@DarkestHorse yeah I understand the sentiment, but I'm going to have some casual players and pretty big newbies here, I mean I'm def. in the casual range, so that little bit of lopsidedness towards luck is a draw and will make it a little more fun I think.
Nothing wrong with slinging chips. That said, I am in the exact same scenario. My most frequent game is social with friends and coworker with some very new players. We started off with similar 3 hour tourneys for low (~$20) buy-ins. They didn’t really want to do cash because tournaments are what they had always done. Now that I finally started them on 0.10/0.10 cash game ($10-$20 buy-in), not one person wants to go back.
Cash with beginners has some massive upsides.
1) Start time is flexible. Don’t have to worry about every single person being there on time.
2) No eliminating people.
3) Leave when you need to (here the trains stop running somewhat early)
4) Beginners get a chance to play a lot of different hands. In a tourney when you get to 20bb, you either just go all in or fold. In our tournaments new players just bled chips and never got to experiment with a hand all night.
5) People don’t lose their whole buy in (most of the time). This has been a big selling point in our game. The bad players had almost no chance of winning the whole thing, so they were just donating to hang out. Now they regularly win a small profit or at least don’t lose everything.
Cash has plenty of luck for new players. It removes the tournament strategy aspect, so it’s much better for learning in my opinion because it simplifies a lot of situations.
At the end of the day though, I totally get the appeal of quick tournaments. Sitting down, slinging chips, and one person walking away with a decent chunk of money and everyone else not out too much and consider it an entertainment fee. Just wanted to highlight cash as an option.
I guess my ultimate advice would be to get a set that could handle both (scale the tournament buy in so the denominations line up.....ie do T2000, but in cash the 2000 would represent $20 if that makes sense). Note that I think this would fall under “unpopular opinion“ on the site as most people prefer 2 sets. Depends on your game / budget, but if it’s a new game I would stay as flex as possible.
I also strongly recommend used ceramic (~0.50/chip). They feel tremendously better in my opinion and don’t smell (China clay will have a slight smell, doesn’t bother most people, but is noticeabl). I posted this in the other thread about new chips, but the players (mostly beginners) in my group who know nothing about poker chips unanimously thought the china clays were the cheapest, and the cheap 13.5g chips were the most expensive along with ceramic. I wouldn’t put a ton of weight in that, but I found it interesting.
