c, $1, $5, $10, etc.
I guess I’m just not a fan of the unusual progression of 2.50/10/50/250/1,000

If you think you’ll play 5c/10c, you could get some nickel chips, but I do recommend abandoning 10c/20c for 25c/25c.

And for 25c/25c, you’ll only need 3 denoms, 25c, $1 and $5.
If you choose to up the stakes, you could introduce some $25 chips and skip getting any $10 chips altogether.
 
HelloGamer2 said:
Thanks for the suggestion, may I ask the specifics of why you recommend that? To play the fantasy of bigger chips I could use $2.50 $10 $50 $250 $1000

For the 10c/20c game, the $10 chip will be worth 10c

For the 25/50 game, the $2.50 chip will be worth 25c

Outside of having uncommon denominations I don’t see a downside. Each chip would be worth 4-5x more than the previous denomination.
Click to expand...
It’s your game, and you can do whatever you want. You could just use non denominated chips and assign whatever value you want to them each week. My advice was the same as what others have suggested. At some point in your evolution you will probably shift to traditional denominations, because that’s what everyone is more accustomed to
 

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