Cash Game Hypothetical: how would a cash game play if you skipped a denom? (1 Viewer)

[dmoney]

I saw this photo from @Legend5555 (will remove if requested) and wondered what a game would play like if you skipped the "secondary workhorse" denom in the breakdown? Essentially just workhorse and "big bet" or rebuy/top-up chips?

For example how would a 1/2 or 2/5 game play without a $25? For 1,000 chips:

100x $1
800x $5
100x $100

 

[dmoney]

To be clear, my question is about the impact on gameplay specifically. The bank is a touch light but playable for sure.

@Windwalker - don't you play in a game that skips the $500? And is the $500 a "secondary workhorse" in that game, or a blind-adjacent chip?

 

[mipevi]

I'd imagine a 1/2 would play just fine, as long as you have plenty of fives. But for 2/5 wouldn't $25 really be the first workhorse, so you should then skip the hundo instead?

 

[FestiveKnight]

I think it’s pretty well accepted that games with a greater quantity of chips play bigger and with more action so if anything id think you’d just have more of that effect because you’ll need more of your “primary workhorse”

 

[Legend5555]

I saw this photo from @Legend5555 (will remove if requested) and wondered what a game would play like if you skipped the "secondary workhorse" denom in the breakdown? Essentially just workhorse and "big bet" or rebuy/top-up chips?

For example how would a 1/2 or 2/5 game play without a $25? For 1,000 chips:

100x $1
800x $5
100x $100

View attachment 932497

All good. I won't send the copyright police after you.

 

[Marius L]

Not exactly the same, but the standard poker club stakes here in Norway is 10/20 played with 10s and 100s. That's a 10x leap, and works fine. However IMo it does impact the game, and tend to make preflop raises higher rather than smaller. The standard raise is often not 3-4x bb because people can't be bothered with betting 6-8 chips, but many players rather just make it 110 or 120 directly instead. Depends on who is playing/reising though, but splashy drunk players tend to do this at least. While people that are not super comfortable with the stakes might do the old 2.5x- 3xbb regardless.

 

[dmoney]

All good. I won't send the copyright police after you.

Thanks! Was that game 1/2/1/3 or 2/5?

 

[ArielVer18]

Bigger stacks incentivize and create the illusion of action. All of my cash chipsets have breakdowns with over 1k of at least one denom.

 

[shorticus]

No experience here, but I imagine that a missing 2nd workhorse may just mean potentially smaller bet sizing from in experienced players.

I believe in chip psychology, but I’m following to hear others opinions about this.

 

[Windwalker]

To be clear, my question is about the impact on gameplay specifically. The bank is a touch light but playable for sure.

@Windwalker - don't you play in a game that skips the $500? And is the $500 a "secondary workhorse" in that game, or a blind-adjacent chip?

I absolutely hate $500s, especially in large games ($50/100, 100/200). I tend to like going from the hundo to the $1k, and making change with the hundos as needed. But that’s just a personal preference. Some people, like the G-man love the $500 chip and use it a lot.

 

[AWenger]

It'll depend on what the players adjust, but it'll work to jump from $5 to $100 chips ... maybe get more than 1000 of the workhorse chip, though. I think I recall a few $5/$10 or $2/5 games on live at the bike or Hustler Casino doing this, with stacks of $5s and going straight to $100s and skipping the $25 chip, although I think each player had a rack or more of $5s in front of them at that point.

When the $100 chips come into play, it's common for the game to announce "black chips in play" or "black action" to alert everyone the big denom chips are in play so they look out for them in other stacks and/or when a bet is made, so they don't accidentally overlook a black chip in the bet.

The bank is a touch light but playable for sure.

If you run out of $100 chips, you can just start using some $500 or $1000 chips, or if no chips left, just start using pieces of fruit, like I remember Bill Perkins did once.
(photo taken from this post: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/banana-chips.28341/)

 

[dmoney]

play bigger and with more action

potentially smaller bet sizing

^ these are sort of why I was asking. On the one hand, more workhorse chips (or chips generally) would seem to be good for loosening up the game, but higher-denom chips often just store value in stacks due to psychological factors.

Does removing a middling denom impact that dynamic?

 

[kmccormick100]

A lot of the cardrooms around here use this structure at their $1/3 games (Bay101 and M8trix), basically piles of $5s in play and then $100s as value holder chips. We tried it with one of my sets at one point and actually liked it, as long as the game is deep enough to get a handful of $100s in play.

 

[Marius L]

Another thing. I think playing 1/2 with only 5s and 100s could be slightly annoying. Would work for sure, but my set has 200 5s and 200 25s, and I think I would much prefer that to having many more fives and only hundos as the higher denom.

Me and my players prefer to use the 25s quite a lot when betting. I like to try to get most of the 200 fives on the table first, but there will be plenty of 25s in play as well. I like to give about a barrel of fives to each player, and then add 4x 25s for each extra hundo being bought in for.

Imagine a 1/2 game, with a straddle, an open to 16 and a couple of callers. That's about 50 in the pot preflop. A bet on the flop could be 35, and will often be one 25chip and two fives rather than 7x fives. I dunno if you guys prefer to make bets with for example 15x fives when you bet 75, but to me it's easier to simply bet three 25s.

 

[ChaosRock]

I've played in several casino games where they skipped one denom, usually, the one right above the workhorse. I could not see any changes to how the game played from a "poker" perspective. Openings were similar, bet sizing similar, looseness similar and stack offs similar.

For a home game though, unless the players are experienced or one has a dedicated dealer, the more chips one has in play (a must if you're skipping a denom), the slower the game will be. Same thing for Limit games with 4/8chip structure.

 

[shorticus]

the more chips one has in play, the slower the game will be

This is definitely true. I’ve played in games where people will count out smaller chips just to hold on to their larger chips. Really frustrating. Imagine having 3 greens and counting out 15 reds just cause you don’t want to put up your 25’s. That’s very tilting.

 

[CrazyEddie]

The truth that no one dares speak aloud is that we spend way too much time worrying about denoms and breakdowns. Pretty much anything will work, and different people have different preferences. You might even have multiple preferences yourself depending on your mood.

 

[davislane]

The truth that no one dares speak aloud is that we spend way too much time worrying about denoms and breakdowns. Pretty much anything will work, and different people have different preferences. You might even have multiple preferences yourself depending on your mood.

only caveat to this is when people have too many denoms on a table at once.

i played in a game where they had $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 & $100 chips on the table. it was gross. they had bought a chip set that was a replica of Australian currency and the set came with even numbers of each chip. It wasnt playable at all with constant change being made.

 

[Mandos]

This whole topic fascinates me. It seems pretty generally accepted that more chips makes for better limit games (4chip/8chip or 3chip/6chip > 2chip/4chip or 1chip/2chip) but I've seen less evidence of how more/fewer chips changes how NL plays, though I suspect it does.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

I've played in plenty of shallower 1-2NL games where $25s were practically nonexistent, and they played just fine.

The deeper you go, though, the more important that secondary workhorse becomes. I can't imagine running my .25/.50, $100 max home game without $5 chips. It would drive me bonkers.

 

[DontKnowWhen]

the more chips one has in play (a must if you're skipping a denom), the slower the game will be.

^^this

Also, if your players are not experienced and don’t exactly stack in 20s it will be very difficult to get a “chip count” during a hand. Having that middle denom makes for fewer chips and easier to count stacks.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

This is definitely true. I’ve played in games where people will count out smaller chips just to hold on to their larger chips. Really frustrating. Imagine having 3 greens and counting out 15 reds just cause you don’t want to put up your 25’s. That’s very tilting.

You might want to skip my .25/.50 home games, then. A couple of my semi-regs love to do crap like raising to $2.75 with all quarters.

I just laugh about it when it happens, but I've also been putting fewer quarters on the table lately to help reduce this.

 

[Eriks]

^^this

Also, if your players are not experienced and don’t exactly stack in 20s it will be very difficult to get a “chip count” during a hand. Having that middle denom makes for fewer chips and easier to count stacks.

Very true, I have several sloppy stackers in my game

 

[LeLe]

My game used 10c $1 $10 $100 denomination long ago when we first started playing Poker

It should play out the same but you will need much more chips for each of the lowest denomination

 

[upNdown]

This is interesting - I can totally imagine playing $1/1, $1/2, $1/3 with no $25 chips.
But I can’t imagine playing .25/.50 with no $5s.
And FWIW, my .25/.50 plays like a natural .25/.50 (preflop opens around $2) unlike some .25/.50s that play bigger, like a $1/1 where everybody has a stack of quarters.

 

[TheBigTater]

I can't imagine running my .25/.50, $100 max home game without $5 chips. It would drive me bonkers.

.25/.50 NL game with no $5's WTF. I'd be betting some oddball amount ($77, $49) all the time just to watch the chaos.

 

[philhut]

I have enough 5's in my HSI and Sloth Club sets that I could avoid $25 chips all together for 1/2 to 2/5. My HSI set also has a rack of 100's to allow for exactly this should I ever exceed 5's (or mountains occur) I can play secondary $100's...This allows depending on circumstance for a 4 table tourney to run using primary $25+ as the tourney chips..... for my Sloth sets they are more geared to ~1/2 with option of .5/.10-.25/.50 and use either $10's or $20's as the higher cash chips with the $25+ as tourney chips. I have 2 dedicated tourney sets as well but like to have lots of options. Yes there are the concerns of high value chips being pocketed and brought back but largely depends on your crowd/stakes and inventory counts. This is why I have split my customs sets into majority cash/tourney portions but all have $ signs to allow for inflation......(depending how much inflation we get, hopefully we don't see Weimar Republic inflation or I will need to add-on Million and Billion $ chips)

In my local (45mins away) casino Rama at the 1/2 tables they only used 1's and 5's and rarely 100's whenever I was playing there. 25's were only in play at the 2/5 table and I think the 5/10. Not sure if there were any stakes higher than that other than 3/6 limit with lots of 1's, I played mostly 1/2.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

.25/.50 NL game with no $5's WTF. I'd be betting some oddball amount ($77, $49) all the time just to watch the chaos.

That's nothing, how about $49.75?

Use a quarter on the turn or river, get the stink eye from the host.

 

[Geedy]

I’ve played in both (casino and private) and it doesn’t change game play • all the greens (25) help with is odd bets to minimize amount of chips and having a sea of reds (5s) in pots . IE. $35 to $65 bets sizing • $75 and above the player just announces bet throws in black ($100) and dealer makes easy change.

Bellagio rarely gives out $25s in their 1/3 or 2/5 game • same with Aria unless you specially ask for it at cage buying chips.

Game play wise • zero difference •