Tourney How efficient is coloring up T25s with T500s? (1 Viewer)

GenghisKhan

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Hi everyone.
Hope you're having nice weather this weekend and are well.

So, I've always had like 10x more chips than I need for our tourneys, so I never needed to really think about this: ideal amount of extra chips for color up.

I'm interested in chasing a new tourney set, so I'm wondering what my chip counts should be.

We play 10 player T5000. No rebuys or add-ons. Starting stacks are:

T25 x 12. (120)
T100 x 12 (120)
T500 x 3. (30)
T1000 x2. (20)
=290 chips

Actually I've always given 5 x T500 and 1 x T1000 but think maybe the above 3/2 is more the norm.

The chip breakdown tool in the ressources says in order to color up the 25s and 100s, to buy an extra 30 each of the 100s and 500s.

But reading the threads I see a lot of people do not buy extra T100s, they just use T500s.

How is that working out for you?
Do you regret not getting extra T100s?
Thanks.
 

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Hi everyone.
Hope you're having nice weather this weekend and are well.

So, I've always had like 10x more chips than I need for our tourneys, so I never needed to really think about this: ideal amount of extra chips for color up.

I'm interested in chasing a new tourney set, so I'm wondering what my chip counts should be.

We play 10 player T5000. No rebuys or add-ons. Starting stacks are:

T25 x 12. (120)
T100 x 12 (120)
T500 x 3. (30)
T1000 x2. (20)
=290 chips

Actually I've always given 5 x T500 and 1 x T1000 but think maybe the above 3/2 is more the norm.

The chip breakdown tool in the ressources says in order to color up the 25s and 100s, to buy an extra 30 each of the 100s and 500s.

But reading the threads I see a lot of people do not buy extra T100s, they just use T500s.

How is that working out for you?
Do you regret not getting extra T100s?
Thanks.

Others are more experienced with this, but I would think with only 10 players and no rebuys the only chips I would feel compelled to color up, if any, are the T25s. But I wouldn’t feel terribly compelled to color up at all with a tournament that shallow. There is only 3k at play in T25s so I would just buy 6 more T500s. You don’t need any more than 120 of any chip at play in an STT.
 
Regarding coloring up T25 with T100:
  • If you feel the need to add more T100, why didn't you have them in the starting stack? My point is: Make sure the starting stacks have the amount of T100 that are needed. Then, by definition, adding more T100 will be unnecessary.
  • The T100 will probably be colored off before the tourney ends (it depends on if the tourney ends before or after the 800/1600 level ends). Therefore, you will be adding chips that will eventually be removed. That's a bit of a waste.
Normally I would recommend using T1000s since they are the workhorses in the endgame of T10k and T20k tournaments so adding more is good, but I've never played a 10 man T5k, so maybe T500 works well? It kinda depends on which chips are most heavily used in the endgame. I still suspect it's better to use T1000 for color-ups since you never need to use more than one T500 per bet and therefore you don't need more than what's in the starting stacks.
 
For T25-base starting stacks, you need at least 4x T500 -- three per stack is just too few, if wanting to avoid excessive change-making.

The T100 is the first work-horse chip in a T25-base set, and so should have sufficient chips in the starting stacks -- 10-16 starting workhorse chips is optimum (8 min, 20 max).

The T100 is eventually replaced by the T1000 as the workhorse chip, and for that reason, I recommend using T1000 chips to replace/color-up the T25 and T100 chips -- so that they will be in play once they become needed.

For a 10-player T5000 set with no re-buys/add-ons, go with:

120 x T25
120 x T100
50 x T500
25 x T1000 (includes 15x for color-ups)
-----------
315 total chips
 
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And if we wanted this 5K to become a 10K, just add 5 more T1000 to starting stack right?
Correct.

Although increasing stacks to 10K will likely result in needing to remove the T500s from play, necessitating the use of T5000 chips:

120 x T25
120 x T100
50 x T500
75 x T1000 (includes 15x for T25/T100 color-ups)
5 x T5000 (used for T500 color-ups)
-----------
370 total chips

Adding another 30x T5000 chips for re-buys/add-ons or larger starting stacks makes for a versatile 400-chip set.
 
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Others are more experienced with this, but I would think with only 10 players and no rebuys the only chips I would feel compelled to color up, if any, are the T25s. But I wouldn’t feel terribly compelled to color up at all with a tournament that shallow. There is only 3k at play in T25s so I would just buy 6 more T500s. You don’t need any more than 120 of any chip at play in an STT.
I’ve done that. It works fine for a single table. Not really ideal to have those extra 100s kicking around when they’re no longer needed, but no big deal.
 
While understanding that some are on chip budgets, and want to buy the minimum number necessary to host, the savings is relatively small per game (amortizing the price over time) if you are hosting regularly.

If you host, say, 20 games per year, each extra $500 spent on chips amounts to $5 extra per game over five years of hosting.

At the end of which, you may covet a different set, So you resell your old set at cost and recoup the whole investment... Which means the extras were effectively free.

Anyway, as far as breakdowns: Having to dig into my memory bank here, having not hosted since 2/24/20 due to the pandemic... For what it’s worth, my preferred starting T25 / 10,000 breakdown was:

25 ::: 16x = 400
100 ::: 16x = 1,600
500 ::: 8x = 4,000
1K ::: 4x = 4,000

(I also have [had?] a 1,000 bonus for reserving a spot 24 hours in advance, and 1,000 for arriving ontime, so many players are actually starting at 12K, but that’s not so pertinent here. I distribute these bonuses all in 500s, so a model reserved/on-time player will begin with three stacks 16 tall. That way regs don’t have to do so much obsessive chip-verifying before we shuffle up and deal.)

If I were making this a 5K, I’d probably keep the 25s and 100s the same, halve the 500s down to 4, and start with just one 1K chip = 5,000. The math on colorups then becomes pretty cut and dried.

In a tourney that “small,” with no rebuys, I would tend also to want longer blinds. But regardless of your blind structure, people are likely to want to be more precise with bet sizing, since stack management is going to be even more key than ever. So having lots of small denoms to start would be even more of a plus than usual.

Either way, I‘d try to color up with 500s and 1Ks. With the above starting stacks, heavy on small denoms, there will be plenty of 100s already on the table to make change as necessary for any odd amounts. Maybe I’d have 4-5 100s in hand.

In general, as a host I try not to skimp on chips, either in starting stacks of colorups. It makes my life easier, first of all, when I’m not sweating my chip reserves, and provides flexibility if I want to host a deeper tourney sometimes.

When people are buying in for $100+, or even if it’s less, psychologically I find they like to feel like they have a “big” stack to start.

Even though this is irrational—five 1K chips is the same value as 5,000 in a mix of denoms—having more chips I think can positively effect how people play, not to mention the making change issues of fewer chips in higher denoms. It also makes things more fun, as winners are raking pots which at least *look* larger.

When people have exact change, I find they tend to make more exact bets, and this too I think makes for a better game.

Say at 50/100 you want to raise over two limpers to 350. If you have three 100s and two 25s, you are more likely to use them. If you don’t have enough 25s, you may round it to 300 or 400 instead. If you don’t have enough 100s, you might get lazy and bump your bet to 500.

Or you say “350” then throw in the 500. Now you need change (plus it’s quite possible someone sees the 500 chip and mistakes your bet size). Then, two others also use bigger chips to call, so now everyone needs change. Slows the game down.

Overall, I just think there are many advantages to giving yourself breathing room with chips as a host.
 
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But reading the threads I see a lot of people do not buy extra T100s, they just use T500s.
This works. Especially if starting stacks are 12/12/x or more T100s. If you only start with 8/8/x, then it might be worth it to have T100s to color up.

One tip to help with this method is that right before the break (when the T25s will be colored up) is to have the big stack at the table trade for the T25s from the other players, then you can easily color up each full stack of T25s with one T500 at one time.

The only remaining chips at that point will be the left over 1, 2, or 3 T25s in other players stacks, which you can then race off or color up/round up. If you don't have extra T100s in the bank for color ups, just make change with one or two T500 from the bank from players with enough T100s to color up remaining stacks of odd T25 chips, if you don't do the race-off method for coloring up.
 
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While understanding that some are on chip budgets, and want to buy the minimum number necessary to host, the savings is relatively small per game (amortizing the price over time) if you are hosting regularly.

If you host, say, 20 games per year, each extra $500 spent on chips amounts to $5 extra per game over five years of hosting.

At the end of which, you may covet a different set, So you resell your old set at cost and recoup the whole investment... Which means the extras were effectively free.
You should change your name to "The Enabler"
 
I only ever color up with my largest denomination - no need for extra lower denom chips.


I was just watching this! Wholeheartedly agree as far as using bigger chips, and making change... Though I generally don’t like to take 500s or 1Ks away at the break, as they soon become the workhorses of the tourney. So I might use a handful of those, instead of one 5K in the situation you described.

Great channel!
 
5 x T500 would be better than 3 x T500.
I had a set 12/12/3/x and switched to 12/12/5/x.
120 x T25
120 x T100
60 x T500
20 x T1000
--> 320 chips incl. 10 x T500 and 10 x T1000 for color-up.
If you prefer to round-up rather than doing a proper chip race, go with 50 x T500 and 30 x T1000.

You can start at blinds 25-50 (100BB) or 25-25 (200BB).
 
I was just watching this! Wholeheartedly agree as far as using bigger chips, and making change... Though I generally don’t like to take 500s or 1Ks away at the break, as they soon become the workhorses of the tourney. So I might use a handful of those, instead of one 5K in the situation you described.

Great channel!

Great video @Anthony Martino , thanks for sharing !

With 12/12/5/6 starting stacks (T10.000), I'd indeed introduce new T1K to color-up T25 and T100 and only introduce T500 to color-up the T500.

Exception is for my my T100 based tournament with 10/6/11/3 starting stacks. Since there are already plenty of T1000 in the starting stacks. With this set I already introduce T5000 to color-up the T25.
 
Great video @Anthony Martino , thanks for sharing !

With 12/12/5/6 starting stacks (T10.000), I'd indeed introduce new T1K to color-up T25 and T100 and only introduce T500 to color-up the T500.

Exception is for my my T100 based tournament with 10/6/11/3 starting stacks. Since there are already plenty of T1000 in the starting stacks. With this set I already introduce T5000 to color-up the T25.


You got the wrong man.....man!
 

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