Double check me before I order? (1 Viewer)

[Sterling]

Hey guys

Long time lurker here and that other site, first time poster.

Getting ready to order a tournament set and was hoping someone could check my breakdown before I pull the trigger.

I play a low stakes STT (9 max) weekly at a friends house. I am planning on setting up a monthly or bi-monthly 1-3 table at my place with up to 24ish players for a little bit higher stakes. I am thinking 8 max to a table (round) for elbow room. We almost never do a rebuy or addon, I might consider it with an STT or similar.

My thoughts are that it will mostly be 8-16 players, more than 2 tables would be extremely rare. Rebuys or addons would be rare also. I would like the ability to host up to about 24 on 3 tables if need be.

Right now I am thinking T10k starting stacks. 25,100,500,1k chips. 8/8/4/7 starting stacks. My thoughts are a 750 set with 200/250/100/150 and 50 T5K chips for color ups, etc.

Even with 24 starters there are enough T100s behind to remove the T25s from play. In a 24 person start a few starting stacks would have to have a T5K and 2 T1K instead of the normal 7 T1K. The T100s and T500s can be removed by the remaining T1K and T5K chips on color ups. Am I wrong here? Would this be a pain? What am I missing?
Can I extend this beyond 24 players if needed?
This would give me real flexibility with less than 18 players and the ability to go to 24 if I really needed to. I could do deep stacks with an STT if wanted. I don't mind a 24 player being tight on chips but I would like 2 tables or smaller to be pretty flexible for deep stacks or other options if I wanted to do that.

Ideas? suggestions? Maybe some T25K plaques to round it out and make things easier?

Open to Ideas.
Sterling

 

[Mental Nomad]

Bear in mind that even if you bought just 200/200/100/150/20, you can still start 25 people just fine if you go with T5000 starting stacks, instead - 8/8/4/2, or with T10,000 stacks if you merely use five of the T5000 chips in starting stacks. You don't really need the extra T100s.

Assuming you bought 200/200/100/150/20, and you start with T10,000 stacks for 25 people:

All your T25/T100/T500 chips will be in play at the open. When it comes time to run off the T25, you bring one T5000 to the tables, change it for T1000 and T500 from people who have a lot, change those for T100 from people who have a lot of those... and that's enough T100 to run all the T25 off the table. One T5000 runs off all your T25. It hardly takes longer than walking up with T100 to start with.

Then, later, to run off the 200 T100 - which are still all in play - you'll just need another four T5000.

You end up with five extra T5000 in play, and all the T25 and T100 are gone. Total 10 T5000 in play (five from original by-ins, five from run-offs.)

If, for some reason, you wanted to run off the 100 T500, that takes another ten T5000, which you still have enough of. You'll end up with 150 T1000 and 20 T5000 in play. 150*1000 + 20*5000 = 250,000, which was the initial starting count of 25 people times T10,000.

If you wanted to do the same for 25 people but allow rebuys or add-ons, then you'll need more than 20 T5000... for each T10,000 rebuy you want to accommodate, add two T5,000. I think forty T5000 is ample - twenty T5000 already let you buy in 25 people at T10,000 and run off all the small chips, and the next 20 T5000 let you give 10 people re-buys at T10,000. Just start by buying in 15 people with a T5000 in their stack, which leaves enough extra chipsfor ten rebuys of 5xT1000,1xT5000. If you don't get ten rebuys, then you use five T1000 to run off your T25's later. Simple.

If you want to get crazy and allow for up to 25 rebuys, you'll need 70 T5000, or perhaps 50 T5000 and four T25,000 plaques.

 

[Ben]

You should never be coloring up 25s with 100s - all color-ups should be done with higher denoms (1k/5k.) With that in mind, IMO any tourney set should have the same number of 25s and 100s, as you're always going to be using the same number of each in a starting stack (8/8 or 12/12 or 16/16.)

In your situation I'd go 200/200/100/200/100 and be covered for every possible situation. Also nice even racks. With a max of 24 players and plenty of 5k chips, no 25k's should be necessary.

 

[TexRex]

I generally agree with Mental and Ben, though I prefer a color up system where you color up all of the previous chips with the next higher level. One reason for that is I use different chip values for tournaments. I'm a fan of only a couple of 500s per player because I really don't think you need any more than that. For 10K stacks, I'd start with 8/8/2/3/1 -- 22 chips. For a breakdown, here's what I'd do for up to 24:

25x200 (leaves 8 extras)
100x250 (leaves 10 extras; allows color up of all 25s, but if you use 100s as the lowest, you have enough for 10 per player which is generally what you would need)
500x75 (leaves 3 extras; only need one color up chip per player since if a player has over that in lower value chips, they would color to 1000)
1,000x125 (leaves 5 extras; if you wanted extras of this color, they would come in handy sometimes, but I wouldn't get more than about 50 extras)
5,000x50 (leaves 2 extras; if you decided to go to 25K you would need 125; if you use re-buys, you might want more)
25,000x25 (you wouldn't use them often, but toward the end of the game, they speed things up, and if you went with 25K, you would be very glad you had them; you will really appreciate having them if you use re-buys, and if you use re-buys, I'd get more)

That's 725-800 chips. For 10K, you could even do 12/7/2/3/1. If you use the 25s a long time, you might like that, but I would only use that for 16-20 and not 24-30. Just remember your lower value chips come off the table first, so don't over-invest in those chips.

If it were me, I'd probably buy for 30 and add about 25% to each of the numbers above. That would be a very flexible set.

I regularly run T10K, T25K, and T100K for up to 40 players. For the T100K, most of those start with SB=100. The downside to not being able to completely color up the 25s with 100s is if you wanted to have a special night where you have large stacks and start higher is you don't have enough of the lowest value chips to do it. I'd encourage anyone to buy flexible, and for more than you think you might need right now. The game changes over time, and you want to have the chips available in your set when changes occur.

 

[Mental Nomad]

If you've got the funds, always extra. You can store them in boxes, out of rotation, and one day, when you want some weird structure... You gots.

 

[TexRex]

What I do, since I've got chips for 40 players but am limited to 30 at my house, is rotate the chips. I keep mine in 25x4 boxes, and since in any given month, 1/4 to 1/2 are not in play, I rotate to keep the war on the chips more or less even. I do the same for cards. With my set up that's easy to do.

 

[Mental Nomad]

That's a good strategy for keepers... But if you're buying extras that you may never use, and hope one day to sell them as mint condition...

 

[TexRex]

Good point Mental. I don't buy the quality of chips where that is likely to be an issue, but if someone does, preserving them makes sense.

 

[Sterling]

Great advice everyone, thanks. You gave me a lot to think about. I'm glad to see I wasn't to far off.

In your situation I'd go 200/200/100/200/100 and be covered for every possible situation. Also nice even racks.

O no, I wish you had not said that... I had not even considered that .... back to the drawing board .

Now I'm thinking about bumping to a 1000 chip set just for the looks and increased flexibility. I just can't get away from the thought that I am buying WAY more chips than I will ever use.

Any thoughts on how I should split up a 1000 set for my needs?

 

[BGinGA]

If you want to go all-out with a 1000-pc set for 24 players, I'd gear it for T20000 starting stacks, which also then allows for T20K's with rebuys/add-ons when only two tables (or really monster stacks):

starting stacks:
12 x T25
12 x T100
5 x T500
6 x T1000
2 x T5000
--------------
37 chips = T20000

chip set:
300 x T25
300 x T100
120 x T500
200 x T1000 (includes 36x for T25/T100 color-up and 20x extras)
80 x T5000 (includes 12x for T500 color-up and 20x extras)
--------------
1000 total chips



Here's another breakdown for an 800-chip 24-player T20K set (essentially what Ben suggested):

starting stacks:
8 x T25
8 x T100
4 x T500
7 x T1000
2 x T5000
--------------
29 chips = T20000

chip set:
200 x T25
200 x T100
100 x T500
200 x T1000 (includes 24x for T25/T100 color-up and 8x extras)
100 x T5000 (includes 10x for T500 color-up and 42x extras for re-buys/add-ons)
--------------
800 total chips

8 even racks, and it all fits in a 1000-pc acrylic carrier with plenty of room (at top in inverted racks) for dealer buttons, cards, bounty chips, plaques, timers, etc.


Even with 24 players and 20K stacks, you won't really need T25K chips/plaques, and the most you would ever use is 10 (to color-up T1000 chips).

 

[Poker Zombie]

^^^ The master has spoken.