While I agree that no one has any obligation to follow any design rules, this conventional wisdom that spots only exist for casino security or only to look cool... Well, I just can’t agree that it's that simple.
Sure, they have that function for casinos. Sure, they look cool (or don’t). But that's not the only reason they exist, and casino security is not the only reason to think about progressions in an analytical way.
If spots only existed for security, we'd only use solids at home. Edgespots were placed on/into chips well before video surveillance of poker rooms existed. Chips with spots have also been used in home games, social hall games, and other non-casino venues without security for ages, and still are.
Only a very few of us here work as dealers or floor managers or casino security; yet we discuss and often know the names of dozens of spot patterns. There's plenty of reasons having to do with gameplay beyond the needs of security, or just having a useful nomenclature for collectors.
Spots (and inlays, and molds) serve both a decorative and a usability function for players, not just the house. The intense focus and debates on this forum on spot patterns, colors, dirty stacks, and aesthetics (“Vote: What's the best purple chip?”) are testament to their importance beyond just security.
As a host, I feel it adds a lot to the game to provide players with chips that are not just pleasing to look at and handle, but also are easy to identify across a long table, or in a splashed pot, or in an opponent's stack. (Having two colorblind regulars in my game, I’ve also made decisions to help ensure that they make fewer chip ID errors.)
When someone pushes a bet in, or I’m calculating pot odds, or I’m trying to figure the effective stacks, any of the other sizing considerations in a hand, it is very useful (even essential) to be able to guesstimate amounts well, without having to ask or count manually. Each aspect of a chip — its colors, spots and even inlay shape— give the eyes specific cues which contribute to a correct visual estimate.
I suspect pretty much everyone here is good at looking at a river bet and that messy pot of chips in the middle, and doing a quick mental calculation—“that looks like about 2/3rds pot,” or whatever it is. Unless you’ve been keeping a close tally in your head of all the action, that ability is thanks to all those visual cues the chips are giving off. If one plays with chips whose colors and spots are too close, players end up asking for counts constantly.
Bigger picture: Every single thing used to organize a poker game has a design which contributes to smooth play... or detracts from it. Whether we notice it or not. That includes the chips, the cards, the seats, the tables, the lighting, even the HVAC and the sound systems. A “good“ room doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be thought out.
Sorry to rant. But this is something I’ve thought a great deal about and actually have written the draft of the manuscript about. Industrial design — the design of mass produced products — is everywhere. From our steering wheels to our vacuum cleaners to our silverware to our sneakers, everything has been designed to work, or else (if neglected) it may not work.
So again: Though nobody is obligated to do edgespots any particular way, I think it deserves more attention and discussion beyond “do whatcha like” or “they only matter to casinos.” I think it’s obvious that PCFers value such knitty-gritty discussions... and its why I keep coming back.
