Looking to elevate my home game (1 Viewer)

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speshy

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Hi everyone, I'm from Malaysia and just recently got into poker chips. Been playing on and off with my 7 year old dice chips that were bought cheaply off our local version of Amazon.
Am looking to elevate my home games with my friends just to add a bit more class and feel. Does anyone have any recommendations for what I should be looking for? I've got my eyes on the EPT chips on Aliexpress as they're quite affordable and I can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on chips.

Games are usually 0.50/1 but sometimes we play 1/2 so I would prefer non denominated chips so we can alter the value as we go.

Also, would it be ridiculous to add plaques to our games considering the buy ins are usually only 100 BBs?
 
Get samples!

What is your budget?

If you’re playing cash games, chip security should be a concern (you don’t want a “friend” to buy the same chips on the Internet for .25 cents and sneak them into your game). Custom labels can help.

I personally wouldn’t use undenominated chips.

You should research some threads here to decide what breakdown (amount of each denomination) will be suitable for the games you want to spread. Number of players, blinds, min/max buyin, number of expected rebuys will affect the total bank required.
 
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A few questions will help narrow things down for potential suggestions.

What is your budget?
How many players do you host?
How much money is usually in play?
 
1615406936582.jpeg
$1 HSI 1a Secondary Chip — brand new Paulsons at 60¢/chip through the chip room.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/black-friday-sale.64636/

If your budget can support it, this is the best quality for the money. Buy a shuffle stack and see for yourself :)

Separately, you mentioned you play 50¢/$1 or $1/$2. I’d suggest just playing $1/$1 and not worrying about quarters or half dollars, which can be significantly more expensive to purchase than $1 denominated chips.
 
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good quality chairs and a table playing surface/table would be the first upgrades if you haven’t already. Anything is pretty much an upgrade from dice chips so you can improve there with out spending much at all. Your game will go longer and have happier players with good chairs.

get denominated chips!!! To play 50c/$1 or $1/2 you only need to add 60ea 50c chip to what you would use already for the $1/2 game.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
good quality chairs and a table playing surface/table would be the first upgrades if you haven’t already. Anything is pretty much an upgrade from dice chips so you can improve there with out spending much at all. Your game will go longer and have happier players with good chairs.

get denominated chips!!! To play 50c/$1 or $1/2 you only need to add 60ea 50c chip to what you would use already for the $1/2 game.
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I agree 100% that a proper poker table and good chairs should be the highest priority for upgrading. Sacrilege on a poker chip site but playing on a nice surface/table trumps nice chips IMHO.
 
I don’t understand why people buy sets with .10, .25, .50, etc. only to have to buy new sets as the game grows, which we all know can happen quickly. Instead why not buy a set with denominations up to 1k capable of handling a 5/5 game, and reduce the stakes by a denominator set at the beginning of the night. Meaning if u want a cash game with an average $100 buy in, make denominator 10 and give someone $1000 in chips (the value is divided by 10). If at the end of the night that person has $6000 in chips, that person won $600. U can easily regulate the stakes by changing the denominator, which is much cheaper and easier than buying a new chip set.

i know, I know. I hear 20 people typing already........ “but it gives us an excuse to buy another chip set” true, but u can always buy more chip sets with the higher denominations. Plus u don’t have to relabel them with the lower denominations.

just a thought.
 
Goldfish said:
I don’t understand why people buy sets with .10, .25, .50, etc. only to have to buy new sets as the game grows, which we all know can happen quickly. Instead why not buy a set with denominations up to 1k capable of handling a 5/5 game, and reduce the stakes by a denominator set at the beginning of the night. Meaning if u want a cash game with an average $100 buy in, make denominator 10 and give someone $1000 in chips (the value is divided by 10). If at the end of the night that person has $6000 in chips, that person won $600. U can easily regulate the stakes by changing the denominator, which is much cheaper and easier than buying a new chip set.

i know, I know. I hear 20 people typing already........ “but it gives us an excuse to buy another chip set” true, but u can always buy more chip sets with the higher denominations. Plus u don’t have to relabel them with the lower denominations.

just a thought.
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The big problem there is game security. If chips change value what do you do if a $100 chip goes missing on a divide by 10 night ($1 value)., dont want that showing up again when it is valued at $100.

That said, I have a cash set that is permanently used to play $0.10/0.20 using $1+ up chips.
 
Goldfish said:
I don’t understand why people buy sets with .10, .25, .50, etc. only to have to buy new sets as the game grows, which we all know can happen quickly. Instead why not buy a set with denominations up to 1k capable of handling a 5/5 game, and reduce the stakes by a denominator set at the beginning of the night. Meaning if u want a cash game with an average $100 buy in, make denominator 10 and give someone $1000 in chips (the value is divided by 10). If at the end of the night that person has $6000 in chips, that person won $600. U can easily regulate the stakes by changing the denominator, which is much cheaper and easier than buying a new chip set.

i know, I know. I hear 20 people typing already........ “but it gives us an excuse to buy another chip set” true, but u can always buy more chip sets with the higher denominations. Plus u don’t have to relabel them with the lower denominations.

just a thought.
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You might as well use undenominated Dice chips and change the value of red/blue/white/black depending on the game.

Personally I passionately dislike using $25 chips as .25 fracs, etc. If you’re going to up your game, do it right!
 
Security is always an issue. I only put a finite amount of chips in play using the bag system. Any rebuys over and above the bag are done with hi denomination 1k chips so I can tell how many rebuys there were just buy the number of 1ks in circulation. At the end of the night I inventory the chips and will know immediately if any chips are missing.
798EB582-AD45-4078-A800-C337F7C43812.jpeg
 
LotsOfChips said:
You might as well use undenominated Dice chips and change the value of red/blue/white/black depending on the game.

Personally I passionately dislike using $25 chips as .25 francs, etc. If you’re going to up your game, do it right!
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Understood, just a suggestion..... we are way past using denominators at the animal house. Haha.
 
Goldfish said:
I don’t understand why people buy sets with .10, .25, .50, etc. only to have to buy new sets as the game grows, which we all know can happen quickly. Instead why not buy a set with denominations up to 1k capable of handling a 5/5 game, and reduce the stakes by a denominator set at the beginning of the night. Meaning if u want a cash game with an average $100 buy in, make denominator 10 and give someone $1000 in chips (the value is divided by 10). If at the end of the night that person has $6000 in chips, that person won $600. U can easily regulate the stakes by changing the denominator, which is much cheaper and easier than buying a new chip set.

i know, I know. I hear 20 people typing already........ “but it gives us an excuse to buy another chip set” true, but u can always buy more chip sets with the higher denominations. Plus u don’t have to relabel them with the lower denominations.

just a thought.
Click to expand...
Me personally? It’s because I am teaching my step children how to play no limit hold’em because of the excellent learning opportunities it affords for fractions, statistical probability, nonverbal communications, deception, and strategic thinking. For all of that to work and be meaningful in an impactful way, I feel it’s important for them to use real money, but I don’t want to rob my kids either! I wanted a nice set for vanity purposes for my real games I play and I always wanted a set of Paulsons from when I played tournaments as a job, but missed the opportunity to get a full set on the cheap!
 
Goldfish said:
I don’t understand why people buy sets with .10, .25, .50, etc. only to have to buy new sets as the game grows, which we all know can happen quickly. Instead why not buy a set with denominations up to 1k capable of handling a 5/5 game, and reduce the stakes by a denominator set at the beginning of the night. Meaning if u want a cash game with an average $100 buy in, make denominator 10 and give someone $1000 in chips (the value is divided by 10). If at the end of the night that person has $6000 in chips, that person won $600. U can easily regulate the stakes by changing the denominator, which is much cheaper and easier than buying a new chip set.

i know, I know. I hear 20 people typing already........ “but it gives us an excuse to buy another chip set” true, but u can always buy more chip sets with the higher denominations. Plus u don’t have to relabel them with the lower denominations.

just a thought.
Click to expand...

Being practical in the sense of using the same chipset for multiple purposes is kinda antithetical to pretty much this entire forum. Many people here spend thousands and thousands on multiple sets because they're unwilling to compromise and just make do. It's in the same vein as using a tourney set for tourneys and a cash game afterwards. Totally doable but not very desirable. Security issues as already noted, but it totally defeats the purpose of even having denominated chips. If you're going to pretend they're different denoms you should just use non-denominated chips.
 
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Goldfish said:
Security is always an issue. I only put a finite amount of chips in play using the bag system. Any rebuys over and above the bag are done with hi denomination 1k chips so I can tell how many rebuys there were just buy the number of 1ks in circulation. At the end of the night I inventory the chips and will know immediately if any chips are missing.
View attachment 653246
Click to expand...
Sweet setup!
 
speshy said:
Hi everyone, I'm from Malaysia and just recently got into poker chips. Been playing on and off with my 7 year old dice chips that were bought cheaply off our local version of Amazon.
Am looking to elevate my home games with my friends just to add a bit more class and feel. Does anyone have any recommendations for what I should be looking for? I've got my eyes on the EPT chips on Aliexpress as they're quite affordable and I can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on chips.

Games are usually 0.50/1 but sometimes we play 1/2 so I would prefer non denominated chips so we can alter the value as we go.

Also, would it be ridiculous to add plaques to our games considering the buy ins are usually only 100 BBs?
Click to expand...
This may be sacrilegious on this forum but from what I’ve noticed from my home games, my guests and players have noticed far more how comfortable my table and chairs are than my CPC custom chips.

Before breaking the bank on chips,I would invest in a nice table and comfortable chairs.

C28C2800-9AA8-4C24-B237-BBB2E92FEE37.jpeg
 
My soon to be wife has stolen my “man card” and has been itching to build a poker table very similar. She is now a forum lurker too.

edit: dog bumped into phone and submitted before typing.
 
TomC727 said:
This may be sacrilegious on this forum but from what I’ve noticed from my home games, my guests and players have noticed far more how comfortable my table and chairs are than my CPC custom chips.

Before breaking the bank on chips,I would invest in a nice table and comfortable chairs.

View attachment 653306
Click to expand...
Awesome set up! Beautiful!
 
TomC727 said:
This may be sacrilegious on this forum but from what I’ve noticed from my home games, my guests and players have noticed far more how comfortable my table and chairs are than my CPC custom chips.

Before breaking the bank on chips,I would invest in a nice table and comfortable chairs.

View attachment 653306
Click to expand...
My god... I just noticed those chairs!!! What are those and where can I get them!!
1615437307741.gif
 
Wow that's alot of suggestions to take in! Here are a few things just to clear things up

I usually play with 7-8 of my friends but not very frequently (maybe once a fortnight) so I wouldn't be investing in a full on poker table and set up YET.

Budget is quite low around 250 USD.

I wouldn't be too concerned about chip security as of now because I play with trusted friends and we're playing just for the fun of poker and not to make money out of each other.

Great to see all the suggestions though and I hope one day I'll be able to have a dedicated poker room with all the amenities to go along with it. But for now, I'm just looking for a decent set of chips just to add abit more fun into our games.
 
speshy said:
Wow that's alot of suggestions to take in! Here are a few things just to clear things up

I usually play with 7-8 of my friends but not very frequently (maybe once a fortnight) so I wouldn't be investing in a full on poker table and set up YET.

Budget is quite low around 250 USD.

I wouldn't be too concerned about chip security as of now because I play with trusted friends and we're playing just for the fun of poker and not to make money out of each other.

Great to see all the suggestions though and I hope one day I'll be able to have a dedicated poker room with all the amenities to go along with it. But for now, I'm just looking for a decent set of chips just to add abit more fun into our games.
Click to expand...
What is the amount of money people are typically bringing to the table?

Depending on the amount, you could get Paulsons with most of the chips matching and a whopping 11 minutes of order time! If its a micro cash game:

-a rack (100x) $1 chips in the link above ~$60
-2 barrels (20x) of $5 chips that match ~$60ish
-1 barrel of $20 chips that match (or at least same casino, different city) ~$40
-1 rack of $.50 chips from a guy that can harvest them and ship them to you (ahem...) ~$60
-1 rack of $.25 chips from that same guy (ahem...) ~$30

Those prices are pretty rough estimates, but that $250 would get you approx. 360 chips and a really good start to a mixed set that you can expand on as your game grows. Or if you guys are playing larger dollar amounts, add and subtract as you see fit. If you need some help on the $.50s and $.25s, I may just know a guy....
 
speshy said:
Wow that's alot of suggestions to take in! Here are a few things just to clear things up

I usually play with 7-8 of my friends but not very frequently (maybe once a fortnight) so I wouldn't be investing in a full on poker table and set up YET.

Budget is quite low around 250 USD.

I wouldn't be too concerned about chip security as of now because I play with trusted friends and we're playing just for the fun of poker and not to make money out of each other.

Great to see all the suggestions though and I hope one day I'll be able to have a dedicated poker room with all the amenities to go along with it. But for now, I'm just looking for a decent set of chips just to add abit more fun into our games.
Click to expand...
What’s a fortnight? Is that like a pillow fight thingy?
 
You can get custom ceramics from alibaba for around .30/chip for a small set. Not sure what shipping and import taxes would cost for your country from China.
 

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