I’m a college student looking for chips! (1 Viewer)

Rbonus012

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Hey guys! I’m currently in my 3rd year of college studying economics. I would like to buy a chip set that can play about 8 people max and we usually start blinds at .05/.10 with a $5/$10 buy-in. I’m looking to spend around ~$250 usd give or take, and want something that is a little better quality than the metal slug chips I have now. Thanks for the help!
 
Welcome! I'm also pretty new here.
With a $250 budget, it sounds like you'd be interested in China Clays which should be around ~40 cents/ chip and are a step up from metal slug chips.
Check out the Classifieds section for sales labeled CC or sites like apachepokerchips.com if you want to buy them new.
 
Hello and welcome. Congrats for finding this site! Someone else may come in with a better suggestion but my top 3 in order for you would be:

1) Lucky $21 Casino - these are considered top quality clay and made by Paulson who makes chips for the majority of major casinos and pretty much any casino on the Las Vegas Strip. There's only $5/$25/$100 chips for sale but you could play them as 5c/25c/100c instead. They look amazing and the $5 & $25 chips only cost $0.50/chip while the $100s cost $1/chip that should still allow you to buy a 400-500 chip set in your price range.
2) Majestic or Pharaoh chips - while these are referred to as "China Clays" and have a different feel to the top quality "Paulson" chips, at $0,42/chip they're worth it in value. Both are sold by Apache who is also a vendor on this site (along with having their own website). Note they also have $0.05 + chip denominations.
3) Royal chips (labeled / blank) - another "China Clay" offered by Apache. The difference between these and Majestic or Pharaoh chips is that they are larger than most "standard" poker chips. Most chips are 39mm in diameter while these are 43mm. While most "chippers" prefer the feel of these to the 39mm Majestic/Pharaoh chips, I put them as 3rd because: 1) they're not the standard diameter (though most people get used to them quickly), 2) they cost $0.49/chip, 3) they don't have a $0.05 chip so you'd either have to buy the $5/$25/$100/$500 denomination chips (which are actually some of the coolest) or buy "blank" chips with no denomination on them and just choose for yourself which colors are what amounts.

If you want to try some Lucky $21 chips let me know and I can send you some. Best of luck with the search!
 
Would you recommend starting blinds higher than .05/.10 For a $5/$10 buy-in? I really also doesn’t need to have the actual values and just run it tournament style. That’s kinda what we do now. Too 3 cash out.
 
Would you recommend starting blinds higher than .05/.10 For a $5/$10 buy-in? I really also doesn’t need to have the actual values and just run it tournament style. That’s kinda what we do now. Too 3 cash out.
Standard cash game buy ins are 40-200 x the big blind so for a $0.10 big blind you're looking at buy-ins from $4 - $20 so I think your blind/buy-in sizing is appropriate. People here will likely hate (mostly jokingly :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:) how you're running a cash/tournament hybrid but whatever your group likes, do that. If you're interested in making it a more formal tournament structure then there's an entire sub-forum about how to best run tournaments.
 
Would you recommend starting blinds higher than .05/.10 For a $5/$10 buy-in? I really also doesn’t need to have the actual values and just run it tournament style. That’s kinda what we do now. Too 3 cash out.
Ah... well if you're really running it like a tournament then that'll open up your options. Buy a rack each of 5, 25, 100, 500 and run a base T5 tournament. Then your buy-in and pay-outs can be whatever you'd like.
 
Standard cash game buy ins are 40-200 x the big blind so for a $0.10 big blind you're looking at buy-ins from $4 - $20 so I think your blind/buy-in sizing is appropriate. People here will likely hate (mostly jokingly :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:) how you're running a cash/tournament hybrid but whatever your group likes, do that. If you're interested in making it a more formal tournament structure then there's an entire sub-forum about how to best run tournaments.
Also this ^^^^
 
Ah... well if you're really running it like a tournament then that'll open up your options. Buy a rack each of 5, 25, 100, 500 and run a base T5 tournament. Then your buy-in and pay-outs can be whatever you'd like.
Edit... you probably wouldn't need an entire rack of 100's or 500's to run a T5. Sorry - that was just off the top of my head.
 
If you're playing microstakes cash, then you will need some sort of customized (or either non-denom) option because nickels and quarters are very hard to find. Budget-wise, your best option is probably some sort of China Clay. If you buy Majestic blanks, you can get your own labels done and pick the colours you want for a semi-custom set. If you're frugal, you probably won't need more than about 400 chips to cover your bank. Bear in mind, in the future, if you decide to upgrade, then you'll probably need to write-off most of the cost of the CC's as unrecoverable.

If you're doing tournament, then it actually becomes a bit easier, because you can easily do a 1-table (10-person) tournament set with only 300 chips, and that would include some rebuys. The $250 spread over 300 chips could possibly allow you to upgrade to a better quality chip, such as a customizable ceramic, or casino-grade plastic, or maybe even nice used clay.
 
Would you recommend starting blinds higher than .05/.10 For a $5/$10 buy-in? I really also doesn’t need to have the actual values and just run it tournament style. That’s kinda what we do now. Too 3 cash out.

Welcome to pcf. And if you are running tournaments, I’d recommend picking up some nice used Paulsons. Get the following:

$5 x 100
$25 x 100
$100 x 80
$500 x 20

Use starting stacks of

$5 x 10
$25 x 10
$100 x 7
$500 x 2

And start blinds at $5/10.

You should be able to put together a 300 chip set in your price range. Lucky 21, roadhouse, horseshoes, or solids should be attainable around that price. Check out the president day sale that the chip exchange is having. I think he is selling a larger 36mm set that is in your price range. 36mm chips are smaller than a typical casino chips but that’s a great value.

Good luck!

Edit:
Yep, right in your price range:
45934DCE-427A-4BF1-A6E7-20B604316337.png

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/presidents’-day-weekend-sale.51696/

You’d have to run a T25 base, but starting stacks of 10k with blinds starting at 25/50 would work nicely.
 
I’m in the exact same position as you, college student and everything, my game just plays a little bigger with about 10-15 people regularly and a solid 10-20 dollar buy in (also .10/.25 blinds but whatever)
I just got some of the 8v China clays, I managed to grab them from a forum member on here, and there are definetly those who would be willing to sell you some, or you can buy them direct from gene @ABC Gifts and Awards albeit the color selection is a little limited
 
View attachment 404748

These are the chips that I am working with now
The tens and the fifties are inefficient. You should do some reading here to understand why, but the short story is that ideally each chip is 4x or 5x more than the the previous chip. If you do buy a new set for tournaments, , you probably don't want either of those denominations.
I can't speak to the quality of your chips, but since they have numbers on them, I'd say you're doing okay. Which is to say, don't rush into anything - read everything you can here and shop around, to make sure whatever you buy is actually a significant upgrade over what you have.
 
For 8 players, you need (rounded as barrel = multiple of 20) :
80 x 5c
160 x 25c
140 x $1
20 x $5
--> total = 400 chips

Note that with some series, you have to order by rolls of 25. This would means :
100 x 5c
175 x 25c
150 x $1
25 x $5
--> total = 450 chips

This covers a little bit more than 3 $10 buy-in per player.
8 x first buyin = 10 x 5c / 20 x 25c / 5 x $1
8 next rebuys = 10 x $1
8 next rebuys = 2 x $5

This means $250 for 400 chips. Which makes approx. 60c each (or 55c each if you have to order by roll of 25).
If you only look to new market, you can get ceramics or china clay at this price tag. Be sure to pick up a sample set to test and choose what you prefer before spending more money.

Some sets does not have a nickel chip but do have a "NCV" (chip without denomination) that you can use as a nickel. Or I'm sire that if you order china clay's from @Apache he can get a 5c label produced for the series of chip you want.

You can also use $5, $25, $100 and $500 chips ans use them as "cent" instead of "$".

@Apache and @ABC Gifts and Awards are two great and sponsored sellers here.
I think they have the products that might fit your needs.

If you are ok with used chips, you can try to score Horseshoe Cincinnati Roulettes chips that will be for sale here by @The Chip Exchange .
Just pick the color you want for each denom. And then you can replace the label with your own one.

Chips are 39c and a label is 10c (non-laminated). Since you need 2 per chips it would be 39c + 20c = 59c. Sill within your budget. If you go for laminated labels, it's 15c per label so 39c + 30c = 69c per chip which is just slightly over your budget $276. These Roulette chips are Bud Jones, high-end plastic chips.

So lots of options for you. :)
 
Last edited:
Enjoy the ride, ask questions, buy samples, pet dogs.

You are such a kitty hater.... (and forgot hotdog sandwiches)
:ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

And some solid advice for TS...buy a nice CC set and don't look back (until you have some steady form of income)
Enjoy college life...travel, party and get good grades.

Once you are a part of the rat race (wife, kids, job, mortage, ...) you can buy the expensive stuff for compensation purpose ;)
 
Welcome to pcf. And if you are running tournaments, I’d recommend picking up some nice used Paulsons. Get the following:

$5 x 100
$25 x 100
$100 x 80
$500 x 20

Use starting stacks of

$5 x 10
$25 x 10
$100 x 7
$500 x 2

And start blinds at $5/10.

You should be able to put together a 300 chip set in your price range. Lucky 21, roadhouse, horseshoes, or solids should be attainable around that price. Check out the president day sale that the chip exchange is having. I think he is selling a larger 36mm set that is in your price range. 36mm chips are smaller than a typical casino chips but that’s a great value.

Good luck!

Edit:
Yep, right in your price range:
View attachment 404569
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/presidents’-day-weekend-sale.51696/

You’d have to run a T25 base, but starting stacks of 10k with blinds starting at 25/50 would work nicely.

I can do just about this exact breakdown for $278 shipped.
 
...Two hundred and fifty dollars is a lot of twisted tea.
Don’t really see anything wrong with the chips (unless you are not actually graduating next year and starting a regular game.)
 

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