I tried using snappers once in a .25/.50 game, because I didn’t have enough $5s. I didn’t like it and I’ll probably never try again. They’re not THAT difficult to count, but they’re more difficult. They’re just not intuitive - you glance at somebody’s stack and you have to think. Who needs that? I vote no.
Agreed. I think snappers were mainly for blackjack/ rake / drop kinda play for the most part vs ‘normal’ stakes poker.
In my last .50/$1 game, I did initial buy in’s from $100-$200, with match half stack.
If buy in at $200 get the full preset rack, if $100, I remove one barrel of $5s for the following breakdown and easy to hand out:
Initial stack:
12x 25c ($3)
22x $1 ($22)
35x $5 ($175)
This game ended up way bigger than I thought it would, ended up with about $3.2k on the table, with 5 racks of 5’s and about a barrel of $25s in play by end of the night, here’s my stack at the end and the table at cash out:
I think it probably comes down to a few things that’ll set the ‘size’ of your game and if you want to control it, probably these 4 will have a bigger impact than the types of chip denoms. The only change I’d make is I’d probably reduce the fracs from 12 to 8 and bump up a $1 chip. I went heavy on 5’s in my cash set, so consciously try to get most of them out before the $25s. I wouldn’t add a snapper.
1. Initial buy in (I wanted folk to be able to buy in for up to 200 bigs, but 100 bigs also could work)
2. Match half stack - we had one player felt a few folk fairly early on, so this meant folk could add on/ rebuy above $200. I liked Chris Manzoni’s youtube series on tips for sustainable cash games, he advises to keep rebuys/add ons to the original amount - not match half stack. I might try that in the future.
3. Types of players: I have a mix, about a third of the table regularly play higher stakes and were fairly aggressive - so didn’t think twice about add ons/rebuys - I think point 2 would be best to avoid the cash on the table getting out of hand
4. Blinds - I’ve set my next game to .25/.50, $50-$100 buy in, still with match half stack since I’ve got a few newer folk joining so will see how that goes.
GL!
