Cash game denomination break down? (1 Viewer)

[Pacificrim]

The set I am considering purchasing for my home cash game has denominations of:
.05/.10/.25/.50/1.00/2.00/5.00/10.00//20.00/25.00/100.00 = total 11 different denominations
I like the set and want to have every denomination included.
Here is what I came up with:
.05-160pc/.10-200pc/.25-300pc/.50-300pc/
1.00-200pc/2.00-100pc/5.00-100pc/
10.00-40pc/20.00-40pc/25.00-40pc/100.00-20pc
Total 1500
Sometimes we have low stakes/6-10 player games.
Sometimes we have higher stakes/12-18 player games. 20-30 bucks with one rebuy
Given the denominations of the set I am looking at, what would be your chip quantity breakdown.
And let the opinions fly!
Thanks
Pacificrim

 

[Littleluck55]

I don’t think you’re going to like the answers if you want to keep all the denominations. At a minimum, you don’t need 5 of those denominations no matter what you are playing.

 

[Old State]

The set I am considering purchasing for my home cash game has denominations of:
.05/.10/.25/.50/1.00/2.00/5.00/10.00//20.00/25.00/100.00 = total 11 different denominations
I like the set and want to have every denomination included.
Here is what I came up with:
.05-160pc/.10-200pc/.25-300pc/.50-300pc/
1.00-200pc/2.00-100pc/5.00-100pc/
10.00-40pc/20.00-40pc/25.00-40pc/100.00-20pc
Total 1500
Sometimes we have low stakes/6-10 player games.
Sometimes we have higher stakes/12-18 player games. 20-30 bucks with one rebuy
Given the denominations of the set I am looking at, what would be your chip quantity breakdown.
And let the opinions fly!
Thanks
Pacificrim

Welcome. The best scenario for running a cash game is to limit the amount of denominations on the table to 2-3. You will find it extremely annoying banking a game with more. I’d have to wrap my head around the stakes you are suggesting to give you a suggestion. What are the blinds?

Traditionally speaking, the common casino denominations are 1/5 or 1/4 of the next denomination. The denominations of chips you will find at a casino for common stakes are 1/5/25/100/500

The smallest game I’ve ever hosted is 25/50 which I would do 50/50 now to limit the denominations. Many would say use .25 chips over .50 but I like less chips not more on the table.

I just build custom cash set to cover 50/$1, $1/2, and $2/5. After 20 years of hosting cash games, this is breakdown I went with to cover those games. The core game I built this for is $1/2(3) and I would run that with just $1 and $5s. As you can see the $5s are the workhorse chip so I have significantly more of them.

The blue chips are .50. The rest are traditional colors - white $1, red $5, green $25, black $100. Rack of 100 chips.

Maybe you can transpose this theory to your stakes

 

[Pacificrim]

.05/.10 game…so drop the .10’s
drop the .50’s
drop the 2.00’s
drop the 10.00’s
drop the 20.00’s or 25.00’s (20.00’s?)

ok what to add to the other denom’s?

 

[BGinGA]

Eleven different denominations are offered so that set buyers can configure their purchase to meet their specific needs. Not so that all of the denominations exist in a single set, which is highly inefficient and a huge waste of money on chips that will never get used (or shouldn't be used together).

First define your game format(s), then define your game stakes with actual numbers ("low stakes" means different things to different people), then assemble a set (or sets) with adequate numbers of the actual needed denominations to efficiently run your game(s).

 

[Pacificrim]

My .05/.10 game for a 5 buy in, has a max of 6 players. Quick game around the campfire.
My .25/.50 game for a 10-20 buy in has a max of 12 players
We do have up to 18 players or three 6-player tables with a 40-50 buy in with one rebuy only. That’s our biggest home game.
Just tired of playing with someones Bicycle chips
Pacificrim

Welcome. The best scenario for running a cash game is to limit the amount of denominations on the table to 2-3. You will find it extremely annoying banking a game with more. I’d have to wrap my head around the stakes you are suggesting to give you a suggestion. What are the blinds?

Traditionally speaking, the common casino denominations are 1/5 or 1/4 of the next denomination. The denominations of chips you will find at a casino for common stakes are 1/5/25/100/500

The smallest game I’ve ever hosted is 25/50 which I would do 50/50 now to limit the denominations. Many would say use .25 chips over .50 but I like less chips not more on the table.

I just build custom cash set to cover 50/$1, $1/2, and $2/5. After 20 years of hosting cash games, this is breakdown I went with to cover those games. The core game I built this for is $1/2(3) and I would run that with just $1 and $5s. As you can see the $5s are the workhorse chip so I have significantly more of them.

The blue chips are .50. The rest are traditional colors - white $1, red $5, green $25, black $100. Rack of 100 chips.

Maybe you can transpose this theory to your stakes


View attachment 1184450

So jealous, but I will get there one day. Thank you Pacificrim

 

[BonScot]

it looks like your game is played with 5c/10c blinds and a $20 buy in.

If it was my game I’d be giving each player a starting stack of

5c x 10 = 50c
25c x 18 = $4.50
$1 x 15 = $15

You can rejig it to get more 5c chips on the table if you like to see loads of chips flying around.

All of my rebuys would be in $1 chips or $5 chips.

At the stakes you’re playing $5 is the highest denomination you’ll need.

If you have 18 players then multiply the starting stack above by 18 and that’ll give you all the 5c and 25c chips you’ll ever need. It’s then just a case of making sure you have enough $1 and $5 chips for the rebuys.

If the buy in is $20 then a $25 chip is pretty useless. You could get $20 chips if you want to have an extra denomination.

I would suggest keeping your set to 4 or 5 denominations. If you get all of the denominations in your post you’ll end up getting frustrated and chucking half of them in the bin.

If it was me and I had 18 players I’d probably go for a set made up of:

5c x 200 (gives everyone 10 chips or 50c)

25c x 350 (gives everyone 18 chips or $4.50)

$1 x 350 (gives everyone 15 chips or $15 plus you have 80 left over for rebuys)

$5 x 200 (will be more than enough to cover your rebuys)

$20 x ? (just for shits and giggles as they’ll probably never get used)

 

[Pacificrim]

it looks like your game is played with 5c/10c blinds and a $20 buy in.

If it was my game I’d be giving each player a starting stack of

5c x 10 = 50c
25c x 18 = $4.50
$1 x 15 = $15

You can rejig it to get more 5c chips on the table if you like to see loads of chips flying around.

All of my rebuys would be in $1 chips or $5 chips.

At the stakes you’re playing $5 is the highest denomination you’ll need.

If you have 18 players then multiple the starting stack above by 18 and that’ll give you all the 5c and 25c chips you’ll ever need. It’s then just a case of making sure you have enough $1 and $5 chips for the rebuys.

If the buy in is $20 then a $25 chip is pretty useless. You could get $20 chips if you want to have an extra denomination.

I would suggest keeping your set to 4 or 5 denominations. If you get all of the denominations in your post you’ll end up getting frustrated and chucking half of them in the bin.

If it was me and I had 18 players I’d probably go for a set made up of:

5c x 200 (gives everyone 10 chips or 50c)

25c x 350 (gives everyone 18 chips or $4.50)

$1 x 350 (gives everyone 15 chips or $15 plus you have 30 left over for rebuys)

$5 x 200 (will be more than enough to cover your rebuys)

$20 x ? (just for shits and giggles as they’ll probably never get used)

This was very helpful. Pacificrim

 

[4SUMERZ]

If your buy-in is $30, then either have 150 BB or $30.00 chips, which makes the chips worth exactly what they say on the chips.
Note: You can double the chips and have 300 BB and $60.00 worth of chips for the $30.00 buy-in, so each chip is worth 1/2 it's value and you can use some higher denominations.
depending on your blinds, say 10/20 for a micro cash game, using each smaller denoms and based on an 8 player table
each stack for 8 players for 150 BB
10 -$0.05 = $0.50 and 80 chips used (80 remaining for rebuy stack)
10 - $0.10 = $1.00 and 80 chips used (120 remaining " " " )
10 -$0.25 = $2.50 and 80 chips used (220 remaining " " " )
12 -$0.50 = $6.00 and 96 chips used (204 remaining " " " )
10 - $1.00 = $10.00 and 80 chips used (120 remaining " " " )
5 -$2.00 = $10.00 and 40 chips used (60 remaining " " " )
total chips =57 per stack worth $30.00 actual dollars.

I personally use only $0.25, $1.00 and $5.00 chips or 3 denoms for $0.25/$0.25 blinds

 

[LeLe]

IMHO, 4 denominations with 4x 5x increment is enough for each cash game.

Example $1/2 will only need $1, $5, $25 & $100

 

[Old State]

My .05/.10 game for a 5 buy in, has a max of 6 players. Quick game around the campfire.
My .25/.50 game for a 10-20 buy in has a max of 12 players
We do have up to 18 players or three 6-player tables with a 40-50 buy in with one rebuy only. That’s our biggest home game.
Just tired of playing with someones Bicycle chips
Pacificrim


So jealous, but I will get there one day. Thank you Pacificrim

Didn’t show the pic to make you jealous but rather to give you a visual.

At any stakes you will have a workhorse chip as people call them. In $1/2 or $1/3 that is $5 for example hence why my set is built like that. At a $1/3 game in a casino they will give you all $5 chips unless you ask for $1s. If a blind is to you you just throw a $5 chip in and they will give you $1 chips In change. They keep as few $1 on the table as possible. It reduces clutter and makes it easier to see how many chips people have. Also easier to cash people out.

For your .25/.50 game I’d play with just .25 and $1 chips. That game should really have a $50 buyin to play right. So maybe 200 .25 chips and 400 $1 chips …maybe 60 $5’s

Believe me, I’ve had nights that have gone until 3am and where I had one too many beers. Multiple denominations and too many chips suck when you have to verify peoples stacks when cashing them out.

Others here will be better for total numbers needed for those stakes in each denomination…but whatever you arrive at try to keep it 3 or less.
I forgot about this video a member here put out. Some good advice

 

[Old State]

View attachment 1184486

IMHO, 4 denominations with 4x 5x increment is enough for each cash game.

Example $1/2 will only need $1, $5, $25 & $100

I don’t think you need $100s for $1/2 and only a small amount of $25s unless you need to have very few chips in total. I’ve hosted $220 max buyin with $300 reloads with minimal $25 chips in play. In the set pictured above I went with 160 $1 and 600 $5. Those $25s and $100s are really for $2/5

 

[LeLe]

It really depends on the crowd, some of the players like to play deep stack and sometimes we have $15-$17k at end game for our $1/2 game where I have almost a full rack of hundos in play.

 

[BonScot]

My .05/.10 game for a 5 buy in, has a max of 6 players. Quick game around the campfire.
My .25/.50 game for a 10-20 buy in has a max of 12 players
We do have up to 18 players or three 6-player tables with a 40-50 buy in with one rebuy only. That’s our biggest home game.
Just tired of playing with someones Bicycle chips
Pacificrim


So jealous, but I will get there one day. Thank you Pacificrim

A couple of things worth keeping in mind.

Try to keep your buy in around 100 times your big blind (there’s no set rule - it can be 40x to 200x but 100x is a good guideline). So a $20 buy in is good for a 10c/20c game. $50 buy in suits a 25c/50c buy in, etc.

The breakdown i gave in my last post is good for your 18 player 10c/20c game. If you add on a few more racks of $5 chips that’ll cover your 25c/50c game no bother.

If you’re buying readily available chips then you can always add on later. If you’re buying rare or custom chips you’re going to need to get it right first time as it can be difficult to find extra chips later.

 

[abby99]

Welcome to PCF!!!

I researched chip breakdowns extensively in 2009 when designing my first set of customs. Because I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to add on to this set, ever, I wanted to be sure that I ordered enough chips to meet my needs for a long time. Unfortunately, I cannot locate all the tools I used, but between my memory and my custom set I can reconstruct the calculation that I ended up using. It's based on an article on a now-defunct site (chiptalk) authored by a member named Matthew. He discussed the rationale behind his suggested method but I couldn't locate a copy of his article.

The bottom line is that Matthew suggested using the ratio 1:2:1 (e.g., 100/200/100) plus a small number of high-value chips. I wanted five denominations, not four, and I wanted to inflation-proof the set. I ended up ordering 300-600-600-300-100 with denominations 25¢-$1-$5-$20-$100. This breakdown easily covers 2 tables at the modest stakes that I play. This breakdown has been sufficient for 14 years now, and I expect that to continue.

Since then, the group I played with began playing limit games, usually $2/$4 or $3/$6., and sometimes $4/$8. Although I wish I had more $1 chips, the 600 in my set is more than enough to spread limit games for a single table. I've since added a rack of 5¢ chips, bringing the total to 2000 chips with a lovely symmetrical breakdown of 100/300/600/600/300/100.

The larger number of denominations is to cover games of varying stakes and types. Three denominations are usually sufficient.

TLDR: The most relevant stuff is in the second paragraph.

 

[Jawnie]

5c, 25c, $1 $5, $20

100, 250, 400, 200, 50

1000 chips, see how it goes buy more if needed, is just my opinion.

 

[Pacificrim]

Welcome to PCF!!!

I researched chip breakdowns extensively in 2009 when designing my first set of customs. Because I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to add on to this set, ever, I wanted to be sure that I ordered enough chips to meet my needs for a long time. Unfortunately, I cannot locate all the tools I used, but between my memory and my custom set I can reconstruct the calculation that I ended up using. It's based on an article on a now-defunct site (chiptalk) authored by a member named Matthew. He discussed the rationale behind his suggested method but I couldn't locate a copy of his article.

The bottom line is that Matthew suggested using the ratio 1:2:1 (e.g., 100/200/100) plus a small number of high-value chips. I wanted five denominations, not four, and I wanted to inflation-proof the set. I ended up ordering 300-600-600-300-100 with denominations 25¢-$1-$5-$20-$100. This breakdown easily covers 2 tables at the modest stakes that I play. This breakdown has been sufficient for 14 years now, and I expect that to continue.

Since then, the group I played with began playing limit games, usually $2/$4 or $3/$6., and sometimes $4/$8. Although I wish I had more $1 chips, the 600 in my set is more than enough to spread limit games for a single table. I've since added a rack of 5¢ chips, bringing the total to 2000 chips with a lovely symmetrical breakdown of 100/300/600/600/300/100.

The larger number of denominations is to cover games of varying stakes and types. Three denominations are usually sufficient.

TLDR: The most relevant stuff is in the second paragraph.

Very-helpful and appreciated!!!

5c, 25c, $1 $5, $20

100, 250, 400, 200, 50

1000 chips, see how it goes buy more if needed, is just my opinion.

Thanks! You are right, I can always buy more.

A couple of things worth keeping in mind.

Try to keep your buy in around 100 times your big blind (there’s no set rule - it can be 40x to 200x but 100x is a good guideline). So a $20 buy in is good for a 10c/20c game. $50 buy in suits a 25c/50c buy in, etc.

The breakdown i gave in my last post is good for your 18 player 10c/20c game. If you add on a few more racks of $5 chips that’ll cover your 25c/50c game no bother.

If you’re buying readily available chips then you can always add on later. If you’re buying rare or custom chips you’re going to need to get it right first time as it can be difficult to find extra chips later.

This is excellent advice. I’ll take it!

It really depends on the crowd, some of the players like to play deep stack and sometimes we have $15-$17k at end game for our $1/2 game where I have almost a full rack of hundos in play.

Now that sounds like a fun table!

Didn’t show the pic to make you jealous but rather to give you a visual.

At any stakes you will have a workhorse chip as people call them. In $1/2 or $1/3 that is $5 for example hence why my set is built like that. At a $1/3 game in a casino they will give you all $5 chips unless you ask for $1s. If a blind is to you you just throw a $5 chip in and they will give you $1 chips In change. They keep as few $1 on the table as possible. It reduces clutter and makes it easier to see how many chips people have. Also easier to cash people out.

For your .25/.50 game I’d play with just .25 and $1 chips. That game should really have a $50 buyin to play right. So maybe 200 .25 chips and 400 $1 chips …maybe 60 $5’s

Believe me, I’ve had nights that have gone until 3am and where I had one too many beers. Multiple denominations and too many chips suck when you have to verify peoples stacks when cashing them out.

Others here will be better for total numbers needed for those stakes in each denomination…but whatever you arrive at try to keep it 3 or less.
I forgot about this video a member here put out. Some good advice

Yup, watched this vid more than once.

If your buy-in is $30, then either have 150 BB or $30.00 chips, which makes the chips worth exactly what they say on the chips.
Note: You can double the chips and have 300 BB and $60.00 worth of chips for the $30.00 buy-in, so each chip is worth 1/2 it's value and you can use some higher denominations.
depending on your blinds, say 10/20 for a micro cash game, using each smaller denoms and based on an 8 player table
each stack for 8 players for 150 BB
10 -$0.05 = $0.50 and 80 chips used (80 remaining for rebuy stack)
10 - $0.10 = $1.00 and 80 chips used (120 remaining " " " )
10 -$0.25 = $2.50 and 80 chips used (220 remaining " " " )
12 -$0.50 = $6.00 and 96 chips used (204 remaining " " " )
10 - $1.00 = $10.00 and 80 chips used (120 remaining " " " )
5 -$2.00 = $10.00 and 40 chips used (60 remaining " " " )
total chips =57 per stack worth $30.00 actual dollars.

I personally use only $0.25, $1.00 and $5.00 chips or 3 denoms for $0.25/$0.25 blinds

I like this idea.