Small tourney - Unconventional Structure - Any thoughts? (1 Viewer)

[GamingWithChips]

Hey guys,

Looking for a roasting on my home game…or, looking for some advice/thoughts for improvement. Does anyone else play like this? Anything similar? I’m working on a custom order and wondering if I should keep the below or change it.


Background is we play micro stakes and a pretty small game (4-7 people normally, with 50-75% rebuys). Very casual players and we only play every once in a while, often with new players.


Structure is basically a T5 (or T$0.05) base with T2000 (T$20) in chips.

STARTING HAND:

$20 buy in, $20 in chips

BLINDS:

I know it’s a little unconventional and inefficient chips/change wise, but we like our little $0.10 chip. Plus, I like having random ass bet sizes like $3.30 or $8.75 sometimes lol

I know I could do the regular T5 (10, 10, 7, 2), but does anyone like our setup? Should I continue with this?

One reason I want to keep the $0.10 and $10 chip, over just having a $0.05, $0.25, $1, $5, $20 is having more varied chips! I think it’s the only real reason to do this over the normal. I like more colours then fewer, especially when ordering cheaper and customizable chips.

I’m either going to buy a 300 pc set with the conventional T5 setup, or my suggested setup with a 400 pc set.

I know it’s all opinions and preferences, but is there anything glaringly bad or faux pas with the way we do it? So bad that you just think it shouldn’t happen?

Thanks!

 

[MC_CPA]

Why not just get $1s and $5s and $25s and $100s and $500s for when you realize that it plays the same and u look like a baller doing so?

 

[GamingWithChips]

Why not just get $1s and $5s and $25s and $100s and $500s for when you realize that it plays the same and u look like a baller doing so?

We play with pennies so that new players especially can understand how much they are actually betting, like a real $5 bet vs $500 (I know it’s the same lol but it feels different with the actual dollar amount).

And I haven’t looked into it, but that would be a T1 structure (or T$0.01 in my case)? Just guessing, but wouldn’t penny bets feel literally worthless? As right now the first few levels already kind of feel pointless because a $0.15 bet is nothing. That’s why we use the $0.05 lowest chip.

Now with inflation, soon enough we’ll have to start at $0.10 base or $0.25 base to feel the same way lol

 

[MC_CPA]

In this example I think you can cut the $0.10 for more $1 and $0.25s and $0.05s in that order. If there are players that are new you can have more $0.05 so it 'plays smaller' if that helps.

 

[GamingWithChips]

I agree whole heartedly to make it more efficient. We would always need more $0.25 and $1 and less $0.05. The only reason I’m suggesting this is to have an extra chip with different colours on the table lol, literally no other reason than varied aesthetics and slightly different betting sometimes.

I just think it’s fun to have more chip colours. It might just be dumb and pointless to try to make it work, but it does work for us currently, was just also curious if anyone does something similar and thinks there’s room for improvement to be able to make the chips work, or, if not and I should just go the traditional route.

 

[Tarsus4]

I would replace your 0.40/0.80 level with 0.25/0.75 and color-up 0.10s with the 0.05s. If you don't, I would wait to color-up 0.05s with the 0.10s.

My own note on the style of these denoms is it's going to feel awkward betting with nickels, dimes, and quarters. Nothing is going to be smoothly countable by 1s; it's going to feel like you're doing math each time (like you're working a cash register). You could replace the quarters with half-dollars, but I would rather get rid of the dimes.

 

[Eriks]

Since you’re playing tournament poker the chips don’t have to represent actual cash value. Smallest denom in a tourney is usually T25 or T100. I would use this set for cash games and get another one for tournies.

 

[GamingWithChips]

I would replace your 0.40/0.80 level with 0.25/0.75 and color-up 0.10s with the 0.05s. If you don't, I would wait to color-up 0.05s with the 0.10s.

My own note on the style of these denoms is it's going to feel awkward betting with nickels, dimes, and quarters. Nothing is going to be smoothly countable by 1s; it's going to feel like you're doing math each time (like you're working a cash register). You could replace the quarters with half-dollars, but I would rather get rid of the dimes.

That’s not a bad idea, especially because the small chips are only used for like 1/3 of the total game. The other thing I was thinking about doing was making Level 7 $0.70/$1.40 which would force the use of $0.10 chips hahaha.

And I know it’s awkward, everyone once in a while people have to “think” about how many chips they need to put out, but realistically it only takes like 3-5 seconds to figure out, so not a big deal.

 

[Craig D]

After playing a lot of poker, reinventing the wheel is a bad idea

In saying this I've convinced myself that 1,000, 5,000, 25,000, and 100,000 chips is the new gold standard

Having 5 different chips in a starting stack is fine for larger fields

More of each denomination is way better than less chips with many denominations (up to 10-20 of each denomination) 3 denominations is better than 4 eg 1, 5, 25, if you must 100 or 5, 25, 100, if you must 500

Newer players need many more chips in a starting stack than experienced players

If I had your chips the 7 player starting stacks would be 10x$0.05 14x$0.25, and 16x$1. the remaining in $5 chips

If you just can't ditch the $0.10 chips use $0.10, $0.50, $2.00, and $10.00 chips 7 starting stacks 10x$0.10, 14x$0.50, 6(or 11, even 16)x $2.00 (10/14/6(11 or 16)) remaining chips are all $2.00s

If it was me 10x$1,000, 13x$5,000, 5(or9)x$25,000 with the remaining chips all $25,000s

Have Fun

 

[GamingWithChips]

Since you’re playing tournament poker the chips don’t have to represent actual cash value. Smallest denom in a tourney is usually T25 or T100. I would use this set for cash games and get another one for tournies.

Ya, I was originally thinking about getting a high roller set, kind of like MC_CPA said, but doing it with what BGinGA suggested and having a T500 set with 400 chips, then it’s really high roller!

And I’m also starting to lean towards forfeiting the idea of having the chips labeled as face value. I have noticed like I mentioned earlier that early on in the game it makes people feel like bets are meaningless, and then later on it feels more real. Where’s as if I used chips with “unassigned” dollar values, then bets are just based on blinds, and people would think more of the early round bets, and a little less on the later round bets, in terms of their overall “weight” in the game. This should make things better overall for the entire length of the game.

Thanks!

 

[GamingWithChips]

After playing a lot of poker, reinventing the wheel is a bad idea

In saying this I've convinced myself that 1,000, 5,000, 25,000, and 100,000 chips is the new gold standard

Having 5 different chips in a starting stack is fine for larger fields

More of each denomination is way better than less chips with many denominations (up to 10-20 of each denomination) 3 denominations is better than 4 eg 1, 5, 25, if you must 100 or 5, 25, 100, if you must 500

Newer players need many more chips in a starting stack than experienced players

If I had your chips the 7 player starting stacks would be 10x$0.05 14x$0.25, and 16x$1. the remaining in $5 chips

If you just can't ditch the $0.10 chips use $0.10, $0.50, $2.00, and $10.00 chips 7 starting stacks 10x$0.10, 14x$0.50, 6(or 11, even 16)x $2.00 (10/14/6(11 or 16)) remaining chips are all $2.00s

If it was me 10x$1,000, 13x$5,000, 5(or9)x$25,000 with the remaining chips all $25,000s

Have Fun

Ya, definitely not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to fit in a few unique/odd ball things to the tried and true methods to make our game, our game.

But you’re the second person now to recommend the T1 or in your case T1000 structure, I’ll have to look into that now.

And one reason I started with more chips of the low denominations was to disincentivize people from making big bets early on. When we first started playing we had 5x0.05 and then 10x0.10 and 12x0.25, which is “closer” to what you were recommending, but because of my earlier mentioned problem of people thinking $0.05 bets were meaningless, our early game would quickly turn into people just betting with their 0.25 chips because they had so many and they felt like a “real” bet…

Like I said to another person, the more I talk this through, I’m probably going to forfeit the idea of using chips at face value and just use different denominations to fit our game.

Thanks for your input!