Cash Game Home Game - Chip Stacks (4 Viewers)

[shorticus]

I'm beginning a recurring home game .25/.25 NLHE, and I'm considering purchasing Paulson's. Because it's a cash game, I'm trying to decide between 300/500 chips. We currently play sporadically, and my 500 cheap chip set is composed of the below:

.25 - 200
$1 - 200
$5 - 100

I'm wondering if anyone thinks that the below chip set would be feasible for 6-8 players

.25 - 100
$1 - 150
$5 - 50

I hate all of the frac's on the table, but I understand the requirement. Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Thanks

 

[BGinGA]

I think you're going to need more than 300 chips. The bare minimum chip count I'd go with is 400:

100 x 25c
200 x $1
100 x $5

$700+ bank (roughly $100/player with 6-8), and $20 bills can play if necessary.

If your game plays smaller, then add another 40 x $1 chips by reducing the $5 count to just 60 chips (~ $540 bank, or around $75 per player).

 

[joker80]

It kind of depends on how your game plays... are people shoving and rebuying a lot? How many rebuys in the average night?

 

[shorticus]

joker80 - We can usually play for about 3 to 4 hours and get 10/15 rebuys. Never even thought about looking at it from the per player perspective. Thanks for that.
BGingGA - I agree with you, I've been fighting with this, and I don't see a way that 300 works. I do like the $20's on the table, but I would prefer that to be an absolute necessity. Think I'll just go with 500 chips, but minimize the .25 chips.

 

[Jonesey07]

You can also keep $20's off the table with a barrel of $20/$25 chips.

 

[Josh Kifer]

Minimize the quarters.

100- .25
200 - 1s
80 - 5s
20 - 25s

 

[Beakertwang]

You can also keep $20's off the table with a barrel of $20/$25 chips.

Or some $20 plaques.

 

[halfbreed]

You could also start experimenting with your home game by limiting the number of chips and see how it plays for a few games. I also started looking to upgrade recently so I paid more attention to chip usage in our 8-10 player .25/.50 game and found that we only needed 100 fracs and never really needed more than 140 1s. Any more of either and it just kind of got annoying. Anyway that info helped me decide to size down from a 500 chip set to a 420 chip set (which I am currently putting together). I actually don't really even need the extra 20 over 400, but I just want to have 40 total 25s instead of 20 for future expansion.

 

[Jonesey07]

Or some $20 plaques.

True. I'm not a fan of plaques, personally.

 

[Beakertwang]

True. I'm not a fan of plaques, personally.

I’ve never used one in a game, but they wouldn’t bug me if there were only a handful of the highest denom in play.

Might even be kind of cool.

 

[shorticus]

I’d prefer cash over plaques. Y’all have excellent ideas man. So glad I joined this site. Y’all are really helpful. Please keep posting the ideas cause I’m finding them really useful.

 

[RagsPoker]

I’d prefer cash over plaques. Y’all have excellent ideas man. So glad I joined this site. Y’all are really helpful. Please keep posting the ideas cause I’m finding them really useful.

My biggest chip is $5 for my $2-$5 spread limit and/or $2-$4 limit games. Works great and we all like have $20's in cash on the table as the night goes on.

 

[halfbreed]

I’d prefer cash over plaques. Y’all have excellent ideas man. So glad I joined this site. Y’all are really helpful. Please keep posting the ideas cause I’m finding them really useful.

My biggest chip is $5 for my $2-$5 spread limit and/or $2-$4 limit games. Works great and we all like have $20's in cash on the table as the night goes on.

To each his own but man, I would HATE having paper bills on the table over a chip.

 

[Shaggy]

So... you never stated how much a single buy-in is... Is it $20? My 25c/50c cash game has a buy-in of $100... big difference on the number of chips required.

I personally like the large denom chip or plaque on the table... used for re-buys instead of cash. Too easy for cash to go south.

 

[Shaggy]

You could also start experimenting with your home game by limiting the number of chips and see how it plays for a few games. I also started looking to upgrade recently so I paid more attention to chip usage in our 8-10 player .25/.50 game and found that we only needed 100 fracs and never really needed more than 140 1s. Any more of either and it just kind of got annoying. Anyway that info helped me decide to size down from a 500 chip set to a 420 chip set (which I am currently putting together). I actually don't really even need the extra 20 over 400, but I just want to have 40 total 25s instead of 20 for future expansion.

Agreed... play your next game with the dice chips using the breakdown you propose above... see how it works. Where is it deficient? Adjust from there.

 

[Saoliver]

I'm beginning a recurring home game .25/.25 NLHE, and I'm considering purchasing Paulson's. Because it's a cash game, I'm trying to decide between 300/500 chips. We currently play sporadically, and my 500 cheap chip set is composed of the below:

.25 - 200
$1 - 200
$5 - 100

I'm wondering if anyone thinks that the below chip set would be feasible for 6-8 players

.25 - 100
$1 - 150
$5 - 50

I hate all of the frac's on the table, but I understand the requirement. Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Thanks

I have a set that might work for you, especially if you ever want to go down the milled/custom route. If you are interested, PM me.

 

[shorticus]

Shaggy - My bad it's $20. I wish I could get the buy in higher, but I can't.

halfbreed - i agree with your assessment. I think i'm going to build a 500 chip mixed set. I agree that I most likely only need 400, but I'll go 500 in case we can agree to larger buy-ins in the future.

 

[RagsPoker]

I personally like the large denom chip or plaque on the table... used for re-buys instead of cash. Too easy for cash to go south.

I totally understand that, but those kind of players don’t get invited to my home game. That has been made crystal clear....never had a problem. I suppose a lot would depend on who’s on the invite list.

 

[honkydevil]

My personal experience playing .25/.25 with small ball players is that 100 fracs isn’t that much at a full ring. It works but you make change more often. If everyone limps and someone bets .75 on the flop or something a whole pile of fracs go in.

It’s easier with my noob players to just have more fracs so they aren’t trying to make change as often.

I personally would want 120-160 for my game when it runs like that.

On the other hand I’ve played .25/.50 pot limit where an open raise is rounded up to $2 and then you never need fracs after posting blinds. Could probably get away with less than 100 fracs.

 

[shorticus]

@honkydevil that's why I'm gonna have to just test run for a few months to see how it goes.
@RagsPoker I love those damn chips! Yeah, I don't want to play with people who are trying to pull money off the table. We're both better off not playing on the table together when players start to do that.

 

[Shaggy]

Some novice players don’t know going south is bad. Cash on the table makes it easier to unknowingly put it back in the wallet. If it is clearly explained, no worries... but it won’t happen with chips in play.

 

[JustinInMN]

My personal experience playing .25/.25 with small ball players is that 100 fracs isn’t that much at a full ring. It works but you make change more often. If everyone limps and someone bets .75 on the flop or something a whole pile of fracs go in.

Honky brings up a good point. Are you playing .25-.25 or .25-.50?

Personally I think 100 quarters per table is good enough in either case, especially if you are trying to the most with the least (400 chip set.). But more change will be made in the former case. So it might be worth going for more if you have the room.

If you are doing 400 though I think 100/200/100 or even 100/200/80/20 are the best formats. (As BG and Josh said.)

I really think at these stakes you want the majority to be 1s and 5s. I don't think I would do more than 100 quarters unless you are doing a 600 chip set.

 

[halfbreed]

halfbreed - i agree with your assessment. I think i'm going to build a 500 chip mixed set. I agree that I most likely only need 400, but I'll go 500 in case we can agree to larger buy-ins in the future.

Even with the idea of a future higher stakes game, an extra 100 chips can ramp up the total bank to way more than you need. 20 25s is already $500. Getting a lot of extra chips would be more for flexibility from my perspective - like if you wanted more fracs for the possibility of playing a slightly lower stakes game with a different group of friends to use Honky's example.

I'm not saying you don't need a 500 chip set for the way your table plays or if you want to play with different groups, I'm just saying that if 400 turns out to be sufficient, an extra 20-40 high denom chips may be plenty for a stakes increase in the future. It sounds like you are going to experiment with breakdowns in your games anyway, I think you'll figure out whether you'll need a 500 set or not pretty quickly.

 

[BGinGA]

I've found that a typical 6-8 hour session with 8 non-maniac players tends to need about:

120x
240x
200x
40x
-----
600 total chips, and usually all of the lowest three denomination chips will eventually be in play.

This breakdown works well regardless if the lowest denomination chip is 5c (5c, 25c, $1, $5 = $466 bank), 25c (25c, $1, $5, $20 = $2070 bank), or $1 ($1, $5, $20, $100 = $9320 bank). So it covers 5c/10c, 25c/50c, and 1/2 cash game set breakdowns for most games, depending on the denominations used.

Those bank amounts work out to roughly $58, $259, and $1165 per player respectively, or about six 100bb buy-ins per player in each game (or three 100bb buy-ins per player without using the 40 highest denomination chips).

 

[MaxB]

Here's a solution to the $20's on the table vs plaques .... https://www.apachepokerchips.com/product/andrew-jackson-20-plaque/

I personally would not want floppy paper money on the table ... why not just use $1 bills and $5's as well? This gives you the best of both worlds

 

[shorticus]

Man, I saw those and they are awesome!!!!

 

[GK Willie]

I'll just throw this in the mix. If your crew is only buying in for $20 and rebuy $10-15 if someone gets felted, you might be better off playing .5-.10 or .10-.20 NLHE/PLO. It will translate to casino/bigger home games later in terms of effective stacks and strategy. At these stakes you'll have an easier time mixing in other games with your group too. That's based on my experience. Maybe build a smaller denom set overall?

 

[shorticus]

Update: This past Friday, I we got to play at the house .25/.25 NLHE. Players were fine with it but preferred to play .25/.50 and I look down at pocket AA. There’s a raise, re-raise and a call so I push for $13.50. Get a safe flop and the turn is 10/hearts, River is 7/spades. I’m damn near certain I’ve just made money. Original raiser has AK, re-raiser has QQ and I lose to the original caller who has 10/7 off suit.

I say to say this: if I cant push someone off a .25/.50 pot with a 13 All in move, I’m not sitting down playing .5/.10 where we are literally just turning cards with little to no skill involved lol

 

[GK Willie]

Maybe this will explain what I mean.

.25/.50 $20 buy in, first hand: mp raises 4x $2, fold to btn who raises 4x to $8. Fold back to mp who calls. $16 in the pot, each player has $12 stack (24 bb) only 75 % of the pot. Easy strategy, good hands will be all in on the flop or not.

Vs.

.05/.10 $20 buy in, first hand: mp raise 5x .50 cent, fold to btn who raise 4x to $2. Fold back to mp who calls. $4 in pot, each player has $18 stack (180 bb) same 75% flop bet is $3. Now decisions have to made on the flop, call/raise, and on later streets because of effective stack size.

 

[BGinGA]

Update: This past Friday, I we got to play at the house .25/.25 NLHE. Players were fine with it but preferred to play .25/.50 and I look down at pocket AA. There’s a raise, re-raise and a call so I push for $13.50. Get a safe flop and the turn is 10/hearts, River is 7/spades. I’m damn near certain I’ve just made money. Original raiser has AK, re-raiser has QQ and I lose to the original caller who has 10/7 off suit.

I say to say this: if I cant push someone off a .25/.50 pot with a 13 All in move, I’m not sitting down playing .5/.10 where we are literally just turning cards with little to no skill involved lol

I don't understand. You WANT players to call all-ins with T7o.