Thank you Justin!True, I was just focused on the quantity needed for the actual starting stacks. Typically with a base T25 structure, I would suggest 1 extra T1000 per player to compensate of the T25 and T100 chips in the starting stack when doing 8 of each. In a 4 hour tournament, those two color ups are usually necessary.
To the main point of @Lent53 's question, By planning higher chips for your re-entries (just adding chips not players) there are basically 3 parts of a tournament set buy.
1) Starting Stacks
This is fairly obvious, figure out your preferred starting stack and multiply by the players. In this case 8/8/4/7 * 20 of T25/100/500/1000
Total 160/160/80/140, 460 chips, 23 per player.
2) Color Ups
Figure out which color ups will generally be required and get additional large chips to account for their removal. In this case, pretty typically T25 and T100 will be colored up in this sort of tournament so for sure add 1 T1000 chip per player. If you think you will get into coloring up T500 chips 2 T5000 chips per 5 players. (Five starting stacks have T10000 in T500 chips between them.)
So times 20 players, this part requires 20 additional T1000 and 5 additional T5000 chips., 25 more chips, a little more than 1 per player.
3) Re-entry Chips
Figure out your estimated re-entry rate. I think planning 50% is usually sufficient with a decent structure, but I think this part is pretty subjective, and often just rounds the set to a nice number. In this case if we figure 10 re-entries is what we want to accommodate, we need two T5000 chips per player to do that.
10 * 2 = 20 chips.
So this gives a total minimum set of 160/160/80/160/25 of T25/100/500/1000/5000 for a total of 585, add 15* T5000 to make a full barrel to get 600.
If you play to reissue re-entries with full starting stacks, you have to plan 10 * 23 more chips as in part 1, instead of 10*2 more chips in part 2. And again, a re-entry does not add players, it only adds to the tournament chips in play. You would assume the chips you put in the starting stacks are sufficient for the number of players you have, take advantage of that fact to simplify the tournament planning.
Now I understand the nature of @Lent53 's question is actually about switching to a T5K starting stack with the set planned for T10K stack. And I think the answer is I wouldn't change anything other than plan to issue re-entries with T1000 chips instead of T5000 chips, but you still don't need to plan any more low chips than what are necessary for the number of players you can host. With only two T1000 chips per player on the table, introducing T5000 chips may create a scenario where it is tough to break a T5000 chip unless one player happens to have a quarter of the T1000 chips in play. With 7 T1000 chips per player in the in a T10K starting stack, it's much easier to break T5000 chips.
I hope this clears up the confusion.
Bottom line, assume the small chips you put in the initial starting stacks are sufficient, if they aren't change the starting stacks, not the re-entry stacks. Introduce big chips when coloring up. @Chris Manzoni 's video above shows how to bring in a big chip from the bank and who to look for to make change. His advice is a little different than what @BGinGA and I are saying since he is just bringing in one T5000 chip instead of a number of T1000 chips, but the principles are the same, find a player on the table to make change for a big chip and use those chips to color up the T25s to T100s. (And later T100s to T500s.) Do not introduce new T100s (or T500s) to do this, they will just be removed again at the next color up.
Good questions and good luck,
Justin
I guess I have 2 main concerns with doing a 10k starting stack.
1. Will I be able to finish a 20 person tournament with rebuys in roughly 4 hours with 15-minute levels starting at 25-50 blinds (200bb). If not, roughly how long will something with this setup take to complete?
2. Will I have enough chips with my current setup which is 16/160/100/140/50 or do I need to order more
My concerns with the 5k starting stack is:
1. Whether or not I will run into problems as @BGinGA pointed out of starting with only an 8/8/4/2 setup and having issues later on.
2. Are these sufficient starting stacks with only 22 chips.