Pretend you’re opening a card room…How many chips? (1 Viewer)

[JustinInMN]

So conservatively for cash games only that’s 1400 chips per table x 5 tables which means on the conservative side you’d need 7k chips in total to run games across those games.

Screw conservative . If you are running this as a business you want to make sure you have each table absurdly covered . This is the chipper fantasy. 5000 chips per table, an average of 5 racks per player seems like a good, albeit arbitrary, number to ensure a "never run out" situation. It's good image for the club to never be in a position where it has to insist on buying smaller chips from players to just to make sure they can operate blinds or make these chips available for use as tips.

 

[Av8tion]

This discussion also doesn't have enough poker chip pics... so here's what I came up with for the chip designs for my new poker room.

Optional $500 chip for hosting a live-stream big game:

Tournament Set

 

[Av8tion]

I probably would do as many ones as fives. I do get the mechanics of small NL games do not require as many ones, but each dealer should probably be carrying a rack in their tray to make sure they can always make change for players, and dealers should never be making change from their toke boxes so a lot of singles are just going to sit there for an entire shift.

Not to mention if you do get into 3/6 or 4/8 limit games, that would probably require a minimum of 3 racks per player to get to a "never run out" situation. If you don't do this, maybe running on 3K-4K singles is comfortable.

Also #TeamBlueDollar

Yeah, but this might cause a headache and screw over good customers that just keep $100 chips instead of cashing them out. Just because you don't have to do something, doesn't make it a bad idea for the sake of the business.

Dealer racks are illegal(ish) in Texas. Therefore, no need to worry about having extra $1s for that purpose.

In the area, demand for fixed-limit games is basically nil. Therefore, no reason to buy too many $1s

Hell yes blue dollar...

$100 chips aren't used much in the smaller poker rooms here... you'd be hard pressed to see more than 10-20 of them even on a weekend

 

[bergs]

For limit I’d assume two tables max. You’d need to determine stakes. For simplicity, and because limit isn’t popular except at lower feeder stakes for other games and very high stakes, I’d probably do 30 extra racks of $1s and 20 extra racks of $5s and $25s and you can spread 3/6, 4/8, 5/10 (red) and 25/50 (green).

 

[ekricket]

If you want to pay $1 to take home and keep the chips I paid 30c each to purchase you're welcome to them. even more so if you want some $5s...

This discussion also doesn't have enough poker chip pics... so here's what I came up with for the chip designs for my new poker room.

View attachment 756242

Optional $500 chip for hosting a live-stream big game:
View attachment 756243

Tournament Set
View attachment 756244
View attachment 756245

Yes, if you can buy these Paulsons for 0.30 each I will give you a dollar for each one. Probably cap it at 10,000 though until we do our first deal.

 

[Av8tion]

Yes, if you can buy these Paulsons for 0.30 each I will give you a dollar for each one. Probably cap it at 10,000 though until we do our first deal.

won't be paulsons, they will be the alibaba ceramic chips like they're trying to get in the group buy... I'm just using the chip design tool to get the colors and spot patterns down...

 

[JustinInMN]

Dealer racks are illegal(ish) in Texas. Therefore, no need to worry about having extra $1s for that purpose.

Then it's probably all the more important there are considerably more than "needed" on the table so players can make change amongst themselves without too much issue. Or a dealer is never without a player to ask for change to manage a pot. But I would be concerned 1000 chips would suffer enough attrition to make game management difficult before too long.

$100 chips aren't used much in the smaller poker rooms here... you'd be hard pressed to see more than 10-20 of them even on a weekend

agreed. really only useful as a value store chip at the mid to upper stakes NL game. I could probably amend my recommendation to 10K * 1, 10K *5, 4K * 25, 1K * 1000 for a 25K buy. ($260K bank), could make it 8K * 25, 2K * 100 (an additional $200K) if the 5-5 or 5-10 games become frequent multi-table affairs.

 

[Av8tion]

MAYBE 2k blues for attrition, but any more than that is just insane overkill. A texas poker room just isn't gonna run small-stakes limit... the numbers I gave for a 5-table poker room is more than you'll ever need...keep in mind that you'll maybe get 3-4 tables of cash on your best nights and maybe 1-2 tables on the weekdays.

 

[upNdown]

I have no idea and I’m just guesstimating, but I would think even a small 5-table room would lose 5-10 racks per year of $1s just as souvenirs or whatever.
and if it’s my room, the $1s are white

 

[TwoHomie]

MAYBE 2k blues for attrition, but any more than that is just insane overkill. A texas poker room just isn't gonna run small-stakes limit... the numbers I gave for a 5-table poker room is more than you'll ever need...keep in mind that you'll maybe get 3-4 tables of cash on your best nights and maybe 1-2 tables on the weekdays.

Agreed on not running low stakes limit. The Lodge is one of the bigger rooms in Austin, and struggles to get a 1x per week 4/8 mixed game going.

 

[JustinInMN]

I have no idea and I’m just guesstimating, but I would think even a small 5-table room would lose 5-10 racks per year of $1s just as souvenirs or whatever.
and if it’s my room,

I absolutely agree with this and was about to click like until ...

the $1s are white

.

 

[JustinInMN]

Agreed on not running low stakes limit. The Lodge is one of the bigger rooms in Austin, and struggles to get a 1x per week 4/8 mixed game going.

Even at that, you would want more than 2000 chips at your disposal for a 4/8 game, that's only two racks per player and no chips for anything else you need. Other games, dealers carrying tips, etc...

And don't underestimate the dealers carrying tips issue here. Dealers are going to be holding some singles for hours at a time. Hopefully upwards of 20 per hour dealt. And remember they will not be cashing out every hour either. This just doesn't happen in home games. You definitely want more buffer when doing this as a business, not trying to see what fits in a case for a home game.

 

[JustinInMN]

Agreed on not running low stakes limit. The Lodge is one of the bigger rooms in Austin, and struggles to get a 1x per week 4/8 mixed game going.

But limit is part of the original question.

-For fun, plan to also run a 3/6 or 4/8 limit game occasionally

 

[Coyote]

I 'd say 1,000 chips are enough for each capped table, while an uncapped one would need something like 2,000.
Plus 10-15% as reserves.
Plus the tournament chips (again with extra 10-15% as reserves).

My dream would be a non-profit foundation running the card room as a members-only club.
To become a member, you would need a recommendation by two existing members, an annual fee and a snow-white criminal record.
Rake to be collected upon cash-out from winnings only.

 

[TwoHomie]

But limit is part of the original question.

Sorry, guess I’m sorta letting this thread figure itself out as it goes. I’d say plan to have the chips to spread a 4/8 game, even if it’s barely ever run.

 

[shorticus]

My dream would be a non-profit foundation running the card room as a members-only club.
To become a member, you would need a recommendation by two existing members, an annual fee and a snow-white criminal record.
Rake to be collected upon cash-out from winnings only.

I have thought about doing this members only thing. No rake though.

 

[Coyote]

If it could support itself by annual fees and drinks/snacks sales only, even better.

 

[TwoHomie]

I have thought about doing this members only thing. No rake though.

That’s how Texas does it. Private member clubs that you pay a daily, monthly, or annual membership to get inside. What you do inside is up you you.

But if you do decide to play poker, they happen to have dealers, chips, tables, a floor person, etc…

To play, you pay hourly for your seat, typically before or after you sit down, and not with money from the table. No rake.

 

[Coyote]

IMHO, the most fair form of rake / "tax", if it's required for the viability of even a non-profit cardroom, would be to take it from winners only, upon cash-out.
That requires a "secretarial" service of course, monitoring for how much each player has been in.

 

[JustinInMN]

You forgot tournament chips. If I'm running the place, there will be tournaments!

Good point, though a tournament set wouldn't need to be big at all. Figure 30 chips per player, times 60 players (build in a buffer from 50 max), plus extra big chips for rebuys, big stack, color up, etc, and it seems like 5000 tournament chips would be twice what a room this size will need