I may have gone a bit too far down the rabbit hole, but this is how my custom table and chip set eventually came to life.
I’ve always been the most poker-obsessed one in our group. Years ago, we started out with a cheap €20 table I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. It worked, we had lots of fun with it but after I moved out it got thrown away and that was about it. As the years went by and poker remained a thing, I went on a thourough search for a table and found my ultimate table:
A 2.40m foldable table with no cupholders or racetrack.
I've always strongly disliked racetrackers and cupholders on other tables when playing in the casino or in Homegames.
I know some of you might disagree or frankly don't care but I can be quite OCD about my tables
The only thing wrong with the table when I bought it was the fact the felt was completely worn out.
That’s when I decided to dive into creating my own custom felt;
My (poker) motto is Tutto passa — Italian for “everything passes.” Upswings, downswings, heaters, bad beats — it all passes eventually. That mindset fits poker perfectly, so I wanted it embedded into the table itself. I designed the cloth from scratch, mainly in PowerPoint, combined with a few other apps. ChatGPT and YouTube tutorials helped along the way, but most of it was pure trial and error. The TP logo became the core visual element and was subtly repeated throughout the pattern. A lot of hours went into this before it felt right.
I ordered it through a local company (Custom pokertafels) that makes custom poker tables and just asked if they we're able to simply print my design and send it to me, they did.
After re-clothing, I finally had my 'custom' table — but I was still playing with standard “The Mint” China ABS chips. So it seemed clear what the next step was.
At that point, I wasn’t really familiar with PokerChipForum yet.
I stumbled onto Chiplab.com after seeing a Reddit post where someone mentioned their custom chips came from.
During the search I kept running into ceramics (Alibaba, etc.), but I strongly dislike ceramics: they feel too slippery, too smooth, and the sound does nothing for me.
I ordered a small test set from Chiplab. While I’m fully aware they’re slugged, they felt 'clay' enough for what I wanted, so I committed. Just like with the table, I wanted everything to tie together, so I reused the TP pattern as the inlay design (also for the home made seating cards). From there I refined colors, denominations, and edge spots to keep the set clean, readable, and consistent with the table. After adjusting the final design 15 more times, I placed the order with these designs.
They arrived and I’m genuinely happy with how everything turned out and with the set I have now. I don't have my own own place yet so until then this set-up will suffice. That said, now that I’ve really started exploring PCF and discovered CPC's (and picked up a few test sets), I already know one thing for sure: there will be a day when I build a full CPC set paired with a casino grade table. Just not yet.
The entire setup was put to proper use during our annual home game. Normally we play €0.25/€0.25 with a €25–€50 buy-in. This time we bumped it up slightly to €0.25/€0.50 with a €50–€100 initial buy-in. As expected, things escalated quickly. Straddles moved fastly up to €4 and €8, and after plenty of party games (PLO double board bomb pots, Pineapple, Cucaracha) and many hours of play, we ended up with around 3K on the table — in what technically was a €0.25/€0.50 game.
One player even had a stack of 2800 BB's at one point...
In the end, I’m genuinely glad the setup finally got the kind of real use it was built for. While it won’t be in action as often as I’d like for now, every time it is, it does exactly what I intended it to do.
For the moment, this setup feels complete — not final, but right. And as with everything in poker: Tutto Passa!
I’ve always been the most poker-obsessed one in our group. Years ago, we started out with a cheap €20 table I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. It worked, we had lots of fun with it but after I moved out it got thrown away and that was about it. As the years went by and poker remained a thing, I went on a thourough search for a table and found my ultimate table:
A 2.40m foldable table with no cupholders or racetrack.
I've always strongly disliked racetrackers and cupholders on other tables when playing in the casino or in Homegames.
I know some of you might disagree or frankly don't care but I can be quite OCD about my tables
The only thing wrong with the table when I bought it was the fact the felt was completely worn out.
That’s when I decided to dive into creating my own custom felt;
My (poker) motto is Tutto passa — Italian for “everything passes.” Upswings, downswings, heaters, bad beats — it all passes eventually. That mindset fits poker perfectly, so I wanted it embedded into the table itself. I designed the cloth from scratch, mainly in PowerPoint, combined with a few other apps. ChatGPT and YouTube tutorials helped along the way, but most of it was pure trial and error. The TP logo became the core visual element and was subtly repeated throughout the pattern. A lot of hours went into this before it felt right.
I ordered it through a local company (Custom pokertafels) that makes custom poker tables and just asked if they we're able to simply print my design and send it to me, they did.
After re-clothing, I finally had my 'custom' table — but I was still playing with standard “The Mint” China ABS chips. So it seemed clear what the next step was.
At that point, I wasn’t really familiar with PokerChipForum yet.
I stumbled onto Chiplab.com after seeing a Reddit post where someone mentioned their custom chips came from.
During the search I kept running into ceramics (Alibaba, etc.), but I strongly dislike ceramics: they feel too slippery, too smooth, and the sound does nothing for me.
I ordered a small test set from Chiplab. While I’m fully aware they’re slugged, they felt 'clay' enough for what I wanted, so I committed. Just like with the table, I wanted everything to tie together, so I reused the TP pattern as the inlay design (also for the home made seating cards). From there I refined colors, denominations, and edge spots to keep the set clean, readable, and consistent with the table. After adjusting the final design 15 more times, I placed the order with these designs.
They arrived and I’m genuinely happy with how everything turned out and with the set I have now. I don't have my own own place yet so until then this set-up will suffice. That said, now that I’ve really started exploring PCF and discovered CPC's (and picked up a few test sets), I already know one thing for sure: there will be a day when I build a full CPC set paired with a casino grade table. Just not yet.
The entire setup was put to proper use during our annual home game. Normally we play €0.25/€0.25 with a €25–€50 buy-in. This time we bumped it up slightly to €0.25/€0.50 with a €50–€100 initial buy-in. As expected, things escalated quickly. Straddles moved fastly up to €4 and €8, and after plenty of party games (PLO double board bomb pots, Pineapple, Cucaracha) and many hours of play, we ended up with around 3K on the table — in what technically was a €0.25/€0.50 game.
One player even had a stack of 2800 BB's at one point...
In the end, I’m genuinely glad the setup finally got the kind of real use it was built for. While it won’t be in action as often as I’d like for now, every time it is, it does exactly what I intended it to do.
For the moment, this setup feels complete — not final, but right. And as with everything in poker: Tutto Passa!
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