Cash Game BEST DENOMINATIONS FOR $20 buy-in with .25/.25 BB-SB (2 Viewers)

[Jayflrs]

Hello guys! I will start hosting poker games in a few months. I am new to this and I am doing some research of how to go about this. I know that some of the guys that I have talk to feel comfortable with a buy-in of $20. Max $30-40. How many chips do I need for 4-8 people? and what denominations do I need? I am interested of getting some .5c/.10c but my concern is how do we cash those out at the end of the day? Do I need to carry nickels and dimes in my bank box? Do I have to tell the guys to bring change of nickels and dimes? How do you guys go about this? I feel if I get $5 poker chips they won't be used that much with a $20 buy-in? We feel comfortable right now with the BB and SB on .25/.25. I just want to know your opinions on this and any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

 

[springbox]

Generally you need the least of your highest value chips and somewhat less of your lowest value chips. As for whether or not you need $5s, just look at the total value of your chipset and compare that to what you expect the maximum total buy-in could be.

For example, lets say you have 8 players, you buy in for $30, and everyone buys in three times. $30*3*8=$720. So you want your max bank to be at least $720. Getting to $720 with only $1 chips or less isn't very efficient, so we will need $5s.

A small set that gets you over that bank value:

25c x 100 ($25)
$1 x 200 ($200)
$5 x 100 ($500)

Starting amounts you can hand out:

25c x 12 ($3)
$1 x 17 ($17)

As you noted, you won't use $5s for the $20 buy ins. For $30 or $40 you'll want to start incorporating them though, because you'll run out of $1s.

I have a big change jar at home I sorted, so I technically can pay people out exactly if they demand it, but even in our nickel and dime games everyone rounds to the nearest quarter or dollar. Make sure you have a good quantity of $1s and $5s, those you'll need the most of for cashing people out. Alternatively you can use Venmo or whatever payment platform you all have.

 

[Jayflrs]

I am thinking of getting 600 chips. 200chips - 25cents / 200chips - 50cents / 100chips - $1 / 50chips - $2 / 50chips - $5. How do you feel about that? am I on the right track? We usually cap at $2 for raising/betting.

If I decide to go with dimes can I do .10/.25? for the SB/BB? Is it worth it? When it comes to cashing people out is it a pain?

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

50c and $2 chips are not very useful; you can make your set way more viable if you put that elsewhere. My .25/.25 set (which you should be ready for .25/.50, its coming!) is
0.25 x 200
$1 x 300
$5 x 200
$20 x 100

Do I need all that? nope. If I'm cutting it down to be efficient:
0.25 x 100
$1 x 300
$5 x 200

That's 600 chips and way more bank than you'll need, $1300+. I prefer more fracs because that's how my players play and I like to give out a barrel of quarters and $1s. You're gonna get a million opinions, but most of us prefer not to include the 50c or $2 because we'd rather put that towards chips that are 4 or 5x bigger than the last, allowing us to represent more cash on the table.

I love my nickels too though, .05/.10 games are great, $20 gets you a deep stack lol. For 600 chips and the low low buyins, I'm less worried about having over $1000 in the bank. Instead:

.05 x 100
.25 x 200
$1 x 200
$5 x 100

Still gives $700+.

Good luck, enjoy! Keep tinkering.

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

And cashing out nickels, if your players actually want the change, use Venmo or something. I'm not handing out quarters.

 

[Machine]

I am thinking of getting 600 chips. 200chips - 25cents / 200chips - 50cents / 100chips - $1 / 50chips - $2 / 50chips - $5. How do you feel about that? am I on the right track? We usually cap at $2 for raising/betting.

If I decide to go with dimes can I do .10/.25? for the SB/BB? Is it worth it? When it comes to cashing people out is it a pain?

I created a post in my signature just for you!

 

[Oryx]

I am thinking of getting 600 chips. 200chips - 25cents / 200chips - 50cents / 100chips - $1 / 50chips - $2 / 50chips - $5. How do you feel about that? am I on the right track? We usually cap at $2 for raising/betting.

If I decide to go with dimes can I do .10/.25? for the SB/BB? Is it worth it? When it comes to cashing people out is it a pain?

A general rule of thumb is that the subsequent denomination should be 4-5x the last. So 25¢, $1, $5 etc... a 50¢ is useless as is a $2 chip. Several reasons for it but it boils down to needing to buy less chips. I've done 25¢/25¢ and it's great. @springbox laid out a great starting chip set and starting stacks it's exactly what I would do if I were you.

 

[Oryx]

I created a post in my signature just for you!

Obligatory (landscape mode if you're on mobile)

 

[DZPoker]

I love my nickels too though, .05/.10 games are great, $20 gets you a deep stack lol.

.05 x 100
.25 x 200
$1 x 200
$5 x 100

Still gives $700+.

This is close to what I did for my micro-stakes family set, for exactly the reasons @NotRealNameNoSir said!

 

[SteveEH]

How much are your players willing to lose for the entire night? Your buy in and stakes should be set based on that.

If it's $20 for the night, .25/.25 is too high. Drop down to .05/.10, but that's still cutting it close as people would only have 2 100 BB bullets to buy in with. For .25/.25 blinds, I'd want players to bring a minimum of $60 and preferably $80.

A .10 BB game will require .05 blind chips, .25 workhorse chipa, and $1 value chips.

A .25 BB game will require .25 blinds chips, $1 workhorse chips, and $5 value chips.

Set the multiple buy in expectation for the entire night, and also that you'll round to the nearest dollar when cashing out.

 

[Labrat]

As everybody says, $20 calls for .10/.20 or even .05/,10. I would drop 100 quarters, buy 100 nickels, skip the half-dollars, and add 100 dollars. Or 50 dollars and 50 five dollars.

EDIT: Forget the $2 chips, too.

 

[springbox]

.05 x 100
.25 x 200
$1 x 200
$5 x 100

This is what I use as well, but I have a very aspirational extra 100x$5 ,80x$25 ,20x$100

I also have a more efficiency minded set that still hits $700 bank and plays nickels. You can play .25/.25 with it, but it's light on $1s for actually doing so.

5c x 80
25c x 160
$1 x 100
$5 x 40
$20 x 20

 

[4SUMERZ]

I am thinking of getting 600 chips. 200chips - 25cents / 200chips - 50cents / 100chips - $1 / 50chips - $2 / 50chips - $5. How do you feel about that? am I on the right track? We usually cap at $2 for raising/betting.

If I decide to go with dimes can I do .10/.25? for the SB/BB? Is it worth it? When it comes to cashing people out is it a pain?

Don't do it. I just went through the same thing. We had $20 buy in and tops ups when down to $5 or less. I have an 8 seat table. I purchased $0.05 for the blinds of $0.10/$0.25. That was a terrible idea for cash outs at the end of the night.
Here was my chip stacks for 8 players
10 - $0.10
12- $0.25
11- $1.00
1 - $5
80 BB
I decided to raise the Buy in to $25
$0.25/$0.25 blinds
Sold my $0.05 chips and bought 100 custom $0.50 chips
Breakdown
10 - $0.25
11 - $0.50
12- $1.00
1 - $5.00
100 BB

The guys liked it much more than the previous, and much easier to count at the end of the night for cash outs.
This is my total chips for my cash set
125 - $0.25
100 - $0.50
150 - $1.00
25 - $5.00
My initial buy in chips for 8 players is
80 - $0.25
80 - $0.50
96 - $1.00
8 - $5.00

I make up 3 buy in stacks in tubes using 4 -$0.25 chips, 6 - $0.50 chips, 6 $1.00 chips, and 3 - $5.00 chips.
The remaining $1.00 chips can be used for top ups less than $25 or use the $5 Chips for buying or top ups.
I've never run out if Chips in our 4.5 hour sessions.
You can decide how many chips you want for denominations and for your set. I would advise against the $0.05 chips based on my game.

 

[DZPoker]

The guys liked it much more than the previous, and much easier to count at the end of the night for cash outs.

I don’t mean this with any tone…but do your players really have a hard time putting five 5c chips together to count them as a quarter?

I admit I typically only use my nickels in small family games, but my 12 and 13 year olds pull this off quite well. We plan to cash out to the nearest 25c. We play a last face-up hand for the nickels that are left (which the winner then puts into 5x piles to count as quarters with their original count. It goes incredibly smoothly with 4-6 players…I don’t see 8 being much more work?

There’s a thread discussing various ways to do the same to avoid having to cash out quarters right now…it’s pretty much the same situation with nickels, no?

Your game is your game and what your players like is what they like. I’m just struggling with the advice to the OP that dealing with nickels is hard, that’s all. Because it’s no harder than dealing with quarters (IMHO)….well, other than you put five of them together to get to the next denom rather than four?

 

[4SUMERZ]

None taken. We just didn't like the $0.10 /$0.25 blinds is what it came down to. In the last hand of the evening, all the $0.05 chips seemed to make it into the pot, so there was a lot of them. I managed to win that pot, and didn't even bother counting them, just took $2.00 for the lot, although I knew there was more than 60 in that last pot.
The only reason I had gone from 25 small blind to $0.10 in the sb was to make that person have to act when it came around to him again.
We only used the nickels for that one game, and then reverted back to 25 / 25 blinds, as we were doing previously. It seemed we had to ask the small blind almost each time if he was checking, raising etc. Lol..anyway, we decided as a group to start paying attention when it's their turn to act...at least grunt when we went back to 25/25, and raised the buy in to $25 to give us 100 BB instead of 80 BB.

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Don't do it. I just went through the same thing. We had $20 buy in and tops ups when down to $5 or less. I have an 8 seat table. I purchased $0.05 for the blinds of $0.10/$0.25. That was a terrible idea for cash outs at the end of the night.
Here was my chip stacks for 8 players
10 - $0.10
12- $0.25
11- $1.00
1 - $5
80 BB
I decided to raise the Buy in to $25
$0.25/$0.25 blinds
Sold my $0.05 chips and bought 100 custom $0.50 chips
Breakdown
10 - $0.25
11 - $0.50
12- $1.00
1 - $5.00
100 BB

The guys liked it much more than the previous, and much easier to count at the end of the night for cash outs.
This is my total chips for my cash set
125 - $0.25
100 - $0.50
150 - $1.00
25 - $5.00
My initial buy in chips for 8 players is
80 - $0.25
80 - $0.50
96 - $1.00
8 - $5.00

I make up 3 buy in stacks in tubes using 4 -$0.25 chips, 6 - $0.50 chips, 6 $1.00 chips, and 3 - $5.00 chips.
The remaining $1.00 chips can be used for top ups less than $25 or use the $5 Chips for buying or top ups.
I've never run out if Chips in our 4.5 hour sessions.
You can decide how many chips you want for denominations and for your set. I would advise against the $0.05 chips based on my game.

I totally understand your POV, but trading nickels for 50c pieces isn't a good play for some games. Id rather open up 5c/10c for cheaper beginner buyins than have a 50c frac right next to my quarters.

400 chips is tight but it looks like you use it perfectly well, so kudos though.

 

[4SUMERZ]

I totally understand your POV, but trading nickels for 50c pieces isn't a good play for some games. Id rather open up 5c/10c for cheaper beginner buyins than have a 50c frac right next to my quarters.

400 chips is tight but it looks like you use it perfectly well, so kudos though.

Thanks. Our table of 8 have short sessions of 4.5 hours, so no more than 3-4 buy-ins in those. We like to play, but we are all friends, so it's more of a social game than anything too serious. Our biggest winner of any session came out $82 ahead. We had many buy ins at that session, but never ran out of chips. Most times the big winner may be $30- $40 ahead.
No one has ever busted more than once in any session.

 

[Nine_high]

I am thinking of getting 600 chips. 200chips - 25cents / 200chips - 50cents / 100chips - $1 / 50chips - $2 / 50chips - $5. How do you feel about that? am I on the right track? We usually cap at $2 for raising/betting.

If I decide to go with dimes can I do .10/.25? for the SB/BB? Is it worth it? When it comes to cashing people out is it a pain?

Personally I would pick between getting nickels and quarters, or dimes and fifty cent chips. I wouldn't mix dimes and quarters because you can't break a quarter with dimes. Mixing quarters and fiddies isn't a problem per se, it just isn't necessary and those chips are better used elsewhere in your set. I don't recommend a $2 at all for this game.

Nickels/quarters let's you play 5c/5c, 5c/10c, 10c/25c, 25c/50c, etc.

Dimes/fiddies let's you play 10c/10c, 10c/20c, 20c/50c, etc.

 

[Colquhoun]

I think 5c is only for 5c/10c games.
10c/25c should be abandoned in favor of 25c/25c as it basically plays the same.

 

[4SUMERZ]

I think 5c is only for 5c/10c games.
10c/25c should be abandoned in favor of 25c/25c as it basically plays the same.

Completely agree. Against all on here I did decide to use a $.50 chip...but more so we have more chips in front of us.
It works, and the chip looks awesome.

 

[DZPoker]

It works, and the chip looks awesome.

The most important part!

 

[bmacpoker]

To answer about cashing out, I think basically you're looking at two options, mostly based on the relationship with your players. I play with some friends, we very often only play 5-6 handed, on occasion we get 8-9. These are all some of our best friends, or parents of our kids' friends, that sort of thing. Especially with some inexperienced or low-expendable income buddies, .05/.10 is the choice for majority of games.

Option 1 - Venmo. Besides exact change, it also allows for more impromptu games. We decide last minute to play some microstakes, everyone venmo so and so and cash out later. Drawbacks: psychologically frustrating as banker at times, it's really easy to just keep adding on since you are not paying anyone else, and it's a bit deflating to see the venmo account disappear during cash out (even if you are up). It's also really easy to lose track, someone says "hey I'm adding on $20" you grab them chips, you both get distracted by a hand and forget. Especially when drinking is involved.

Option 2 - cash, and just round down. Keep the change as sort of service as banker/host, and just make it clear you're doing it this way. Still probably need a lot of singles, though.

Our game has evolved a lot. Used to be little $5 winner take all tourneys, I was the only experienced player and everyone was comfortable with small amounts until they learned more. Our core group has moved up to .25/.50 match the stack, it can play pretty big. .25/.25 will be for expanded games, it makes auditing and final payouts more straightforward than the nickels and dimes.

 

[JustinInMN]

Don't overthink this. Only two denominations needed. Give everyone 8-12 quarters, give the rest in singles. You should have 200 (or more) singles in your set. After those are exhausted, do rebuys with fives and make change as needed.

 

[JustinInMN]

Completely agree. Against all on here I did decide to use a $.50 chip...but more so we have more chips in front of us.
It works, and the chip looks awesome.

If it works for your game it can't be that wrong. Just understand many hosts prefer fewer, well-spaced, denominations because of counting speed when it comes to all-ins (particularly in NL) and cash-outs. We see excess denominations as a liability in that regard.

 

[4SUMERZ]

If it works for your game it can't be that wrong. Just understand many hosts prefer fewer, well-spaced, denominations because of counting speed when it comes to all-ins (particularly in NL) and cash-outs. We see excess denominations as a liability in that regard.

I understand where you are coming from, but there us only 80 .25 chips on the table, and 88 .50 chips on the table based on the 8 player buy ins.
Any top ups or rebuys are made up of $1 and $5 chips in which change can be made from the players.

 

[JustinInMN]

I understand where you are coming from, but there us only 80 .25 chips on the table, and 88 .50 chips on the table based on the 8 player buy ins.
Any top ups or rebuys are made up of $1 and $5 chips in which change can be made from the players.

That's fine if you are fine with it.

Most of us just prefer having 100 quarters and the rest in singles. It's two denoms to count, not three. That matters, especially in no-limit. But again, your game, up to you. Just trying to shed light on why many of us would not pass this advice on to hosts asking the questions such as the first one in this thread.

 

[Jayflrs]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Another question I have for my set is, Do I need $25 or $20 chips? Like I stated before I don't think I will be using the $5 chip a lot. But like some of you mentioned they will be necessary for rebuys, which I agree. But how often do you guys use a $20 or $25 chip? Especially if you play limit games and most buy-ins are $20/$25? Do I really need it?

 

[bmacpoker]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Another question I have for my set is, Do I need $25 or $20 chips? Like I stated before I don't think I will be using the $5 chip a lot. But like some of you mentioned they will be necessary for rebuys, which I agree. But how often do you guys use a $20 or $25 chip? Especially if you play limit games and most buy-ins are $20/$25? Do I really need it?

Not 100% necessary, but I'd say maybe get a barrel of them. If for no other reason than for "storage" of cash. You might find that someone is sitting on a stack of $100+ and it would be nice to color up at least half of it. And if your stakes raise at all or that happens more often, at least you have them.

 

[JustinInMN]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Another question I have for my set is, Do I need $25 or $20 chips? Like I stated before I don't think I will be using the $5 chip a lot. But like some of you mentioned they will be necessary for rebuys, which I agree. But how often do you guys use a $20 or $25 chip? Especially if you play limit games and most buy-ins are $20/$25? Do I really need it?

I would agree, probably not unless you are really low on $5 chips (which you shouldn't be .) If you have even 200 $5 chips that covers $1000, how often would have more than that on the table at these stakes? (That would be 25 total buy-ins at $40.)

 

[Nine_high]

Thanks for the insight guys.

Another question I have for my set is, Do I need $25 or $20 chips? Like I stated before I don't think I will be using the $5 chip a lot. But like some of you mentioned they will be necessary for rebuys, which I agree. But how often do you guys use a $20 or $25 chip? Especially if you play limit games and most buy-ins are $20/$25? Do I really need it?

As you described your game you won't likely need them. But you can add some to your set to allow for future growth. It will plus up your bank at relatively low cost so maybe adding just a barrel or two is worthwhile.

I do $100 max buy ins and my $20s come out just about every time...around the 15th full buy in. I've never exhausted them (30+ buy ins) but occasionally I'll put out a hundo anyway just for funsies.