Stack sizes - Is it important? (1 Viewer)

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MoarChips

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Hey all, new to the forums but have been doing a lot of reading over the past few weeks. I'm looking to upgrade from the walmart special dice chips that I've had forever in favor of something nicer. In all the reading I've been doing on this forum i get the sense that most tournament and cash game starting chip quantities range between 20 and 40 chips total (T25 for example: 12/12/5/6 for 25/100/500/1000). This seems like so few to play with (basically one stack of 20 and another stack of 15) but when you see poker players on TV, they have huge amounts in front of them. I haven't seen much in the way of this question being asked specifically but is it personal preference when it comes to how many starting chips are dished out to each player? Or does it really impact the quality of the game if there are too many in play and thus fewer is better?

This question may have different answers depending on whether it's cash or tourney but let's start there for now.
 
Most of those players on tv are at the ends of huge tournaments so they've had an awful lot of stacks coalesced into theirs. You can run your own deep stack tourneys with lots of chips, but with the way blinds increase, some of those extra barrels of chips that everyone has will either quickly become obsolete or your tournament will take forever, starting with tons of big blinds.

Something like the WSOP main event is $10k plus 8 or 9 days or whatever it takes; those are some very deep stacks. In my home game, I don't want people there for 9 days, I want the blinds to mean something and for it to end in a day.

Thats all for tournaments. For cash? Its whatever. I give out an average of 40-50 chips for most buyins and thats on the high side cause we love fracs. Different for everyone, especially if you have expensive chips, you don't want to bother giving everyone a full barrel of the cheapest denoms.

Ill keep rambling, but the answer is yes, its personal preference, but that preference is informed by efficiency and planning ahead.
 
There's a sweet spot. Between 30-40 chips for tournament is probably what you want. You don't want so few that you're constantly making change that will slow down play, nor do you want too many that it is difficult to estimate chip counts in stacks, especially for all-ins.

For cash, people love mounds and mounds of chips because it looks cool, but not because it helps the game run smoothly.
 
Another thing to take into consideration is your own player pool. For newbies (in my experience anyway), having lots of small denominations means they are likely to bet/call small amounts more frequently. If they only have big denominations, they will tend to hold onto them until needed because they think of stack sizes in terms of "number of chips" as opposed to "value of chips." IE: certain players will play different if they have $10 in $1 chips or $10 in 25c chips. Thus for my regular game, which is a super friendly low-stakes game, I like to give out more chips so it gives them feeling of having lots of chips. However, when we play a higher stakes game with more competent players, I use a more "normal" stack size number of about 30 starting chips.
 
Following on from my earlier post, a common example is when I give out a rebuy to a new player in high denominations. EG: a $50 buy-in with 2 x $25 chips, they will always say "is this all?"

I always lean towards having more chips for that "high roller" feeling, even though we're playing microstakes.
 
I was thinking of hosting a $0.25/$0.25 blinds cash game with starting chips of 20/5/2 ($0.25/$1/$5). I know what you're saying in regarding to newbies thinking more about the quantities of chips vs the value of chips. In your experience, do you see your friendly low stakes games pushing more chips into the pot because they have more of them to play with? Personally, I'm a huge fan of handling more chips but don't want to have more just for the sake of having more.
 
Large stacks are not important. It will just be harder for you to color up or cash out. Our cash table will be .50/.50, usually $20 buy in at a time. So 10 fracs and 15 singles. 5 handed, the leader towards the end will have about a rack and a half. 2 racks if they take all down. :)
 
MoarChips said:
I was thinking of hosting a $0.25/$0.25 blinds cash game with starting chips of 20/5/2 ($0.25/$1/$5). I know what you're saying in regarding to newbies thinking more about the quantities of chips vs the value of chips. In your experience, do you see your friendly low stakes games pushing more chips into the pot because they have more of them to play with? Personally, I'm a huge fan of handling more chips but don't want to have more just for the sake of having more.
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Yes. Play super micros with students/newbies/beginners, and I give out a barrel of nickels, barrel of quarters, then fill the rest on dollars. We all know theyre limping and calling too much anyways, might as well minimize making change.
 
NotRealNameNoSir said:
Yes. Play super micros with students/newbies/beginners, and I give out a barrel of nickels, barrel of quarters, then fill the rest on dollars. We all know theyre limping and calling too much anyways, might as well minimize making change.
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Spot on!

Since our game is so limpy/weak (but fun!), it doesnt matter that we have mounds of chips as we’re not getting stacks in regularly. Players either bleed themselves down or just make tiny bets in relation to the pot.

As a host, you need to find that balance between playing at stakes that are meaningful while ensuring that new players keep coming back. If you want to make money, go play $1/$2 at your local cardroom.
 
RagingAZN said:
Spot on!

Since our game is so limpy/weak (but fun!), it doesnt matter that we have mounds of chips as we’re not getting stacks in regularly. Players either bleed themselves down or just make tiny bets in relation to the pot.

As a host, you need to find that balance between playing at stakes that are meaningful while ensuring that new players keep coming back. If you want to make money, go play $1/$2 at your local cardroom.
Click to expand...

This.............Poker nights with my friends (and @WedgeRock ) is a hobby. I don't need to earn a house payment to have fun. We have played .25/.50 forever. Our buy in has evolved from $40 bucks to $100. We play stakes that everyone has fun at.
 
We play .25/.50 cash and keep it fun. Buy in is $20 at first with reload at $10 and 1/2 biggest stack rebuy later on. Had our first >$50 all in last month, boat over nut flush, but things went back to the usual $2 $3 bet after that. For the initial $20 we get 12 .25, 7 $1 and 2 $5 chips. This seems to work fine for now but I have a lot more chips for game growth.
 
allforcharity said:
There's a sweet spot. Between 30-40 chips for tournament is probably what you want. You don't want so few that you're constantly making change that will slow down play, nor do you want too many that it is difficult to estimate chip counts in stacks, especially for all-ins.

For cash, people love mounds and mounds of chips because it looks cool, but not because it helps the game run smoothly.
Click to expand...
This hit the nail on the head in my opinion. For tournaments i don't like more than 44 chips or less than 30 chips. All of my tournaments generally run 2-3 tables with 18-24 players so things can get too bulky before cashing denominations out. You don't want excessive change making or big piles slowing the action. Cash games are whatever floats your boat.
 
BPTDirector said:
We play .25/.50 cash and keep it fun. Buy in is $20 at first with reload at $10 and 1/2 biggest stack rebuy later on. Had our first >$50 all in last month, boat over nut flush, but things went back to the usual $2 $3 bet after that. For the initial $20 we get 12 .25, 7 $1 and 2 $5 chips. This seems to work fine for now but I have a lot more chips for game growth.
Click to expand...
Whatcha rebuy stacks look like?
 
MoarChips said:
I was thinking of hosting a $0.25/$0.25 blinds cash game with starting chips of 20/5/2 ($0.25/$1/$5). I know what you're saying in regarding to newbies thinking more about the quantities of chips vs the value of chips. In your experience, do you see your friendly low stakes games pushing more chips into the pot because they have more of them to play with? Personally, I'm a huge fan of handling more chips but don't want to have more just for the sake of having more.
Click to expand...
I'd go 20/15 or 16/16 in that scenario for buy ins. Save the 5s for rebuys. 1s are going to be the workhorse.
 
Often an unpopular position on a poker chip collecting forum , but excess chips on the table is very difficult to deal with. The same reason you wouldn’t walk around with a hundred $1 bills in your wallet.

Even with cash games, I limit the amount of denominations and total chips on the table. Like someone said before, it’s so much easier to cash out at the end of the night.
 
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Old State said:
Often an unpopular position on a poker chip collecting forum , but excess chips on the table is very difficult to deal with. The same reason you wouldn’t walk around with a hundred $1 bills in your wallet.

Even with cash games, I limit the amount of denominations and total chips on the table. Like someone said before, it’s so much easier to cash out at the end of the night.
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I do when I'm going to a strip club.

All depends on the scenario.
 
…actually…if you play cash at a casino they limit chips as well. If you cash in to a $1/3 game for $300-500 you are going to get all $5s or possibly $5s and some $25s. There are very few $1s in play
 
Old State said:
…actually…if you play cash at a casino they limit chips as well. If you cash in to a $1/3 game for $300-500 you are going to get all $5s or possibly $5s and some $25s. There are very few $1s in play
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Doesn't surprise me one bit. Standard opens to $15-20 just to try to overcome rake.

Home games tend to be more forgiving, so more singles in play (but not too many unless playing limit)
 
Whether I'm running .25/.50 or .50/.50, if you're one of the first eight or six players, a full $100 buyin gets you 45 chips in my game:

12/17/16 (.25/1/5) x8
10/20/15 (.50/1/5) x6

If .25/.50 the ninth buyin gets 4/14/17, and if .50/.50 the seventh and eight buyin get 0/40/12. Everything else is fives (or bigger once those run out).
 
Nine_high said:
Whether I'm running .25/.50 or .50/.50, if you're one of the first eight or six players, a full $100 buyin gets you 45 chips in my game:

12/17/16 (.25/1/5) x8
10/20/15 (.50/1/5) x6

If .25/.50 the ninth buyin gets 4/14/17, and if .50/.50 the seventh and eight buyin get 0/40/12. Everything else is fives (or bigger once those run out).
Click to expand...
Looks like you ended up going 200 max workhorse chips, right?
 
The five generally does more work than the one I find. But for either (or both) I've found that once you have around a barrel per player that's a good minimum to move on to the next denomination...much less and it starts getting too tight. Two barrels per player is good but beyond that getting unnecessary and I'd rather add some color than keep adding fives :)

I do vary it a little, depending on the number and type of players, whether mixing in PL games or just NLHE, and whether I'm feeling the quarters or the fiddies.

For one table, I'll usually stick 6 racks in my bank drawer. For two tables I'll cram in 8-10 racks.

If I'm using quarters it's

100/160/240/80/20 (600) or
160/260/340/100-160/40-80 (900-1,000)

Or fiddies

60/200/240/80/20 (600) or
80-100/260/340/80-120/40-80 (800-900)
 
I play $0.10/$0.25 and the starting stack is made up of
10- $0.05
10- $0.25
12-$1.00
1-$5.00

Basically, we only use the $0.05 Chips for the small blind, and never for anything else. We don't count them for the cash out unless you have 10.
If you use 2 for the small blind, when you make it $0.25 to play, you take the 2 $0.05 and put in 1 $0.25
When we played 25/25 without the 0.05 chips, we had 12 -25, 12-$1.00 and 1 $5.00
The reason we added the $0.05 is to make the small blind act when it comes around to them
We always had to ask the SB then BB what they were going to do, check, fold or raise lol
Initial stack buy in $20.00 cash game. 4.5 hours of play.
 
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