Cash Game Chips, denominations and blinds structure for simple short 1hr-1.5hr game (1 Viewer)

Naww_Mann

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Hi all,

I've read about cash games and tournament games, but I'm still confused about which category my games would fall into. None of us are that super-serious about poker, but we do enjoy a couple games here and there, especially with a small cash prize for the winner for some motivation ($5 - $10 per player). I'd like to keep the games to a quick 1 hour to 1.5 hours max. I know that in order to do this, I'd have to figure out the relationship between the number of chips of each denomination and blinds structure. But I'm not familiar with how to use some of the online calculators.

Target game time: 1 hour to 1.5 hours
No buy-ins
Max players: 6
Prefer chip denominations such as 25, 100, 500, 1000, 5000 (makes for simple, even numbered bets, so I'm not too interested in the 1 and 5 denominations)

I'd like to know what would be the ideal chip set size: 300 or 500?
Which denominations and how many of each.

I'm interested in a set of the NexGen Pro Classics (I only have one retailer who sells poker chips locally, and these are what I've decided on based on lightweight chips and price, other options are 14g chips that don't appeal to me, although they are considerably cheaper)
I'm thinking a set of 300 chips is ideal. But I find the 25 chip from NexGen is ugly so I'd stick with the 100, 500, 1000, 5000 chips. I know there is a general rule that each chip denomination should be 4x-5x of the previous denomination, but that now poses a problem because after the 500 chip, there's just the 1000 and 5000, which don't follow that rule.

So now how might I structure my chip set and blinds? Always thought having the 25, 100, and 500 denominations would work but I really just hate the NexGen 25s. Looking for your advice
 
Difference between cash game and tournament: http://www.pokerology.com/lessons/cash-games-vs-tournaments

If there's no buy in where does the cash prize come from?

1 hour is super short for a poker game of any variety. If you're looking for something to be over with quickly, a tournament where everyone starts with 100 in chips where blinds start at 1-2 and double every 10 minutes would get the job done.

That extrapolates pretty easily... so if everyone starts with 10,000 in chips the blinds would start at 100-200 in that example. The number of chips needed just depends on the number of players in the game and how you want the denoms to work. You could easily make this happen with nothing but 10, 100 chips and 9, 1000 denominated chips for each player to start. so 19 x 6 = 114 chips.

In that example, within 60 minutes the blinds would 3200 and 6400... so if 6 players started with 10,000 chips that's 60,000 chips total - after an hour there would less than 10 big blinds on the table between all remaining players.

Look at it this way: the more chips a player starts with respective to the size of the blinds, and the more slowly the blinds increase, the longer it will take to play down to a winner.
 
Difference between cash game and tournament: http://www.pokerology.com/lessons/cash-games-vs-tournaments

If there's no buy in where does the cash prize come from?

1 hour is super short for a poker game of any variety. If you're looking for something to be over with quickly, a tournament where everyone starts with 100 in chips where blinds start at 1-2 and double every 10 minutes would get the job done.

That extrapolates pretty easily... so if everyone starts with 10,000 in chips the blinds would start at 100-200 in that example. The number of chips needed just depends on the number of players in the game and how you want the denoms to work. You could easily make this happen with nothing but 10, 100 chips and 9, 1000 denominated chips for each player to start. so 19 x 6 = 114 chips.

In that example, within 60 minutes the blinds would 3200 and 6400... so if 6 players started with 10,000 chips that's 60,000 chips total - after an hour there would less than 10 big blinds on the table between all remaining players.

Look at it this way: the more chips a player starts with respective to the size of the blinds, and the more slowly the blinds increase, the longer it will take to play down to a winner.

Thanks for your reply. I will take a look into what you've said.

The prize money just comes from each player pitching in an agreed amount of money before game starts. But that amount doesn't translate into an equivalent value in chips.
 
Thanks for your reply. I will take a look into what you've said.

The prize money just comes from each player pitching in an agreed amount of money before game starts. But that amount doesn't translate into an equivalent value in chips.

That is precisely how a tournament buy-in works; a pre set amount of $ buys x amount of no cash value chips.
 
The tournament will end "about" the level where the BB equals 1/20th of the total chips in play...
So, for example, if you have everyone start with 1000 in chips, (for 6K total), when the BB is 300, game's over ( since any remaining player would need at least half of all chips on the table, just to have a measly 10 BB's) ... ( You can work up your blind levels schedule back from 300)..
1 to 1.5 hours to complete the entire game, is a terrible, slot machine luckfest, keep in mind with card shuffling, playing out of hands, awarding chips, laughing, etc .. , you may only get 8-15 hands of poker in that hour, good possibility a player may only get 1 playable hand , and have to go all-in due to blinds ....
BTW .. You Do have buy-ins, if players are all buying in for a set amount..
 
That is precisely how a tournament buy-in works; a pre set amount of $ buys x amount of no cash value chips.

Thanks for confirming this, I just read the link that was suggested and also realized that my games sound like it would be of the tournament style.
 
Technically, that’s poker, but it’s not very skilled poker. Not that that’s a huge problem, it may be exactly what your group wants to play, while sharing a few drinks, stories, and laughs. As said before, your game will end when there are 20 big blinds in play.

Let’s say everyone gets 12/12/5/1 (25/100/500/1000) for starting stacks of T5000 (30,000 total in play)
15 min levels:
L1–50/100
L2–100/200
L3–175/350
L4–250/500 (remove T25 chips)
L5–400/800
L6–700/1500 (should end here)

A 300-chip set of 80/80/40/80/20 would cover this game, and up to 10 players at 8/8/4/7 if your group expands.

Good luck, and welcome to PCF!
 
Hello...new to the group.we have a great home game, whatever $ to play....usually 6-8 people. 15k in chips 10 $100s, 6 $500s, 6 $1000 and 1 $5000. 10-12 minute blinds. 100-200, 200-400, 300-600, 500-1000, 1k-2k, 2k-4k, 3k-6k, 5k-10k till the end. top two split when 3rd goes out...1.5 -2 hours
 
I'm almost a year late to reply so I apologize! But now that I'm back browsing the forum more often I wanted to say thanks to everyone to replied to my question above - I feel silly looking back at it because I didn't know much about poker back then but everyone's responses taught me something new.

Appreciate the help!
 

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