Poker chip distribution help (1 Viewer)

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Hey folks, I’m planning to buy a custom set of poker chips that I want to be useful for board games, some 18xx, and poker. I think I have the first two covered, but am short on the 3rd. I know it won’t be perfect for poker, but I was hoping to get a recommendation for what I should add to my current plan to help the most for poker. Here is my current plan:

75 1s
75 5s
25 10s
75 20s
75 25s
25 50s
50 100s
25 500s
25 1000s
25 2000s

If you could add just 25 more, where would it be? How about 50 more?

Thanks!
 
Feels pretty terrible for poker but as always, depends on stakes, number of players, and how your game plays.
 
do you need all of those denoms for board games?

picking between 20s and 25s would free up some space for more of different denoms also.
 
I get that board gamers love a ton of denominations, but having 20 and 25 is just overkill. so I say just stick with 20s because 18xx players are crazy and there is no point advocating for 25s. but that should give you a little more flexibility.

cash (and what stakes) or tournament poker is a very important detail.
 
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Thanks for the comments so far. Yes I’ve seen the Apache chips. They are on my short list. My question still remains. Agreed on the 20s vs. 25s. That is the biggest pain. Need 20s for board games and 25s for poker. Or at least I think I do. Yes, I agree it is not great for poker. Basically just talking 6 person games usually. But ideally the set would be flexible. Just trying to do what I can under the budget constraints. So would 25 more 1s help for example?

Tournament more than cash for sure. But again, ideally be a little flexible. I know it is a lot to ask. Not going to be perfect or close to perfect. Just what is best to add at the margin?

Can you really play poker without 25s?
 
can you really play poker without 25s?

absolutely. a lot of people actually prefer $20s for cash games. i've personally never seen tourneys use 20s, but there is absolutely no reason they couldn't work.

So would 25 more 1s help for example?

not for a tourney, those are more typically T25 or T5 based. since you are only planning for 6 person games, you can get away with a pretty small set. for example you could do a T20 base tourney, blinds starting at 20/40, with T5000 starting stacks of:

20 x 10
100 x 8
500 x 4
1000 x 2

and you could introduce the rest of the 1000s and the 2000s as necessary for rebuys/color-ups. you have 87,500 in large denoms (500-1000-2000) as broken down now, so this structure could feasibly handle up to 17 total buy-ins of T5000 after color-ups.

so scrapping the 25s and going to 500 chips, a better breakdown for you for might be (i'm assuming you need to buy in increments of 25 based on your OP):

1 x 75
5 x 75
10 x 25
20 x 100
25 x 0
50 x 25
100 x 100
500 x 25
1000 x 25
2000 x 25

that's 475 total, so still 25 to use elsewhere. i'd probably use it on 500s or 1000s, but if you want to play cash games, i assume you would likely need fracs of some sort. so then you could probably drop to 75x 100s and add 50x .25s. that would be enough for 6 players in a $40 buy-in cash game with $0.25/$0.50 blinds to start with:

$0.25 x 8
$1 x 8
$5 x 6

not ideal, but workable.

you also could make one of the chips (2000) non-denominational, get more, and use them as either 2000s or $0.25s, or whatever else you may need. a single non-denom option can really help a lot with flexibility. so something like:

1 x 75
5 x 75
10 x 25
20 x 100
25 x 0
50 x 25
100 x 75
500 x 25
1000 x 25
ND x 75

finally, i have to show you these if you've never seen them, because they are amazing:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/1830-themed-gaming-chips.41529/
 
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absolutely. a lot of people actually prefer $20s for cash games. i've personally never seen tourneys use 20s, but there is absolutely no reason they couldn't work.



not for a tourney, those are more typically T25 or T5 based. since you are only planning for 6 person games, you can get away with a pretty small set. for example you could do a T20 base tourney, blinds starting at 20/40, with T5000 starting stacks of:

20 x 10
100 x 8
500 x 4
1000 x 2

and you could introduce the rest of the 1000s and the 2000s as necessary for rebuys/color-ups. you have 87,500 in large denoms (500-1000-2000) as broken down now, so this structure could feasibly handle up to 17 total buy-ins of T5000 after color-ups.

so scrapping the 25s and going to 500 chips, a better breakdown for you for might be (i'm assuming you need to buy in increments of 25 based on your OP):

1 x 75
5 x 75
10 x 25
20 x 100
25 x 0
50 x 25
100 x 100
500 x 25
1000 x 25
2000 x 25

that's 475 total, so still 25 to use elsewhere. i'd probably use it on 500s or 1000s, but if you want to play cash games, i assume you would likely need fracs of some sort. so then you could probably drop to 75x 100s and add 50x .25s. that would be enough for 6 players in a $40 buy-in cash game with $0.25/$0.50 blinds to start with:

$0.25 x 8
$1 x 8
$5 x 6

not ideal, but workable.

you also could make one of the chips (2000) non-denominational, get more, and use them as either 2000s or $0.25s, or whatever else you may need. a single non-denom option can really help a lot with flexibility. so something like:

1 x 75
5 x 75
10 x 25
20 x 100
25 x 0
50 x 25
100 x 75
500 x 25
1000 x 25
ND x 75

finally, i have to show you these if you've never seen them, because they are amazing:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/1830-themed-gaming-chips.41529/

Wow, this post is immensely helpful. Thank you so much! And those 1830 chips are awesome!
 
Personally, I'd ditch the 10, 25, 50, and 2000 denominations -- gaining you 150 extra chips to better use elsewhere.

But assuming you're steadfast on using the following for gaming:
75 x 1
75 x 5
25 x 10
75 x 20
25 x 50
50 x 100
25 x 500
25 x 1000
25 x 2000

Then I'd look at using those numbers to run a T1-base tournament for six players, using T500 starting stacks:
10 x T1
10 x T5
12 x T20
2 x T100
--------------
34 chips = T500

For six players with extra chips for color-ups and re-buys, you'll need:
60 x T1
60 x T5
75 x T20 (includes 3x for T1 color-ups)
45 x T100 (includes 3x for T5 color-ups and 30x for six re-buys)

Comparing those numbers to your set as configured above, it already contains sufficient chips to run a T1-base tourney for six players.
 
The idea for one non-denominational color is brilliant. I‘ve also decided to drop the 25s based on everyone’s advice. So here is what I am thinking.

1 x 75
5 x 75
10 x 25
20 x 100
50 x 25
100 x 100
500 x 25
1000 x 25
ND x 50

Tempting to drop the 50s but it is only 25 of them, so not that big of a deal, and they could be fun for some board games. I am tempted to take the 1s up to 100 or the ND up to 75. Wanted to stick to 500, but I’d also rather be sure to have what I need. Even though I mostly play poker with 6, seems like it would be good to be able to handle 8 or even 10 just in case. Any additional thoughts still welcome. Thanks!
 
I have to acknowledge that @BGinGA is right as always - if you are willing to do a T1 based tournament structure, that is going to give you a lot more options.
 
So unfortunately I think a non denominational chip will not look good with the design of the chip. I’ve also determined a few board games I use significant amount of 10s, and others go pretty high in values. So here is my new plan for chips.

1 x 75
5 x 100
10 x 50
20 x 100
50 x 25
100 x 100
500 x 50
2000 x 25
10000 x 25

From a poker perspectives only, I think this would allow me to do tournaments at T5 or T20 up to 10 players. Similarly I could do a cash game with .05/.10 initial blinds (dividing everything by 100) or .20/.40 initial blinds.

So I think this covers everything. Only bummer is it is 550 chips and I was hoping to cap it at 500. Any thoughts?
 
If you want to run a T5-base (or larger) tournament, you're going to want T25 chips, not T20s.
 
Thanks for the input. I’m sure this is a dumb question, but why exactly?
  • You'll need more T20s than T25s if used -- not only in starting stacks, but more chips are also required to create bets and post blinds.
  • Every blind structure known to man will need tweaking to work with T20s.
  • Common blind levels (and bet sizes) such as 25/50, 50/100, 150/300, and 250/500 cannot be used (or created, in some cases).
  • The human mind has an easier time with multiples of 25 than 20, speeding up the game with fewer errors.
 
Train gamers often want a 20 because certain frequently-played train games have commonly-used prices in multiples of 20.

In my general-purpose gaming set, I use 1/5/10/50/100 denominations. This flies against common wisdom even among the train-gaming set, but I think it's a better breakdown for gaming than typical poker breakdowns, because board games use chips differently than poker does. The typical use case is paying or being paid a certain amount that's determined by the game mechanics and which will often be more-or-less random within a modest range. For example, in Power Grid, you might pay 17 and then later get paid 82. I think it's easier to count out the payments and/or make change as needed by thinking in terms of ones and tens, with fives and fifties available as quick options.

I have separate sets for board gaming and poker. That's not to say I couldn't play either with both, but I think separate sets for separate purposes just feels better. It also gives me an excuse to use a board-gaming theme for one set and something more traditional for the other.

A comfortable set for gaming can probably also be much, much smaller than a comfortable set for poker. If you're going to sink money into a poker set, you probably want it large enough to handle a large game, even if you usually play short-handed; you'll want to throw a big poker party someday and you'll want a big set to do it. Plus, poker is fun with tons of chips on the table. A gaming set can be smaller, because most board games don't support lots of players, and players will want to color up to the big denominations whenever they can since a huge pile of chips is just more clutter to get in the way of the game. You don't need enough chips to give each player a lot of chips to make a series of bets with; you just need enough so each player can track a single running total while having enough of each denomination to make change-making easy.
 

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