Redbelly Poker Room

Redbelly Poker Room

Owner: Redbelly

I am a pilot for Southwest Airlines and have been lucky enough to be with this company since 1994, thus the reason for EST. 1994. I also have two teenage boys and ever since Xbox came out with their launch game Halo, we have enjoyed countless hours playing that game, among many others, together. When playing online you have to have a "gamer tag" so I came up with a very original "sh737" (my initials followed by the type of aircraft I fly). Needless to say, as the boys got older they insisted I get a bit more creative with my gamer tag name. The online gaming community can get pretty creative and a bit over the top in name selections so I didn't want to disappoint either them or my boys and chose "Redbelly Skygod". All in jest I assure!!! Drawing from that gamer tag, "Redbelly Poker Room" seemed to be the perfect name on which to build my set. It reminds me of my profession, the wonderful times spent with my boys, and the game of poker that I truly enjoy playing!

The name Redbelly comes from what our Southwest jets are often referred to in the industry due to most of our airplanes being painted with red under bellies. To keep the design simple I chose to just highlight the red of the underbelly in the airplane artwork. The heart between the Poker and Room was added because Southwest is often referred to as the "LUV" airline so it also seemed appropriate to use. I consider myself very fortunate to be in this profession that I love so much so coming up with a name or theme for my poker room was not a difficult choice.

The Redbelly artwork design was completed by Ttttubby (Erik) whose artwork I had admired for quite awhile. In particular, I was drawn to his design work on the "Old Hilltop" and "The Capital" sets. It was the simple yet elegant design I was striving for in my chip set. I was very happy when Erik offered to take on this project. He brought together my vision beautifully and I was extremely pleased with the final product! He fielded quite an array of questions and tolerated several "what ifs" on the road to this set being completed never giving a hint of frustration. It made the whole journey very enjoyable! Since then Erik has done the artwork for table felts, dealer buttons, cut cards, seat plaques, etched bottles... rumor has it I may have even built a Redbelly trophy that he provided artwork for... He has been incredible!

While I had thought about building a custom poker chip set for a few years and had ordered several sample sets, it was a chance meeting that I had with Mike D. from ASM,

in Las Vegas, playing a tournament together at the Hardrock Casino, that really inspired me to pick up the phone, call ASM, and start asking questions. Everyone at ASM (Maine) was wonderful and cemented my decision for ASM to make the chips for my set! Original order placed April 2012.

I chose the CSQ mold mostly for the "lack of theme" and because this mold supports a 1" inlay. Although I love the themed molds such as the HHR and E&C, they just didn't fit the theme I had selected. I have never regretted my mold selection.

While I initially thought I had good ideas concerning colors and spot patterns, I was woefully mistaken. It was really the willingness of the chip community, members such as Tttubby, Courage, JM, Abby99, Jbutler16, BPTDirector, Jeff, BGinGA, AlbinoDragon, PAZ914, and so many others, who offered up so many great ideas, constructive criticisms, and encouragement on chip colors, spot patterns, and progressions, that helped make this set so wonderful!

In 2014, in preparation for my upcoming Redbelly's Round Up on the Ridge event AND due to CPC coming onto the scene and rescuing the custom clay chip market, I cheerfully added on to my Redbelly Set. I could not have been more pleased with the result! I have huge thanks to give to Ttttubby (Erik) and to the David's and Jim B. at CPC for allowing me to do some (I think) pretty cool stuff with the additions to the Redbelly Set. Add-on order placed May 2014!

January of 2014 marked my 20th year flying "Redbelly" jets! I have also had the good fortune to share several moments in the past with our beloved founder Herb! As a "thank you" for building an incredible airline that has allowed me to spend the last two decades with amazing job security not found anywhere else in this industry, I wanted to add on some chips with "Herb" in mind. Approximately 100 T100's and T1K's of the add on order have a slight change to the inlay. They are on a slightly larger 1 1/16th inlay, they have 1994 - 2014, replacing the EST 1994 on the top and a "Thanks /heart/ Herb!!" on the bottom replacing the Poker/heart/ Room. I think they came out amazing in every respect! I also added an additional 200 T1K's and finally I also added a surprise 100 T25K's! The T25K chip has a very unique, never done before, spot pattern (414+DSA18). The Redbelly Tournament Set is now complete having 1650 total chips! (although the actual count is somewhat higher due to extras.)

A HUGE thank you to this community! Not a chance this set would have been possible without all of the wonderful guidance and suggestions from all of you over the last several years! I am deeply deeply humbled and incredibly grateful that my Redbelly Set has produced the response that it has. I stepped into an arena that holds so many amazing chip sets that I admire... my honest goal when I began this journey was to construct a set that was personally satisfying, worthy of this community, and to not embarrass myself in front of you all!

Perhaps I have succeeded.

ORIGINAL TOURNAMENT ORDER - ASM (Maine)
Value/ Quantity/ Base Color/ Spot Style/ Spot Color 1/ Spot Color 2
  • T25/ 400/ Green/ 1D14/ Dark Green/ Light Green
  • T100/ 300/ Black/ 2D14/ Charcoal/ Grey
  • T500/ 200/ Retro Lavender/ 3D14/ Retro Blue/ Purple
  • T1K/ 100/ Canary Yellow/ 4D14/ Butterscotch/ Yellow
  • T5K/ 100/ Orange/ 3T316/ Chocolate/ DG Orange/ DG Peach
  • Bounty/ 50/ Charcoal/ 312A318/ Black/ Red
ADD-ON ORDER TOURNAMENT ORDER - CPC
  • T100/ 100/ 1 1/16" Inlay/ "Thanks Herb" Tribute Chip
  • T1K/ 100/ 1 1/16" Inlay/ "Thanks Herb" Tribute Chip
  • T1K/ 200/ Original
  • T25K/ 100/ Blue/ 414+DSA18/ Bright White/ Light Blue/ Retro Blue
TOTAL REDBELLY TOURNAMENT SET
  • T25 - 400
  • T100 - 400
  • T500 - 200
  • T1K - 400
  • T5K - 100
  • T25 - 100
  • Bounty - 50
  • TOTAL - 1650
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Author
PCF
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First release
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Rating
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