2015 HOF Voting Thread (1 Viewer)

[Mr Tree]

After forty days and nights without bread or water the HOF committee has descended from the mountain with 21 sets for you to vote upon.

[video=youtube_share;4TAtRCJIqnk]http://youtu.be/4TAtRCJIqnk[/video]

Ten shall be enshrined in the 2015 Custom Chip Set HOF. Doubtless there are sets many will feel should be in this voting. Our standards were strict and all members of the board had sets they felt should be included that did not pass to the final voting. We felt is was important to maintain a very high standard for inclusion in this thread. All members with a minimum of 25 posts may elect up to 10 sets. The ten with the most votes will be immortalized in the custom set HOF. Please think carefully before voting as this is a tough decision.

*Make sure to enter up to 10 votes correctly the first time. You won't be able to go back to edit votes or cast more votes.*

Voting will be open until February 1. Please feel free to post in this thread and solicit for your favorites.

Finally a special thank you to courage, gopherblue, jbutler, and links_slayer for all their work in helping to define the rules for the HOF and picking nominees.

And without further ado, the nominees in random order.

---

1. C U Next Tuesday - Boondocker96 - BCC - Flame mold

---

2. Silver Dust Casino - Toad94 - BCC - Flame Mold

---

3. The Old Orchard (Cash set) - Ontheuptick - ASM - Hourglass mold

---

4. Le Boudoir - Nicolas M - ASM - Fleur de Lis mold

---

5. Lady Luck Club - Abby99 - BCC - Medium Greek Key mold

---

6. Duy's Palace - Viet Rounder - BCC - Flame mold

---

7. Contreras Landa - Patolanda - BCC - Flame mold

---

8. Club Courage (cash set) - Courage - ASM - Horse Head Right mold

---

9. The Hitching Post (cash set) - Mr Tree - ASM - Horse Head Right mold

---

10. The Cedar Room - Toad94 - BCC - Flame mold

---

11. Black Cat Club - Toby - ASM - Fleur de Lis mold

---

12. The Red Room - Whippoker - TRK - Small Crown mold

---

13. Hungry Frog (tournament set) - Meatboy - ASM - Fleur de Lis mold

---

14. Suicide King Club - Courage - BCC - Medium Greek Key mold

---

15. Perfecto Card Lounge (cash set) - Karash - ASM and Matsui Plaque - H mold

---

16. Condor Club - ssanel54 - ASM - Diamond Square mold

---

17. 3 Putt Poker (cash set) - Links_slayer - ASM - A mold

---

18. 828 Club (tournament set) - Sat Guru - ASM - Diamond Square mold

---

19. The Cedar Room - Toad94 - ASM - Horse Head Right mold

---

20. Redbelly Poker Room - Redbelly - ASM/CPC - Circle Square mold

---

21. Truman's House - Bergs - ASM/CPC - Horse Head Right mold

 

[Toby]

The pics for my set don't include my nickel chip.

There are some in my gallery on PCF http://www.pokerchipforum.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=553

Is it poss to update the op?

 

[MoscowRadio]

Everyone's sets are phenomenal. Good luck to everyone!

 

[Tommy]

The pics for my set don't include my nickel chip.

There are some in my gallery on PCF http://www.pokerchipforum.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=553

Is it poss to update the op?

Possibly. I'd send Mr Tree a pm.

 

[Tommy]

I saw that Moscow! Glad you fixed it. LOL

 

[Mr Tree]

I can update it but it will have to be later when I can log onto a real computer to do it

 

[links_slayer]

I know it is cliche but each and every set that was nominated (and their owners) should be honored. There were several fantastic sets (IMO) that didn't make the cut. It is a shame that they can't all get in but that's the way these things work. Best of luck to all of these incredible sets

 

[Payback]

Let me first start by saying that as most of you know I love poker chips and have been a member of poker chip sites for a very long time. I also can appreciate the hard work done by the members of the committee, Mr. Tree included to set this whole thing up, to search through past posts and find the sets that they considered the best. I'm glad to see a few of my very favorite sets (LLC, Black Cat and Hungry Frog) appeared as choices. However, with that all being said I'm going to abstain from voting in this contest.

The very nature of a HOF thread concerned me from the beginning as who can really be the judge of something that is so personal to each of its owners. We put our hearts and soul into these sets and customize them to fit what we want out of them so who really can be the judge of that since everything here is personal taste as opposed to sports where we have some statistics to compare. With any type of HOF thing there are always issues, but I trusted that those selected for the committee would be fair, just, and neutral in the process as it was an honor to be nominated/selected as a representative of the larger community. Unfortunately, I don't think the larger community was representative here, but rather a group of the selected few. About twenty five percent of all sets chosen here are from members of the committee themselves and while there might have been one or two that are worthy of being nominated my hope was that committee members would avoid the perception of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type of thing and not include there sets for this year only to avoid this type of thing. This problem is magnified when in some individuals have multiple sets up for nomination. If we had 21 (That's a weird # BTW) up, then 21 individuals should be represented. I also wish that with the 21 nominations that a rationale was posted by the committee of "why" each chip set was selected in this last posting.

Again, I thank the committee members for there hard work, but I won't vote in something that I truly don't believe with the respect it deserves. My comments are nothing personal against the committee members, but rather a critique of the lack of ground rules established up front.

I wish each of the contestants good luck in the voting!

 

[Mr Tree]

Let me first start by saying that as most of you know I love poker chips and have been a member of poker chip sites for a very long time. I also can appreciate the hard work done by the members of the committee, Mr. Tree included to set this whole thing up, to search through past posts and find the sets that they considered the best. I'm glad to see a few of my very favorite sets (LLC, Black Cat and Hungry Frog) appeared as choices. However, with that all being said I'm going to abstain from voting in this contest.

The very nature of a HOF thread concerned me from the beginning as who can really be the judge of something that is so personal to each of its owners. We put our hearts and soul into these sets and customize them to fit what we want out of them so who really can be the judge of that since everything here is personal taste as opposed to sports where we have some statistics to compare. With any type of HOF thing there are always issues, but I trusted that those selected for the committee would be fair, just, and neutral in the process as it was an honor to be nominated/selected as a representative of the larger community. Unfortunately, I don't think the larger community was representative here, but rather a group of the selected few. About twenty five percent of all sets chosen here are from members of the committee themselves and while there might have been one or two that are worthy of being nominated my hope was that committee members would avoid the perception of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type of thing and not include there sets for this year only to avoid this type of thing. This problem is magnified when in some individuals have multiple sets up for nomination. If we had 21 (That's a weird # BTW) up, then 21 individuals should be represented. I also wish that with the 21 nominations that a rationale was posted by the committee of "why" each chip set was selected in this last posting.

Again, I thank the committee members for there hard work, but I won't vote in something that I truly don't believe with the respect it deserves. My comments are nothing personal against the committee members, but rather a critique of the lack of ground rules established up front.

I wish each of the contestants good luck in the voting!

The problem is any committee we elected would have contained people whose sets belonged up for voting. If we didn't nominate the Club Courage cash set for instance I think we would have been excluding a set that absolutely belonged in the voting. There was no you scratch my back I scratch yours here. It was just that multiple members of the committee have sets that we felt honestly deserved to go to vote.

Also the purpose wasn't to honor individuals but great sets. There are a number of sets up from Toad94 simply because he has an amazing number of great sets.

 

[Toby]

Thanks to the committee and Tommy for all the graft!

 

[Mr Tree]

The pics for my set don't include my nickel chip.

There are some in my gallery on PCF http://www.pokerchipforum.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=553

Is it poss to update the op?

Updated to include all chips.

- - - - - - - - - Updated - - - - - - - - -

Surprised there aren't more Contreras Landa votes. That set is insane.

 

[CdnBeerLover]

This is going to be difficult, as one of my favourite sets - Payback's Piss'd N Broke - didn't make the cut. Oh well. I absolutely understand the rationale, but it's unfortunate.

Also, this doesn't seem right:

All members with a minimum of 25 votes may elect up to 10 sets.

Do you mean "all members with a minimum of 25 posts"?

 

[Tommy]

Do you mean "all members with a minimum of 25 posts"?

Fixed, that was a typo.

Thanks

 

[jbutler]

The very nature of a HOF thread concerned me from the beginning as who can really be the judge of something that is so personal to each of its owners. We put our hearts and soul into these sets and customize them to fit what we want out of them so who really can be the judge of that since everything here is personal taste as opposed to sports where we have some statistics to compare. With any type of HOF thing there are always issues, but I trusted that those selected for the committee would be fair, just, and neutral in the process as it was an honor to be nominated/selected as a representative of the larger community. Unfortunately, I don't think the larger community was representative here, but rather a group of the selected few. About twenty five percent of all sets chosen here are from members of the committee themselves and while there might have been one or two that are worthy of being nominated my hope was that committee members would avoid the perception of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" type of thing and not include there sets for this year only to avoid this type of thing. This problem is magnified when in some individuals have multiple sets up for nomination. If we had 21 (That's a weird # BTW) up, then 21 individuals should be represented. I also wish that with the 21 nominations that a rationale was posted by the committee of "why" each chip set was selected in this last posting.

Again, I thank the committee members for there hard work, but I won't vote in something that I truly don't believe with the respect it deserves. My comments are nothing personal against the committee members, but rather a critique of the lack of ground rules established up front.

I agree that an endeavor such as this is ripe for cronyism, but, respectfully, I think you are incorrect in your assessment. I understand why you might feel the way you do, but please hear me out on two brief points.

First, consider that the inclusion of what might appear to be an inordinate number of sets by those on the committee might be correlation rather than causation. Here, potential committee members were culled from active forum users Tom/Mr Tree believed to be passionate and knowledgeable about custom chips. It makes sense that among those chosen, some would have particularly outstanding custom sets under their belts and this was indeed the case.

Second, the process by which the nominations were chosen was specifically designed to avoid as much as reasonably possible the type of groupthink or backscratching that might otherwise pollute it.

As a group, we decided on the following process: (1) create our individual list of potential nominees in private; (2) avoid viewing the private thread (viewable only by committee members) following a certain date/time until we had our list fully prepared; (3) post our list in the thread before viewing any other members' list; (4) debate whether any certain set deserved to be on more lists; and (5) determine which sets appears on three or more lists, qualifying them for nomination.

It was entirely in the discretion of each member whether to add any set to his list after posting and there was honestly not a lot of debate. I don't feel comfortable revealing what was on anyone else's list obviously, but I will say that of anyone, I lobbied the hardest for sets I thought deserved to be included and FWIW none of them were produced by members of the committee. Further, I stated my opinion within the thread against one committee member's set which I had left off my list. I felt comfortable doing so because I knew that each of the members is an adult and doesn't take personally someone else's reasoned and honest opinion.

Finally, "about twenty five percent of all sets chosen here" do not belong to committee members. The committee members were Mr Tree, links_slayer, courage, gopherblue, and me. Four sets (Hitching Post, Three Putt Poker, Club Courage, and Suicide King Club) by committee members qualified to be among the twenty-one total nominations (yes, as you point out, a weird number, but it was the natural consequence of the above-described process). That's about 19%.

I respect your opinion, Payback, but please consider the above.

 

[Lucky Dog]

Where is Albino Dragon's "California Club"? How did this set not make the list?

 

[Payback]

I frankly don't care that my set isn't in so don't think there is any butthurt on my end. I love my chips and that's what matter to me. I don't need anyone else's validation. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that. Also I'm also not sure why your making this personal by taking a pot shot at me my chips/me in the process either. I disagreed with the process, but did so respectfully. Not sure why you would not do the same since we are all grown ups here.

My comments came from a chip enthusiast perspective that was disappointed with the way this process was done. No rules, criteria, or guidelines posted for the community and no rationale for why these were chosen. How did the committee settle on 21 sets? That's a odd number... If the process was explained or was transparent along the way that's one thing, but it's like bam here ya go. Personally I love poker chips and think that all sets should be celebrated for their story and uniqueness.

This is going to be difficult, as one of my favourite sets - Payback's Piss'd N Broke - didn't make the cut. Oh well. I absolutely understand the rationale, but it's unfortunate.

Also, this doesn't seem right:


Do you mean "all members with a minimum of 25 posts"?

 

[Mr Tree]

I frankly don't care that my set isn't in so don't think there is any butthurt on my end. I love my chips and that's what matter to me. I don't need anyone else's validation. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that. Also I'm also not sure why your making this personal by taking a pot shot at me my chips/me in the process either. I disagreed with the process, but did so respectfully. Not sure why you would not do the same since we are all grown ups here.

My comments came from a chip enthusiast perspective that was disappointed with the way this process was done. No rules, criteria, or guidelines posted for the community and no rationale for why these were chosen. How did the committee settle on 21 sets? That's a odd number... If the process was explained or was transparent along the way that's one thing, but it's like bam here ya go. Personally I love poker chips and think that all sets should be celebrated for their story and uniqueness.

Huh? Who took a potshot at you? JButler and I both defended the process but no one took a single shot at you once.

 

[Mr Tree]

Do you mean CdnBeerLover? Maybe I misread the tone but I actually thought he was being sincere.

 

[Payback]

I don't disagree with your comments here and I don't know courage at all and not trying to make it personal, but since that is the example that was used I am going with it. I think his set is fantastic but to me his nomination would mean a lot more if he wasn't on the committee. Perhaps you can look at it from the other side and see how it appears like there was some of that, even if it wasn't.

Also Toad does have several amazing sets and I have some of his chips here that helped me decide on colors when putting my set together which he sent to me when he didn't have to. There are just other great creators that shouldve had the opportunity to be recognized and by having more than one set from the same person it limits that.

The problem is any committee we elected would have contained people whose sets belonged up for voting. If we didn't nominate the Club Courage cash set for instance I think we would have been excluding a set that absolutely belonged in the voting. There was no you scratch my back I scratch yours here. It was just that multiple members of the committee have sets that we felt honestly deserved to go to vote.

Also the purpose wasn't to honor individuals but great sets. There are a number of sets up from Toad94 simply because he has an amazing number of great sets.

 

[Mr Tree]

I don't disagree with your comments here and I don't know courage at all and not trying to make it personal, but since that is the example that was used I am going with it. I think his set is fantastic but to me his nomination would mean a lot more if he wasn't on the committee. Perhaps you can look at it from the other side and see how it appears like there was some of that, even if it wasn't.

Also Toad does have several amazing sets and I have some of his chips here that helped me decide on colors when putting my set together which he sent to me when he didn't have to. There are just other great creators that shouldve had the opportunity to be recognized and by having more than one set from the same person it limits that.

Your feelings are noted.

Now I would like the conversation to be about the sets in question so let's please end this line of discussion as it is counterproductive IMO

 

[Jeff]

I will not be participating either.

I don't support this exclusive approach as opposed to a broader celebration of the creativity of the whole of our community.

The committee members are great people. I know everyone personally, except for gopher blue, so I guess in fairness he may very well be a hooligan for all I know . I don't think they have bad intentions, their task is what I'm uncomfortable with.

It just feels wrong to me. When this issue first came up I gave the counsel to broaden the scope of inclusion, and I'm sorry that its gone the other way. Participating in this endorses the task and the outcome. I would feel the same way if I were the creator of any of the winning sets.

 

[Payback]

Do you mean CdnBeerLover? Maybe I misread the tone but I actually thought he was being sincere.

Yeah CBL. I almost put an apology caveat at the front of my post in case I misinterpreted it, but after multiple reading though it seemed like a pot shot... So yeah I deleted it. So yeah if I'm wrong about the tone I apologize, but the way it was worded was unclear.

 

[Payback]

I agree that an endeavor such as this is ripe for cronyism, but, respectfully, I think you are incorrect in your assessment. I understand why you might feel the way you do, but please hear me out on two brief points.

First, consider that the inclusion of what might appear to be an inordinate number of sets by those on the committee might be correlation rather than causation. Here, potential committee members were culled from active forum users Tom/Mr Tree believed to be passionate and knowledgeable about custom chips. It makes sense that among those chosen, some would have particularly outstanding custom sets under their belts and this was indeed the case.

Second, the process by which the nominations were chosen was specifically designed to avoid as much as reasonably possible the type of groupthink or backscratching that might otherwise pollute it.

As a group, we decided on the following process: (1) create our individual list of potential nominees in private; (2) avoid viewing the private thread (viewable only by committee members) following a certain date/time until we had our list fully prepared; (3) post our list in the thread before viewing any other members' list; (4) debate whether any certain set deserved to be on more lists; and (5) determine which sets appears on three or more lists, qualifying them for nomination.

It was entirely in the discretion of each member whether to add any set to his list after posting and there was honestly not a lot of debate. I don't feel comfortable revealing what was on anyone else's list obviously, but I will say that of anyone, I lobbied the hardest for sets I thought deserved to be included and FWIW none of them were produced by members of the committee. Further, I stated my opinion within the thread against one committee member's set which I had left off my list. I felt comfortable doing so because I knew that each of the members is an adult and doesn't take personally someone else's reasoned and honest opinion.

Finally, "about twenty five percent of all sets chosen here" do not belong to committee members. The committee members were Mr Tree, links_slayer, courage, gopherblue, and me. Four sets (Hitching Post, Three Putt Poker, Club Courage, and Suicide King Club) by committee members qualified to be among the twenty-one total nominations (yes, as you point out, a weird number, but it was the natural consequence of the above-described process). That's about 19%.

I respect your opinion, Payback, but please consider the above.

Guess we were typing at the same time. My earlier comment wasn't directed at you as I just read your post... I won't respond/derail anymore out of respect for Mr. Tree's request, but thanks for explaining some of your thought process.

 

[Poker Zombie]

I sort of agree with Payback's thought that there may have been back-scratching, even if unintentional. The only way to avoid collusion, or the appearance of such, would be if the committee members voluntarily removed their own sets from consideration.

But that obviously wasn't the case.

Perhaps the committee truly feels that their chips are amongst the best ever made - we all think that. Perhaps the idea of committee collusion was so far off their radar that it never crossed their minds. Maybe it was so obvious to them that they suppressed the very memory of their collusion.

In the end, committee members whose sets are nominated by themselves should have an asterisk like home run records during baseball's juicing years.

That said, I voted. There are great sets here, and one committee member (but only one) has a nominated set that I believe belongs in the list. Moreover, jbutler does not have a nominated set. While I rarely agree admit to agreeing with jbutler, I believe him to be a man of principals over everything. You are not going to bribe, coerce, or threaten jbutler to agree to anything that he simply does not agree with. The whole nomination process probably lasted 2 weeks longer than it should have because he wasn't satisfied.

In short, I believe in this list because jbutler believes in this list.

 

[jbutler]

while i appreciate Poker Zombie's vote of confidence, i want to make clear to everyone that i can be bribed. PM for paypal address.

 

[CdnBeerLover]

Also I'm also not sure why your making this personal by taking a pot shot at me my chips/me in the process either. I disagreed with the process, but did so respectfully. Not sure why you would not do the same since we are all grown ups here.

I'm sorry you took it as a pot-shot, Payback, as it was not meant as one. I was being sincere...I simply liked the set you put together, and would vote for them if they were listed. I did not mean to disrespect anyone involved in the process, either, and I apologize if anyone took it that way.

 

[Mr Tree]

while i appreciate Poker Zombie's vote of confidence, i want to make clear to everyone that i can be bribed. PM for paypal address.

I actually bribed Jack with nothing but lewd alpaca pictures.

 

[loul13]

Very nice sets !!! Congratz !!!

 

[Payback]

I'm sorry you took it as a pot-shot, Payback, as it was not meant as one. I was being sincere...I simply liked the set you put together, and would vote for them if they were listed. I did not mean to disrespect anyone involved in the process, either, and I apologize if anyone took it that way.

Sorry dude. In the context it didn't seem genuine. My apologies for the misunderstanding and many thanks for the compliments. [emoji1] Really the problem with the Internet you just are never sure if your being trolled.

 

[i'm nobody]

All I want to say is bravo to all you have their chips here. Some I have seen from long ago on CT and some are brand new to me. Great ideas, themes, colours, etc. Kudos to you all and best of luck.
Number 13 is by far my favourite just because of my affinity for the Aztar hotstamp.