Cash Game Multi-Stakes Cash Set (2 Viewers)

[karsus]

I am doing a review of my cash set and trying to verify if I am set for the various stakes I plan on running or if I need moar chips (I know, that is a dumb question.. the answer is always moar chips )

For stakes, I will be likely running $0.25/$0.50; $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 games (I'll run $0.10 games as well, but for those I just plan on treating it like a 1/2 game and the chips are 10% of the face value); No limit and pot limit.

My current setup is as follows:

$0.25 - 120 Chips
$1 - 300 Chips
$5 - 300 Chips
$25 - 60 Chips
$100 - 20 Chips
$500 - 1 Chip (likely will never see play, but I guess it is available as a value holder)

Total Bank $5,830 (if I include the $500 chip).

My thought is that if we ever have more than 1 table; we would play a tournament instead, therefore I only need to plan for a max of 10 players. At the 1/2 level I would have 290BB per player or nearly 3 rebuys each. As for workhorse chips, I assume that for the $0.25/$0.50 games the $1s/$5s will be the workhorse and for the 1/2 game the $5s will be.

My biggest question is: Are 60; $25 chips enough. Or will I need more for the 1/2 games? Is one barrel of $100s enough or should I look to increasing those as well?

One of my other thoughts was if I need to increase the 25s and/or 100s, maybe boost the 500s to 10 total chips which would allow for a higher stakes game (2/5); although it is highly unlikely that I will ever host at those stakes.

Thoughts?

 

[RichMahogany]

Depends on your game.

For our games, your bank would be way too small. Are people betting, 3betting, and 4 betting or is it more of a nit fest /limping game?

 

[karsus]

I have a mix of different players/groups. Suffice to say, I want to be able to handle a more aggressive crowd. If I do that, the limpers will be more than taken care of.

How many BB per player do you go through in an evening?

 

[Justin Olson]

I think you need a total of 160 $25's and 40 $100's for your higher games.

also. Why no love for nickels?

 

[Justin Olson]

the other night for our $.50 -$1.00 game w/ 10 players we had $3500 on table

 

[RichMahogany]

I have a mix of different players/groups. Suffice to say, I want to be able to handle a more aggressive crowd. If I do that, the limpers will be more than taken care of.

How many BB per player do you go through in an evening?

I don’t think of it in terms of BB per player, I think of total $$$ on the table. Let’s put it this way, for our 0.50/0.50 and 0.50/$1 games we usually have 400 $5 chips on the table. We rarely get many hundos on the table(do have a few sometimes)but we like to have them to future proof our sets. The game could grow and it would be kinda lame(IMO) to not have enough chips to cover. You could always let cash play too, but having chips is easier I think.

 

[RichMahogany]

Forgot to mention that we also like to play deep stacked and have a group of action players. Depending on the players coming to the game, we allow for buy ins of 400BB. To be clear, this isn’t for all of our games although we still end up with all the $5s on the table regardless of which stakes we play.

My preferred cash breakdown:

Fracs-100
$1-200
$5-400
$20/$25-200
$100-100(80)
$500-20

1000 chips

We probably won’t ever need the $500s, but I still like to have them. I mean, why the hell not?

 

[RichMahogany]

As an alternative, I like this breakdown:

Fracs-100
$1-200
$5-300
$20/$25-100
$100-100

800 total chips. That still leaves a bank of $14,225 if using a $25 chip and $13725 if using a $20 chip. That should be way more than enough for the average home game

 

[Coyote]

800 total chips, immortal break-down (good even for a single table tourney for 10 players, with your family and childhood friends, if no cash game occurs simultaneously or consecutively) Bearing in mind that cheaper chips come in increments of 25:
125 X Non-Denominated
200 X $1
275X $5
150X $20
50X $100

With the (serious) caveat of having the right crowd, you can enjoy all of the world's poker pleasure with that breakdown.

 

[karsus]

Thank you all for your feedback. Just as a note, I already have most of this set put together, just looking to see what if anything I need to add yet. Based on your feedback it looks like I should look to expanding the set a bit as the consensus here appears to be that 3 buys per person (100BB buyins) is a bit light.

So, if I am looking to expand I should boost the $25s to at least 100 chips, which is an increase of 40. Also, the $100s I should up to at least 50, which is in increase of 30 more. That gives me 30 more chips to decide on in order to fill out the extra rack (my OCD I guess).

$0.25 x 120
$1 x 300
$5 x 300
$25 x 60 (+40 new) = 100
$100 x 20 (+30 new) = 50
$500 x 1

Total 871 chips; $9,830 Bank

Options to fill out the final rack:

Option 1: $25 x 20; $100 x 10; keep the lone $500 as something pretty to look at. Bank = $10,830 (5.4 buyins per player at $1/$2)
Option 2: $25 x 20; $500 x9. Bank = $14,830 (7.4 buyins per player at $1/$2 but 2.5 of those buyins are in value holding $500 chips - only 4.9 buyins with $100s and below)
Option 3: $25 x 30 focusing on more on chips that will see more play. Bank = $10,800 (5 buyins per player at $1/$2)
Option 4: Save some $$ and leave it as is (I know this will not be a popular option )

As I should have included pron of the existing set in the original post; I'll resolve that by including it here:

 

[Poker Zombie]

Based on your feedback it looks like I should look to expanding the set a bit as the consensus here appears to be that 3 buys per person (100BB buyins) is a bit light.

You are still mistakenly thinking in terms of Big Blinds.

It's money.

Smaller stakes games will play far splashier than bigger stakes. Going through my records, my cash games at 5¢ - 10¢ play far deeper than the 25¢ - 25¢ game, and that played deeper than the 25¢ - 50¢ game. Why? Because people bring money, not big blinds.

So the question becomes "how much expendable money do my players have". Only you can fathom what that may be - we don't know your players, their jobs, or their expenses. I've seen 25¢ - 50¢ games play deeper than most $2 - $5 casino games, because those players were friends and... well... wealthy.

Your best bet for filling out a set is to get 2-3 racks of your workhorse chip for each stake level.

• $1 - $2 thats a $5.
• 25¢ - 50¢ uses the $1 (but the $5 also does a lot)
• 5¢ - 10¢ makes the 25¢ the workhorse.
• I've not done any 10¢ - 20¢, so I don't know if that would be $1 workhorses, but I suspect as much.

After that, bigger denom chips make calculating all-ins easier, and stacking pots simpler, while accounting for how much expendable money your players bring.

 

[RichMahogany]

I would skip trying to spread 0.10/0.20 with this set and go for 0.25/0.25 as the lowest spreadable stakes.

For 0.10/0.20 I’d get an inexpensive set of ceramics or maybe CC’s but IMO ceramics are the superior option

 

[karsus]

You are still mistakenly thinking in terms of Big Blinds.

It's money.

Smaller stakes games will play far splashier than bigger stakes. Going through my records, my cash games at 5¢ - 10¢ play far deeper than the 25¢ - 25¢ game, and that played deeper than the 25¢ - 50¢ game. Why? Because people bring money, not big blinds.

So the question becomes "how much expendable money do my players have". Only you can fathom what that may be - we don't know your players, their jobs, or their expenses. I've seen 25¢ - 50¢ games play deeper than most $2 - $5 casino games, because those players were friends and... well... wealthy.

Your best bet for filling out a set is to get 2-3 racks of your workhorse chip for each stake level.

• $1 - $2 thats a $5.
• 25¢ - 50¢ uses the $1 (but the $5 also does a lot)
• 5¢ - 10¢ makes the 25¢ the workhorse.
• I've not done any 10¢ - 20¢, so I don't know if that would be $1 workhorses, but I suspect as much.

After that, bigger denom chips make calculating all-ins easier, and stacking pots simpler, while accounting for how much expendable money your players bring.

Thanks for the feedback. Based on the guidance on work horse chips, I should be in good shape (3 racks of 1s and 5s).

My big challenge is that I am trying to accommodate a wide range of players. Some of my player are only comfortable with ~$20 buyins and risking no more than $50 in a night. Others have no issues playing for much higher stakes.

Realistically though, I can't see having more than $2-$3k on the table with any of my groups. Thinking in those terms my current set of $5k+ should be fine.

 

[karsus]

I would skip trying to spread 0.10/0.20 with this set and go for 0.25/0.25 as the lowest spreadable stakes.

For 0.10/0.20 I’d get an inexpensive set of ceramics or maybe CC’s but IMO ceramics are the superior option

I think I agree with this. Honestly, if I drop the idea of making the chips 1/10 of face value to support a $0.10 game, then my current setup should work for all of my groups

 

[Darson]

I don’t think of it in terms of BB per player, I think of total $$$ on the table.

This is really good advice.

Irrespective of stakes, are your guys coming with $500 in their pockets or $100? If $500 then $500x10 is going to tax your set but easily solved with another rack of $25s and a couple barrels of $100s.

And typically, as the night wears on and people get splashier, your .25/.25 or .25/.50 may play more like a 1/2 game with opening raises at ~$6 so thinking in terms of BB leads you to underestimating your chip needs.