Designing my future set; Blues Brothers tribute (1 Viewer)

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random

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Hi all,

Just joined after lurking forever. I'm in the process of designing my first fully custom set and I'm looking for feedback. I'll share info as the project develops!

Background: I have a three table poker room set up on the lower level of our tri-level. Our group plays 20-25 times per year, usually 20-25 players for a T20000 NLHE tournament. As soon as the third table frees up, a .25/.50 PL cash game breaks out for the early exits and usually runs until the tournament finishes or slightly later (dealer's choice, mostly Big O and stud variants are called). It's strictly social, no rake or anything like that. The cash game almost never goes past one table.

I've got good tables, good chairs, good cards, good TVs, good timing setup, and crappy slugged plastic chips. Time to upgrade. So I need to get some good chips and this forum has inspired me to design some custom chips that are a good match for my room.

The room doesn't have a theme or a name at this point, but I've wanted to add something. It's just a beige room right now! Some ideas I had included travel (focusing on places we've been with posters, postcards, and magnets), movies (some great ideas on this forum and I've got some good movie posters), sports (focusing on my favorite teams), and music (I've got some replica concert posters and other related things).

I've decided to do a hybrid idea: a focus on music (specifically the blues) with a highlight on one of the greatest movies ever (The Blues Brothers). I've got a few posters that fit well with the theme and I'll include some of the other things that I like (travel, sports, other movies) as well to really make it mine.

Some posters I have:
Blues Brothers movie
Blues Brothers 2000 movie
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers replica concert poster
Muddy Waters replica concert
Stevie Ray Vaughn poster
Eric Clapton poster
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac replica concert

That should give you an idea of the feel for the place! Sort of a Hard Rock Cafe feel, but without the guitars, maybe, and hopefully not as cheesy.

First, the chips. I've decided to go with 39mm ceramics from Tina. Not sure yet if I'm going cards mold or plain mold, but leaning plain. The choice to go with Tina's ceramics is to get the most customization (full face on the chips), the best quality I can afford, and keep it in budget (I've decided to replace the cash set as well, so I'm buying a lot of chips!).

I'm looking at purchasing:

300 T25
350 T100
200 T500
350 T1000
200 T5000
50 T25000

75 $.25
100 $1
50 $5
25 $20

We're perfectly happy playing with cash on the table if necessary.

My cash game set and tournament set are going to be in the same theme. I'm aware of the potential problems with that, but I'm not worried too much: the cash and tournament sets will have no overlap in the denominations and I'm using separate colors too.

So for the chips to go along with the theme, I've decided to go with a Blues Brothers tribute. I'm using a silhouette of the brothers, surrounded by the bright chip color, with the denomination in large print offset against the black suit jacket. Below are a couple of crude Paint mockups I've done!

Some considerations for my designs:

- I want very distinct, bright colors for chips where possible. No pastels or dark colors unless there's a lot of contrast. I'm color blind, and even non-color blind players at our tables sometimes struggle to distinguish our 25 (dark green), 100 (black), and 500 (dark purple) chips.

Colors are probably going to be
Gray T25
Black T100
Deep Orange T500
Yellow T1000
Pink T5000
White T25000

Light green $.25
Blue $1
Red $5
? $20 (something light like a beige or light yellow)

- No edge spots. My chip faces will be dominated by the black silhouette, so I've decided to have a bold, bright border with matching solid color edges to make the chips really pop from across the table. I'm also including movie quotes on the edges, you'll see what I have in mind.

- No denomination symbols on tournament chips. Personal preference.

- Dark colors like blue, black, and maybe red may need some white borders to help distinguish them.

Please give any feedback, positive or especially negative, on my theme idea or chip design. I'm going to get to work with Illustrator soon. I'd like to get my hands on chips around Christmastime or soon after, so I'm going to have to get moving!

blues brothers 1000.png
blues brothers 25.png
 
This is an awesome idea for a theme. Sign me up for a sample set :).


random said:
My cash game set and tournament set are going to be in the same theme. I'm aware of the potential problems with that, but I'm not worried too much: the cash and tournament sets will have no overlap in the denominations and I'm using separate colors too.
Click to expand...
This isn't a problem. The only potential problems come into play is if you are using the same chips in both situations, a $25 chip in the cash game becomes a T25 in the tournament. That could be an issue. But if the chips are never crossing games, you should be fine.

random said:
No denomination symbols on tournament chips. Personal preference.
Click to expand...
I think you mean "no currency symbol," but I would agree, that makes sense and is just an extra distinction between tournament and cash chips. Your designs indicate you are planning denominations on chips.

random said:
One thought I had as soon as I posted that: the denoms need to be larger.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. I would double the size you have now and make it really prominent. Or maybe go 1.5x size and shrink the room name by 20-25% if doubling the denomination size gets crowded.

random said:
I'm looking at purchasing:

300 T25
350 T100
200 T500
350 T1000
200 T5000
50 T25000

75 $.25
100 $1
50 $5
25 $20
Click to expand...

I think I can help you with the breakdown a bit. I think you are overbuying on the tournament set and underbuying on the cash game set.

For the tournament, I would plan T20K starting stacks of 12/12/5/11/1 of T25/100/500/1000/5000. This means you could go with this breakdown to accomodate 25 starting stacks.

300 x T25
300 x T100
125 x T500
300 x T1000
250 x T5000
25 x T25000

1300 chips, (Was 1450)

This also gives you the flexibility to switch to 8/8/4/7/2 if you go over 25 players up to 36 players. You really won't need very many T25K chips. 25 chips alone represents 31 buy ins and the tournament would probably end with the T5000 chips still in play as well. The T5000 chips will have to be what you issue for rebuys so added plenty of those on.

(You could probably cut this tournament set back further by just planning 8/8/4/7/2 tournament stacks in the first place if you want.)

As for the cash game set. I would just do 500 chips with a 100/200/200 breakdown of 0.25/1/5, and you can allow $20 notes to play if you need more than that.

So I saved you 150 chips on the tournament and added 250 chips to your cash set. (alternatively 100/150/150 might work fine too, but the point is singles and fives are what you need most in a cash set for small stakes.)

Hope this helps, welcome to PCF, I hope to see more updates on this.
 
So a couple quick afterthoughts on your color selection...

random said:
Colors are probably going to be
Gray T25
Black T100
Deep Orange T500
Yellow T1000
Pink T5000
White T25000
Click to expand...

random said:
Light green $.25
Blue $1
Red $5
? $20 (something light like a beige or light yellow)
Click to expand...

I would be cautious about Orange and Yellow too close together. Purple is the standard for T500, I think that would be a good choice. If you really want Orange, I would consider that for the T1000 and move yellow into the cash set as your 20.

Same concern with Gray and black, you aren't using the standard Green anywhere else but your cash set, why not use it here for the tournament set? I think Gray would actually make a pretty good quarter in the cash set, consider that switch as well.

I'm not a huge fan of white chips in general because they look worn fairly quickly, but I get you are low on colors here. A sky blue might be a good choice here, distinct from the blue you would use for the dollar. (And definitely stick with blue for the dollar! #TeamBlueDollar.)
 
Cool idea! I would love to see different inlays on each denomination chip in black & white w/red number. Jake & Elwood separately on your work horse chips & other characters ie Carrie Fischer with a machine gun/ Twiggy/ John Candy/ Aretha etc etc. Just an idea...Good luck!!!
 
JustinInMN said:
This is an awesome idea for a theme. Sign me up for a sample set :).
Click to expand...
Thanks! I may order a few extra for sample sets. I'm guessing several of our league members may want some as well.
JustinInMN said:
I think you mean "no currency symbol," but I would agree, that makes sense and is just an extra distinction between tournament and cash chips. Your designs indicate you are planning denominations on chips.
Click to expand...
Duh, I feel dumb! Yes, currency symbols.
JustinInMN said:
Absolutely. I would double the size you have now and make it really prominent. Or maybe go 1.5x size and shrink the room name by 20-25% if doubling the denomination size gets crowded.
Click to expand...
Definitely going bigger on the denom. That was the largest font size on Paint.
JustinInMN said:
I think I can help you with the breakdown a bit. I think you are overbuying on the tournament set and underbuying on the cash game set.

For the tournament, I would plan T20K starting stacks of 12/12/5/11/1 of T25/100/500/1000/5000. This means you could go with this breakdown to accomodate 25 starting stacks.

300 x T25
300 x T100
125 x T500
300 x T1000
250 x T5000
25 x T25000

1300 chips, (Was 1450)
Click to expand...

We currently use 8/8/4/7/2. I want the flexibility to have up to 35 players (we occasionally get 30 to show up and I've got a spare table just in case), allow for color ups, etc. Next time I host I'll pay closer attention to how many I have in play at any given time. The 50 25000 chips is T1.25million, which is too many. 25 (625000) is more than enough.

My current tournament set is 1.3M total.

I need to work on the chip breakdowns more and pay closer attention to what we use in practice, including cash games.
JustinInMN said:
Hope this helps, welcome to PCF, I hope to see more updates on this.
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time to give feedback. Will do.
 
JustinInMN said:
I would be cautious about Orange and Yellow too close together. Purple is the standard for T500, I think that would be a good choice. If you really want Orange, I would consider that for the T1000 and move yellow into the cash set as your 20.

Same concern with Gray and black, you aren't using the standard Green anywhere else but your cash set, why not use it here for the tournament set? I think Gray would actually make a pretty good quarter in the cash set, consider that switch as well.
Click to expand...

The goal here is high contrast between neighboring denoms with no close colors on the table simultaneously.

Light gray 25
Black 100
Burnt orange 500
Yellow 1000
Pink 5000
White 25000

The orange I'm going for is darker than pumpkin orange, closer to but not quite red. There should be plenty of contrast between very bright yellow and orange. I'll know more when I do more mockups and obviously chip print colors and screen colors may vary so I'll be carefully checking that.

The problem with green T25s and purple T500s (which I would prefer as I'm something of a traditionalist) is that I can't find shades of those colors that provide 1) contrast with the black T100 and 2) enough separation between the green T25, purple T500, and the pink T5000 if I go with lighter versions of purple and green. All of these chips will be on the table simultaneously, although 25s and 5000s rarely get played together.

My gray will be light enough to easily offset from the black, but dark enough to offset from the pink.

My rule is if the colors are suitable for my color-blind self, they'll be fine for 99% of our players. All I know is that if someone currently bets 350, players at the other end of the table often can't tell that by sight, and we have pretty good lighting. I'm fixing that.
JustinInMN said:
I'm not a huge fan of white chips in general because they look worn fairly quickly, but I get you are low on colors here. A sky blue might be a good choice here, distinct from the blue you would use for the dollar. (And definitely stick with blue for the dollar! #TeamBlueDollar.)
Click to expand...
I'm team white dollar at casinos because 1) tradition 2) I don't have to clean them.

I'm team blue dollar at home because 1) I love Aria's blue dollars 2) I do have to clean them 3) they're the workhorse chip along with the 5s in our cash games.

The white T25000s shouldn't get much use but I will search for an alternative. The white dates back to when I thought I was going with edge spots because I wanted a flag in my set.
 
TheRealTeddyKGB said:
Cool idea! I would love to see different inlays on each denomination chip in black & white w/red number. Jake & Elwood separately on your work horse chips & other characters ie Carrie Fischer with a machine gun/ Twiggy/ John Candy/ Aretha etc etc. Just an idea...Good luck!!!
Click to expand...
neat idea. I'd need silhouettes with a large black area for denoms so Twiggy and Carrie might not work (John Candy and Aretha would though)!

Maybe I'll put a special Aretha tribute on one denom since she's such a music icon.

My intention was to get character diversity in the movie quotes for the edges:

We're on a mission from God
It's 106 miles to Chicago...
No ma'am, we're musicians
Don't you blaspheme in here! (On the Aretha chip obv)
I'm gonna catch that sucker...if it's the last thing I ever do
I hate Illinois Nazis
We got both kinds...country AND western
No no! I will not take your filthy stolen money!
I'll throw in the black keys for free (now I need a Ray Charles silhouette too)
Do you have a Miss Piggy?
They broke my watch!
Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail me now

(This is fun)
 
It just occurred to me that if we double everything (blinds, stacks) we can go without a T25 chip entirely and have the same effective structure.

We use the greens now because we already have them, but they're really not used much in the big picture. Only 2 out of the first three blind levels, and if we have antes, they're only ever big blind antes.
 
random said:
Hi all,

Just joined after lurking forever. I'm in the process of designing my first fully custom set and I'm looking for feedback. I'll share info as the project develops!

Background: I have a three table poker room set up on the lower level of our tri-level. Our group plays 20-25 times per year, usually 20-25 players for a T20000 NLHE tournament. As soon as the third table frees up, a .25/.50 PL cash game breaks out for the early exits and usually runs until the tournament finishes or slightly later (dealer's choice, mostly Big O and stud variants are called). It's strictly social, no rake or anything like that. The cash game almost never goes past one table.

I've got good tables, good chairs, good cards, good TVs, good timing setup, and crappy slugged plastic chips. Time to upgrade. So I need to get some good chips and this forum has inspired me to design some custom chips that are a good match for my room.

The room doesn't have a theme or a name at this point, but I've wanted to add something. It's just a beige room right now! Some ideas I had included travel (focusing on places we've been with posters, postcards, and magnets), movies (some great ideas on this forum and I've got some good movie posters), sports (focusing on my favorite teams), and music (I've got some replica concert posters and other related things).

I've decided to do a hybrid idea: a focus on music (specifically the blues) with a highlight on one of the greatest movies ever (The Blues Brothers). I've got a few posters that fit well with the theme and I'll include some of the other things that I like (travel, sports, other movies) as well to really make it mine.

Some posters I have:
Blues Brothers movie
Blues Brothers 2000 movie
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers replica concert poster
Muddy Waters replica concert
Stevie Ray Vaughn poster
Eric Clapton poster
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac replica concert

That should give you an idea of the feel for the place! Sort of a Hard Rock Cafe feel, but without the guitars, maybe, and hopefully not as cheesy.

First, the chips. I've decided to go with 39mm ceramics from Tina. Not sure yet if I'm going cards mold or plain mold, but leaning plain. The choice to go with Tina's ceramics is to get the most customization (full face on the chips), the best quality I can afford, and keep it in budget (I've decided to replace the cash set as well, so I'm buying a lot of chips!).

I'm looking at purchasing:

300 T25
350 T100
200 T500
350 T1000
200 T5000
50 T25000

75 $.25
100 $1
50 $5
25 $20

We're perfectly happy playing with cash on the table if necessary.

My cash game set and tournament set are going to be in the same theme. I'm aware of the potential problems with that, but I'm not worried too much: the cash and tournament sets will have no overlap in the denominations and I'm using separate colors too.

So for the chips to go along with the theme, I've decided to go with a Blues Brothers tribute. I'm using a silhouette of the brothers, surrounded by the bright chip color, with the denomination in large print offset against the black suit jacket. Below are a couple of crude Paint mockups I've done!

Some considerations for my designs:

- I want very distinct, bright colors for chips where possible. No pastels or dark colors unless there's a lot of contrast. I'm color blind, and even non-color blind players at our tables sometimes struggle to distinguish our 25 (dark green), 100 (black), and 500 (dark purple) chips.

Colors are probably going to be
Gray T25
Black T100
Deep Orange T500
Yellow T1000
Pink T5000
White T25000

Light green $.25
Blue $1
Red $5
? $20 (something light like a beige or light yellow)

- No edge spots. My chip faces will be dominated by the black silhouette, so I've decided to have a bold, bright border with matching solid color edges to make the chips really pop from across the table. I'm also including movie quotes on the edges, you'll see what I have in mind.

- No denomination symbols on tournament chips. Personal preference.

- Dark colors like blue, black, and maybe red may need some white borders to help distinguish them.

Please give any feedback, positive or especially negative, on my theme idea or chip design. I'm going to get to work with Illustrator soon. I'd like to get my hands on chips around Christmastime or soon after, so I'm going to have to get moving!

View attachment 972877View attachment 972878
Click to expand...
Love the Blues theme and the chips! I have kind of a music theme to my basement/poker room too. I have some concert posters and memorabilia from past shows I have been to and I have a wall of pictures of various artists that I just printed pics off the web and framed them. I also have lots of guitars to go along with the music theme. And couple of my favorite blues themed art on the wall is the LP of the soundtrack to Crossroads, (Not the Britney version!) and also the bonefish painting.
20220822_150749.jpg
20220822_150812.jpg
20220822_150908.jpg
20220822_225242.jpg
20220721_232336 (1).jpg
 
random said:
It just occurred to me that if we double everything (blinds, stacks) we can go without a T25 chip entirely and have the same effective structure.

We use the greens now because we already have them, but they're really not used much in the big picture. Only 2 out of the first three blind levels, and if we have antes, they're only ever big blind antes.
Click to expand...
Yup, you are describing a base T100 tournament. (We use the term "base" to describe the lowest denomination in use for a tournament.)

T100 base has become the trend in tournaments in public rooms, including WSOP events.

https://www.wsop.com/pdfs/structuresheets/structure_4943_20370.pdf

You can have a T20K with 200BB effective by starting with 100-100 blinds, for example.

You can search for even more reading, but here are several threads regarding different tournament bases, their pros and cons, and detail about the T100 base tournament.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/t-base-preference-for-tournaments.64499/

(Here's my post advocating for T500 base tournaments :)! ->
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/t-base-preference-for-tournaments.64499/page-2#post-1279238 )

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/starting-stacks-breakdown-t100-base.52967/

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...ased-breakdown-start-stack-suggestions.83421/

Sorry I feel like I am assigning homework, but these are all good things to read about before you finalize your quantity decisions.
 
I'm playing around with some design mockups at this point. My original idea was to go with silhouettes, and only one graphic. But it occurs to me (thanks to this thread) that I could highlight a variety of the characters and some of the iconic quotes from the movie since I've got ten canvasses to work with here.

Some thoughts after looking at the design in the above post:

-I love the idea of using movie quotes along the chip edges, surrounded by solid chip color to enhance the visibility of the chip from across the table. With a quote, there is no worry about edge spot alignments, and I'm not sure my OCD would be able to handle misaligned edge spots.

-The border needs to be a lot thicker to make the color really pop, especially from across the table.

- I'm dead set on not using purple for T500. Too dark, and it's hard to distinguish from the T100. Too light, and it's hard to distinguish from the pink T5000. There may be a happy medium with a violet-like color, which I'll explore. I need to check samples and colors to make sure a day-glo orange or darker orange will be different enough from the yellow T1000. It's not a problem in my current set - even with my color blindness, I can still distinguish yellows and oranges, even in a dirty stack, and even in low light.

- Looking at Tina's Alibaba page, it looks like they can do some pretty intricate printing. Photos and highly detailed printing are showing up in their sample chip pics better than I would have expected. I don't expect photo print quality naturally, but it looks like I can use photos without having a muddled mess. (Even if detail is lost, we're talking about a 1.5-inch wide picture, nobody is going to notice detail or lack thereof without a jeweler's loupe.) I'll be looking into this more.

- I like a sans-serif font for the denomination and the movie quote for legibility.

Here's another mockup. I love the idea of including Ray Charles here. Such a legend.
T1000V2.png
 
I had thought about this theme in the past. Blues Brothers is one of my favorite movies. You could do a fantasy casino theme real easy.

The Palace Hotel Ballroom and Casino
Lake Wazzapamani, IL
 
Occasionally you see some pretty unusual denominations for chips. I can't remember any of them offhand, but I want to say there's a $7 chip from NOLA, or maybe it was $!4.

If they can do that, maybe you can make a barrel of $106 chips for the cash game :)
 

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