Tourney Best Amount for Starting Stacks (1 Viewer)

[MaxB]

So I have been reading what others have said, but my set seems to be different (less high denom chips in my set as I prefer using more lower chips). What would be the best starting stack amount for either a 10 person or 20 person tourney (with buy ins)

I have the following which looks to be my final tally (for now)

T25 264 chips
T100 304 chips
T500 103 chips
T1000 50 or 60 chips (might buy 10 more)
T2500 18 chips ... yeah I know these aren't really needed but they are my favorite color combination chips
T5000 10 chips
T10000 5 chips
T25000 1 lone chip .... because its like a trophy if its sitting in your stack (lime green chip)

total is 308500 (309500 if I get 10 more 1k's)

Gear will be making my custom Aztar labels for the denominations above 1k, so those are not set in stone yet. Since I will be starting up tourney games later this month (hopefully two tables worth, but I will assume 1 table to start), can anyone give me some advice on starting stacks or any other comments on chip totals (especially the ones above 1k which are custom) Thanks

 

[manamongkids]

For your set probably a 5k starting stack

Starting stack breakdown

8 x 25
8 x 100
4 x 500
2 x 1000

This would give you ability to handle up to 20 people easily including some rebuys

 

[MaxB]

ok, 5k is easy to manage for starting.

 

[manamongkids]

depending on how quickly you want your tournament to go, I would consider starting with 25/25 blinds, giving you 200 big blinds to start.

a quicker game you can start with 25/50, or even 50/100

 

[atomiktoaster]

I'd try to get to 10k for a single table:

20/20/9/3

Rebuys would all be in big denoms (you'd have 16).

Even for two tables, I'd do more smaller denoms (why not? you have them)
12/12/5/1

 

[ChaosRock]

MAK's suggestion is pretty good... I'd personally change it slightly:

- T5K stacks for 20 players assuming you don't get the additional T1Ks:

12 x T25
12 x T100
5 x T500
1 x T1K

Color-up T25 and T100 with T1Ks and re-buys with T2500s and T5Ks.

- T10K stacks for 10 players assuming you don't get the additional T1Ks:

12 x T25
17 x T100
10 x T500
3 x T1K

Color-up T25 and T100 with T1Ks and 2 T2500 and re-buys with T2500s, T5Ks and T10Ks.

You always have the option of using different compositions to get to a T5K stack if you want almost all T25s and T100s playing initially: 14 players 12/12/5/1, 6 players 16/21/5... Once you color-up T25s and T100s the amount of higher denoms chips on the table will be the same though... You could do a similar thing with T10Ks starting stacks for 10 players if you wish...

* LOL! Sorry Toaster, we posted at the same time...

 

[MaxB]

do you think more than 50 1k's are needed ..... I can get another 10 (though a bit pricey)? The 2500's are my sexy chip (I love the color with the stripes)..... had to somehow get those into the mix and with new matching labels, will be looking sharp

 

[MaxB]

ok, so 10k for <10 people and 5k for up to 20 people...... blinds 25/50 .

12 x T25
17 x T100
10 x T500
3 x T1K

I like this stack .... a good amount of chips to start with but lots lower denoms. The people I probably will be playing with are not usual poker players (at least for now). Hopefully I can also get more seasoned poker games going (Tim/Guinnes can probably recruit a few people)

 

[atomiktoaster]

25/50 is fine, but more experienced players would probably appreciate a deeper structure. You could start at 25/25 and/or add a "BGinGA" blind of 25/75.

 

[Irish]

- T5K stacks for 20 players assuming you don't get the additional T1Ks:

12 x T25
12 x T100
5 x T500
1 x T1K

^this^

If you're starting a new regular game, I'd personally keep the starting stacks at 5k, regardless of how many players you have. When you have 12 players or less, then you can do starting stacks of 20/20/5 to get even more chips on the table and use the 1ks for colors ups.

If your game starts small and you have ~10 people the first few months and play 10k stacks, some players may find it difficult to dial back to 5k stacks when you have the bigger tourneys. Solid players shouldn't have a problem with this (as long as you're adjusting your blind schedule properly), but others will feel like they have half the money as usual and you'll get less action (or will bet like they've got 10k stacks and go broke much quicker). My regular tourneys use 5k stacks (whether I have 6 players or 25 players), and I run occasional deep stack tourneys at 10k. My 2¢ worth...

 

[MaxB]

You could start at 25/25

How does that work?

25/25
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300 -> kill off 25's after this
---NO REBUY----
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000 -> kill off 100's after this
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000 --> kill off the 500's after this
3000/6000
4000/8000
5000/10000 -> doubt it would get close to this anyways

 

[atomiktoaster]

How does that work?

25/25
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300 -> kill off 25's after this
---NO REBUY----
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000 -> kill off 100's after this
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000 --> kill off the 500's after this
3000/6000
4000/8000
5000/10000 -> doubt it would get close to this anyways

That would be good. You'd at least want a 1000/2000 level in there, if not a 700/1400 and a 1000/2000. Coloring up the 500s probably isn't necessary. You might want antes at the higher levels anyway. I'm a little biased since I LOVE that chip though.

 

[Bloody Marvelous]

We really need a sticky with standard blind level structures. I've seen the same blind levels repeated on so many threads I can't even bring myself to respond anymore...

(oh shit, I just did...)

 

[ChaosRock]

How does that work?

25/25
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300 -> kill off 25's after this
---NO REBUY----
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000 -> kill off 100's after this
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000 --> kill off the 500's after this
3000/6000
4000/8000
5000/10000 -> doubt it would get close to this anyways

I would add BGinGA trademarked 25/75 level so you don't double your blinds twice the first two levels, I'd get rid of level 500/100, add levels 600/1200, 800/1600 and 1000/2000 and get rid of 2500/5000... I wouldn't color-up the T500s as there will be only 100 in play... I'd color up T25s after 150/300 and T100s after 800/1600. It all depends how long you want your tourney to last really but I'd personally prefer to have a smooth and low blind progression with quicker levels than fast progression with longer levels...

But, what Marvelous said holds true! We need a sticky blind schedule post!

 

[MaxB]

I would love a huge sticky blind post.

If you have amount A of chips and X number of people, do this
If you have amount B of chips and X number of people, do this
if you have amount A of chips and Y number of people, use these

would be great also to have a sticky # of chips to buy. Even though I think I have what I need, I still question myself. Its hard to get side by side comparisons.

 

[Irish]

Check out homepokertourney.com, there's a whole page there that goes into the various chip stacks and chips needed for different tournament sizes and chip value ranges. There's a chip calculator spreadsheet available there as well.

 

[atomiktoaster]

There's enough deviation from the HPT advice and what BGinGA and others here would recommend that it might be worth a sticky. I think they recommend a 4:3:2;1 ratio, but something like 3:3:2:2 (for 5-500) or 3:3:1:2 (for 25-1000) probably makes more sense. Plus, they don't cover cash games well at all. There's so many variables between the games a set might cover and chip availability that individual breakdown/structure threads make sense for a lot of cases.

 

[MaxB]

The part that has me confused, is I see people talk about a good amount of 25's and 100's, then they have a decent amount of 500's and 1k's, then they have a massive amount of 5k's and 25k's

What I don't get is if we are blinding in the 25 chip range (25/50, 150/300, etc), why bother if the table has a ton of 5k and 25k chips? Even the 100's seem like pennies compared to huge stacks of 5k's and higher.

Either the blinds seem too small to start or the value of the chips are too big (at least I think) .... it's harder to put together a set of chips than it is to play

 

[BGinGA]

To have sufficient chips to avoid excessive change-making, it it usually recommended to have at least 10-12 of the workhorse chips per player in play (absolute minimum of 8/player). Early-on, the workhorse chips are T25 and T100. In the middle stages of the tournament, that switches to T100 and T1000 chips (assuming T25-T100-T500-T1000-T5000 progression).

For those reasons, the number of starting T25 and T100 chips should typically be higher than the number of starting T500 or T1000 chips. If T1000 chips are used to color-up the T25 and T100 chips, then the starting numbers for that denomination can be slightly lower than optimum, since more of those chips will be added later (plus the number of remaining players will be smaller later in the event, which also helps create a larger ratio of T1000 chips per player). Larger fields require fewer T1000 chips per individual starting stack, because of the total number of T1000 chips in play across all tables (which will be sufficient once stacks grow larger as players are eliminated, by the time the T1000's become workhorse chips).

In general, T10000 starting stacks work best as:
12 x T25
12 x T100
5 x T500
6 x T1000
~or~
12 x T25
12 x T100
3 x T500
7 x T1000

The larger denominations are added as the lower denominations are removed from play. An optimal number of chips remaining at the end of a tournament is typically between 100-200 total chips (when three-handed or heads-up). Total chip counts outside of that range tend to either require too much change-making (if too small), or do not contain enough workhorse chips for efficient betting and slow the game down (if too large).