Mini Cash Game Travel Set: Chip Breakdown Help Before I Commit (1 Viewer)

Hairy_Crocodile

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Hey all!

I'm making a travel set to tote around with me when I travel to see friends and such, and wanted to ask some final questions before I commit to buying a case
Most of my friends don't like to play for more than $50 buy-ins and rarely ever do. $20-$25 seems to be the standard, with the exception of the larger group of 10 people I sometimes play with that do $100 buy-ins. But I have chips for those nights with that group covered.

Because the most I could probably convince most of my friends I travel with to play is $20/25-$50 buy-in's, I was thinking of doing a single rack travel set (Or upgrading to ~150/160-200 for $100/$200 buy-ins down the road) and wanted to ask for suggestions. I probably will be using my Ceramics without denoms so i can change Quarters into $0.50's easily.

My current breakdown for my 100 travel set is:
40 x Blue ($0.25)
40 x White ($1.00)
15 x Red ($5.00)
5 x Green ($25.00)
($250 bankroll)

"Starting stacks" for 5 players are (8) quarters, (8) $1's, (3) $5's, and (1) $25.

This allows me to support 5 players with a single buy in of $50, and I can just remove the $25 chip if we wanna do $25 buyins. As you can see, I still have trouble with how to manage chip distribution, balance, so I'd like to ask for help. Issue is, there's no chance for buying back in, which kinda sucks. Very light and easy set to travel with, but not much flexibility if you have the max number of players.

Should I upgrade to 160 chips to allow for more Re-buys with my friends and allow for the possibility of $100 buy in games with the extra chips/bankroll? What chips would I add to support it? Something like this to still be able to have $20/$25 games with $0.25 blinds alongside $100 buy ins with $0.50/$1.00 Blinds?

Something like this?
160 Chips:
50 x $0.50 (Blue)
50 x $1.00 (White)
35 x $5.00 (Red)
20 x $25.00 (Green)
5 x $100.00 (Black)
($1,250 Bankroll)

"Starting stacks" would be (10) $0.50's, (10) $1's, (7) $5's, and (2) $25's. Would I even need 100's here? It seems like a no, and I should just stick with 25's as the highest chip, but my inexperience has me unsure. (35) 5's seems low to me as well. I also generally see people just do $1 chips as the lowest denom, but I never play $1/$2 games at this point in my life, I only have a $0.25/$0.50 crowd.

I'm not sure why I am having such a hard time with the breakdowns and math for all of this, it's very simple stuff. I guess I'm just not used to thinking this way still. I haven't had to do much math for work (and I just started playing poker), so now I'm not used to this/ haven't thought like this in a long time, so now I have the brain of a sponge compared to what it was when I was in school. :(:ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

I dont have my sea legs...err...poker legs yet to immediately get into this game's mindset and just be able to intuitively understand this at a glance yet, so i duly appreciate the help from everyone.

So what is your reccomendation for a travel set for my needs? Should I stick with 100? Or jump to 160? Do I cave and to to 200? What chip breakdown should I use?

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Cant wait to hear from you all!
 
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Lots of good advice in that thread (some of it conflicting! lol). You'll find a lot there to help guide you with your decisions.

One thing you should consider is trying out any proposed chip distribution with your actual group of players in an actual game. For example, your 100-chip travel set has 8/8/3/1 of $.25/$1/$5/$25 per player. So at your next poker night, hand out that many chips per player and see how it plays! You might find it works fine, you might find you want more dollars or more fives.

For a travel set that you're trying to keep small, adding more workhorse chips and letting cash play instead of using value chips is probably a really good idea, as long as you're comfortable with having cash on the table at whatever games you'd be playing when you travel.

Most people don't like playing with undenominated chips, but if you're trying to keep the set small and want to support multiple stakes and are okay with letting cash play, then consider sticking with two, maybe three colors of undenominated chips and reassigning their value for different stakes.
 
If it were me I'd go with that small travel case that holds 160.
40 - 0.50
60 - $1
50- $5
10 - $25's

or
40 - 0.50
60 - $1
60 - $5
Use $20 bills in play like the other post suggested.
 
I'm annoyed with myself, that this matter was so difficult for me to decide on and understand. Idk why its been taking me so long to get my brain kickstarted again. Thank you for your help!

I made a spreadsheet for a quick reference sheet and I understand Chip breakdowns and Re-Buys a lot more now, implying eveything I have done is correct. Hopefully I did so when I sell my non denom chip set (minus my travel set), I know how many of each chip to buy when I I get my denominated cash set. Blank chips are nice for flexibility, but other than this small set, I really have shifted my thinking in a short couple weeks of playing that I really don't like playing with non-denom chips....Whoops, bought a set of 850 and already half regret it :whistle: :whistling: :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

Just to double check that I'm going in the right direction, does everything look ok here? I'm going to be making a spreadsheet for my new cash set i'll be getting too, and make color-coded cheat sheets for 5 players on what chip is worth what for the travel set to pass around.

1609321778470.png


---Re-Buys per player column is to show how many full buy-ins each player can have if every player gets to buy back in at least 1 time.
---The "Starting Stacks" are for quality of life purposes to show that everyone starts off equal and to have a quick reference to quickly divy up the starting chips, though "starring stacks" aren't really for cash games.

What do you guys' think?
 

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