Home game players refuse to chip up? (3 Viewers)

Sparkynutz

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I host occaisional home games. Typically tournament style holdem paying 2 places decided by last two players on payout.
Usually $5 buy in for first game up to $20 for later games.
One of my problems is one regular absolutely refuses to chip up. We waste so much time playing with smaller chips because he likes to have more chips.
I get out a stack of $5s and $20's most players gladly count out stacks of smaller chips to exchange but he won't and sometimes that even rubs off on the rest of the remaining players to not chip up as well. Either way playing remaining hands is a pain when that guy bets crap like $4.95 in 5 and 10c chips and most if not everyone else only having 25c and above chips and then wins. He's a pretty good player and typically takes home money. It's difficult to find players as it is and he's great to have around in every other way but what advice can you guys give me to deal with this?
Anyone else have similar experience?
He's friends with most of the other guys as well so not inviting him would even be hard to do. Someone else would if I didn't.
 
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The problem is you're changing stakes in the middle of the night. Sounds like you're going from .05/.10 to .25/.25 or .25/.50 within a couple of hours. So the problem is of your own design.

I'd suggest changing the stakes. Get rid of the nickels. Ditch the $5 starting game entirely and go straight to $20 buyins with .25 chips.

Another option is to run two tables: one for the $20 players, and one for the 5-dollar diehards, but with a new house rule... if you switch to the bigger table, you MUST chip up.

Side note: Make house rules. Print them. Post them.
 
Put it on the tourney blinds schedule - chip up at a level where you no longer need the lowest chip to play, then chip up for everyone at once (I do this during a break). And as @justsomedude notes, note it in your house rules.
 
If this is a normal tournament with a set blind progression, the player doesn't have a choice unless you have some strange house rules that say otherwise. They have to color up their chips. If they refuse, you delay the game until they color up. See how much the other players take his side after that.
 
Sometimes we only have 5 players sometimes we have 10. Depending who shows up. Many of the guys are only willing to play $5 and its a lot about including them in the company, not just taking their money quickly hence the 5c-10c. Once we are down to 3 or 4 players it would be nice to move things along so the rest can play again but when its actually slower due to endless chip counting it gets frustrating. I have thought about 25c and up only but with $5 the tourneys would be over too quick for the noobs to get more than a few hands in.
Hard to please everyone and not sure what else to do besides deal with it or try and force chip up.
 
Put it on the tourney blinds schedule - chip up at a level where you no longer need the lowest chip to play, then chip up for everyone at once (I do this during a break). And as @justsomedude notes, note it in your house rules.
Yep. For tournaments, just make it a part of your house rules. Announce it before play starts the next time that chip ups are not optional.

If playing a cash game there is no reason to ask a player to chip up.
 
The problem is you're changing stakes in the middle of the night.....

I think what OP is trying to say is that they play multiple tournaments in a night. First one is a $5 buy in, but they may raise the buy in for subsequent tournaments...?

@Sparkynutz can you give us more info on your tournaments? What denominations, what are starting stacks? How many players?


Personally, my strategy would be to color up the chips everytime he loses a pot.
 
Sometimes we only have 5 players sometimes we have 10. Depending who shows up. Many of the guys are only willing to play $5 and its a lot about including them in the company, not just taking their money quickly hence the 5c-10c. Once we are down to 3 or 4 players it would be nice to move things along so the rest can play again but when its actually slower due to endless chip counting it gets frustrating. I have thought about 25c and up only but with $5 the tourneys would be over too quick for the noobs to get more than a few hands in.
Hard to please everyone and not sure what else to do besides deal with it or try and force chip up.

I think something that might help you is to realize that the starting stack does not have to be the same as the buy-in for the tournament. You can do a $5 buyin, but have everyone start with $500 in chips.

From your original post, you mentioned 5c and 10c chips. If you're using those, plus a quarter, you have unnecessary denominations and too many chips.
 
I think what OP is trying to say is that they play multiple tournaments in a night. First one is a $5 buy in, but they may raise the buy in for subsequent tournaments...?

Tournament style... with cash denoms and fractional chips?

Ignore my original post, as I am now totally confused and do not understand OPs game.
 
If this is a normal tournament with a set blind progression, the player doesn't have a choice unless you have some strange house rules that say otherwise. They have to color up their chips. If they refuse, you delay the game until they color up. See how much the other players take his side after that.
I try to encourage etiquette and consistency but its hard with mostly a bunch of rookies that don't follow direction. I use a 15 min timer to double blinds. I tried to teach everyone how to shuffle but everyone has their own ideas on that too with many of them being very set in their ways shuffling any way they please. I bought nice expensive cards but they got wrecked in one night so we just play with cheap cards again.
Good players are hard to find so close friends is what I have to deal with if I want to play at all and not travel hours to do it. I've written down and displayed house rules. Nobody reads them or adheres to them. If I try to enforce them they all laugh and keep playing how we have in the past. Sometimes its worse than trying to get my kids to follow the rules. Atleast my kids aren't drunk or drinking.
Hopefully someday that changes and I can find more good local guys.
No luck yet.
 
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My chips are labeled cash denominations. Just makes everything easier and consistent especially when we play other games too. Dealers choice etc.
 
Tournament style... with cash denoms and fractional chips?

Ignore my original post, as I am now totally confused and do not understand OPs game.
My chips are labeled cash denominations. Just makes everything easier and consistent especially when we play other games too. Dealers choice etc.
 
My chips are labeled cash denominations. Just makes everything easier and consistent especially when we play other games too. Dealers choice etc.

Using cash chips in a tournament? Sounds confusing as hell. But that's just my $0.02.

I think something that might help you is to realize that the starting stack does not have to be the same as the buy-in for the tournament. You can do a $5 buyin, but have everyone start with $500 in chips.

Listen to this man. ^^^

I see what's going on now. You're trying to make your tournament stakes a function of your buyin... $5 buyin with 5-cent chips. $20 buyin-with 25-cent chips. That's doable, but a hot mess. If you use non-denominational chips in your tournament structure then it doesn't matter what your buyin is at all. Players can have 500-chip stacks. 100,000 chip stacks. Or hell, 1,000,000 chip stacks. And then you avoid people making half-assed $4.95 bets.

I realize having dedicated cash and tournament sets isn't for everyone, and will expand your poker-hosting budget, but hey... you are on the Poker Chip Forum. And the only rule here is "moar chips." ;)
 
I think what OP is trying to say is that they play multiple tournaments in a night. First one is a $5 buy in, but they may raise the buy in for subsequent tournaments...?

@Sparkynutz can you give us more info on your tournaments? What denominations, what are starting stacks? How many players?


Personally, my strategy would be to color up the chips everytime he loses a pot.
5 to 10 players depending and stacks are
$5 starting -
5c x 10
10c x 5
25c x 6
50c x 3
$1 x1

Higher Than $5 starting I just add more $1 and $5 chips.

Unfortunately I already have more invested in chips than I'd like until I find more better players that won't wreck or lose the chips.
I ink stamped majority of my chips 20 years ago and kinda screwed myself on larger Denom.
I have
400 white 5c
250 blue 10c
50 red 25c
50 green 50c
50 orange $1
50 black $5
20 grey $20

I have unlabeled matching chips I've acquired recently to increase the higher denominations but keep getting mostly white and blue since they always come with the ones I really wanted.
I also want to keep 100 of each color below unlabeled for roulette/craps so they are all worth 25c regardless of color when we play that to keep paying out and keeping track easier.

additional unlabeled matching chips
white 250
blue 200
red 150
green 100
orange 0 can't find color of my original $1 marked chips.
yellow 150
dark orange 100
black 150
grey 130
pink 100
purple 100
light blue 100

I've been tempted to acetone them all and start over different denominations but not sure if I'd even be ahead vs just labeling more of the colors I've acquired. It was a lot of work the first time.
 
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Good players are hard to find so close friends is what I have to deal with if I want to play at all and not travel hours to do it.

I hear ya...It took me a while to change the habits of my close friends, who I'd been playing poker with for 20+ years. We originally started with two stacks of $5 and one stack of $10 for tournaments, and never colored up. When I started changing things I heard complaints about not having enough chips, etc...but they get used to it, and it didnt take too long. Keep trying to improve your home game experience, it's worth it.


5 to 10 players depending and stacks are
$5 starting -
5c x 10
10c x 5
25c x 6
50c x 3
$1 x1

Higher Than $5 starting I just add more $1 and $5 chips.

Gotcha. I think you definitely need to tweak the structure of your tournament. A couple follow up questions:

What's your total bank?

Are you able to get more chips to expand your set if needed?

How long does a tournament typically last? And whatever that time is, are you happy with it? Do you want them to last longer, or end sooner?

I'm assuming your blinds start at 5c/10c? If everyone's starting with $5 in chips, that gives them 50 big blinds, which is pretty low for a tournament.

First, I would get rid of the 10c and 50c chips. You don't really need them, and it would reduce the amount of small denoms on the table.
 
I use a 15 min timer to double blinds.
This might also be part of the problem. Doubling the blinds every time is going to devalue the chips pretty fast, usually the first blind level would be the only one to double. For example, starting at 5c/10c and then going to 10c/20c is fine, but then maybe increase by a factor of 1.5 every time (rounding to the nearest 5c) instead of a factor of 2, so you could go 5c/10c, 10c/20c, 15c/20c, 25c/50c, 40c/80c, etc. This will help keep things manageable chip-wise, especially when you're only starting with 50BB (for perspective, a T20000 tournament starts with 800BB).

Alternatively, it might help to change your structure entirely. Your seem to have some bad habits, so maybe use the cash chips for a micro stakes cash game and then get some new tournament chips with a T5 or T25 base. There are lots of great resources here to help you pick a starting stack and blind levels, and this would force your players to reform those habits.
 
I hear ya...It took me a while to change the habits of my close friends, who I'd been playing poker with for 20+ years. We originally started with two stacks of $5 and one stack of $10 for tournaments, and never colored up. When I started changing things I heard complaints about not having enough chips, etc...but they get used to it, and it didnt take too long. Keep trying to improve your home game experience, it's worth it.




Gotcha. I think you definitely need to tweak the structure of your tournament. A couple follow up questions:

What's your total bank?

Are you able to get more chips to expand your set if needed?

How long does a tournament typically last? And whatever that time is, are you happy with it? Do you want them to last longer, or end sooner?

I'm assuming your blinds start at 5c/10c? If everyone's starting with $5 in chips, that gives them 50 big blinds, which is pretty low for a tournament.

First, I would get rid of the 10c and 50c chips. You don't really need them, and it would reduce the amount of small denoms on the table.
Some of these questions were answered in the edit of my above post.
We typically play about 4 to 7 hours total depending when people start leaving they all leave shortly after.
I didn't think I'd need higher than $5 when I originally labeled them and wanted to use every color.
I started the set with
150 white
150 blue
50 red
50 green
50 orange
50 black
I didn't have many red 25c so I needed the 50c green at that time.
 
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I kind of see where this thread is going, so I'd just like to add to OP:

You're in a situation where what you think is the problem isn't actually the problem -- that means people with a great deal of experience hosting successful tournaments are going to chime in with advice on starting stacks and time increments versus how to handle this specific player in your game. It's good advice and the sooner you consider taking it, the better your tourneys will run and the more likely new/better players will start showing up.

Good luck!
 
If this is a normal tournament with a set blind progression, the player doesn't have a choice unless you have some strange house rules that say otherwise. They have to color up their chips. If they refuse, you delay the game until they color up. See how much the other players take his side after that.

there's a lot of opinions, assumption, and suggestions in this thread, but this is the correct answer to the OP's actual question - your game, your rules, period. if there are unneeded denoms in play, all they do is slow down the game for everyone.
 
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The problem is one regular absolutely refuses to chip up. We waste so much time playing with smaller chips because he likes to have more chips.
You need rules.

Standard rules say the smallest chip in play is the SB/ante.

Assume you start with T5 in the starting stack. When blinds are 100/200, he can raise to 235 when no one else can call that bet because T5s were colored out an hour ago.

I'd tell him to get on board, or GTFO. If the game is good, he'll change and stay. The one thing that makes a good game is logical rules and consistent application of them.

Personally, my strategy would be to color up the chips everytime he loses a pot.

This.
 
Personally, my strategy would be to color up the chips everytime he loses a pot.
This for sure, plus I’d start buying them up before the colorup period anyway. Just start buying everyone’s, leaving them 3-4 apiece until official “colorup”. Then if someone refuses colorup they only have a few of the lower denom chips.
 
I kind of see where this thread is going, so I'd just like to add to OP:

You're in a situation where what you think is the problem isn't actually the problem -- that means people with a great deal of experience hosting successful tournaments are going to chime in with advice on starting stacks and time increments versus how to handle this specific player in your game. It's good advice and the sooner you consider taking it, the better your tourneys will run and the more likely new/better players will start showing up.

Good luck!
If I start over re labeling I only want to do it once. Its a lot of work. Acquiring more matching chips seemed easier.
If I don't use the blue and green so be it.
I'm definitely trying to use what I learn here but also realize I need to accommodate the guys I play with how they want to play too. They always ask for more colors and more starting chips and keep it dollar for dollar.
I have thought about things and changed starting chips often when I can due to bankroll as I've acquired more of some colors. We only play a few times per year. I wish it was more often but making changes take longer to implement and learn how they actually affect game play at my table not just assuming how they will based on forum experience.
I used to play once a month with old friends but most either died or stopped playing. We played with cash and quarters dealers choice only. No chips no tournaments and some of of us ended the night $200-300 up or down. You played whatever crazy game the dealer came up with as it went around the table.
It was fun but expensive and all except two of the guys I play with now would not be willing to play like that or anything besides low $ holdem.
 
I tried to read this thread but it made my eyes bleed.

Just play cash games....sounds like you are trying to do some weird hybrid between cash and tourney. Just play cash. Don't raise the stakes. Let them bet with whatever they want.

Just play cash.

Orrrrrrrr......

Just do a regular tournament.

Like Mr. Miagi said in Poker Kid....cash games ok. Tournaments ok. Cash/tournament hybrid...squish like grape.
 
I suggest trying to reason with him. If that doesn’t work I’d suggest using verbal intimidation. If that doesn’t work then consider passive aggressive tactics. For instance, go get a beer and don’t offer to get him one. Or, offer to get him a hot dog but “forget” to put mustard and onions on it. Also, bet him in Increments that will require him to break his stacks of little chips. So many option! Have fun with it!
 
I tried to read this thread but it made my eyes bleed.

Just play cash games....sounds like you are trying to do some weird hybrid between cash and tourney. Just play cash. Don't raise the stakes. Let them bet with whatever they want.

Just play cash.

Orrrrrrrr......

Just do a regular tournament.

Like Mr. Miagi said in Poker Kid....cash games ok. Tournaments ok. Cash/tournament hybrid...squish like grape.
The reason is multiple winners. A plain cash game would have the novice players down $100+ and chip leaders running the table.
I'd lose friends or they wouldn't return and I'd have even less players to play with.
I play poker to have a good time win or lose, not to rake my friends over the coals. I can afford to lose but many of them can't and wouldn't come back if they've lost the amounts I used to lose when I was playing dealers choice cash games
 
What type of chips are you using? Honestly, I think your best move is to reboot and buy a set of cheap chips with the standard tournament denominations and go from there.

https://www.discountpokershop.com/loose-poker-chips-c-12.html?sort=2a

You'd only need 300-400 chips, you could do it for $30-$40.

I get what you're saying about keeping the players happy. I used to be all about more colors and more chips. But the standard is the standard for a reason, it just works better. Also, a pretty standard starting stack is T25 x 12, T100 x 12, T500 x 5 and T1000 x 6, for a total of 35 starting chips, which is more than you currently do. So you could use that as a selling point to your players.


Another idea, since you tend to play more than one tournament in a night, is to ease the players into it by trying the new structure in one tournament (maybe the last one of the night?). You could also try to make it fun and market it as a "High Rollers" tournament, starting stacks of $10,000!

To get back to your original question, how to deal with this players. I would just try to have an honest conversation with him. Tell him that you're trying to improve your home games, and try to get him to empathize with you. Don't make it all about why he's being a dick.
 
The reason is multiple winners. A plain cash game would have the novice players down $100+ and chip leaders running the table.
I'd lose friends or they wouldn't return and I'd have even less players to play with.
I play poker to have a good time win or lose, not to rake my friends over the coals. I can afford to lose but many of them can't and wouldn't come back if they've lost the amounts I used to lose when I was playing dealers choice cash games

The reason you are having problems is not your players, its your structure. If you don't want to play cash, set up a regular tournament. Problem with tournaments is you will have players knocked out early.

Also, if your players cannot afford to lose, find a new game. Seriously.

I'll say it again: the problem is with your structure, not your players.
 
One last thing: it is not your job to police other people's finances. If someone wants to put $100 on the table (and it's allowable), that is their grown up decision. If they don't want to lose it, they should either not put it up for grabs or play better.

If they have a gambling problem, that's different and I will not get in to that here.
 
I can solve your problems. After you get enough fracs on the table, do rebuys with big chips. 4x $5. They then swap one with someone has a lot of nickels and quarters (them asking to do it, not you). Don’t put more nickels than you want out there, then you won’t want to buy them back. Don’t even have the extra nickels out, lock em in a cabinet. Someone needs to rebuy, you give them the only chips you have (because all your nickels are already out there in play).
 

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