Tourney T10k starting stacks, 16-16-4-6 vs 12-12-5-6? (1 Viewer)

[mummel]

I was curious to hear if you guys feel there is pressure on the $500 chips during the game if you go 16-16-4-6?

Has anyone actually tried both? Feedback welcomed. Thanks.

 

[RichMahogany]

I’d rather have stacks of 12/12/3/7 than 16/16/4/6

 

[mummel]

I’d rather have stacks of 12/12/3/7 than 16/16/4/6

I just find folks need to make change with 12-12-5-6. Looser play with more chips + less change making would be better IMO, but not at the cost of people betting big barrels because they cant find $500s.

 

[fish72s]

I think 16 of the lowest denom is too many but I have tried with 16 or 17 chips for middle denoms and its worked pretty well.
LIke 12/17/16 with no $1000 chips and then chipping up with $5K plaques.

 

[BGinGA]

General consensus is that optimal tournament starting stacks should contain between 10 and 16 chips each of the two lowest denominations (meaning most optimum stacks will have 10, 12, 15, or 16, depending on the base chip denomination). Most people choose 10/12 vs 15/16 due to lower cost, allowing chip funds to be spent on higher denominations that expand the flexibility of the set.

Eight of each works, but not optimally. 20 of each works too, but not optimally. Numbers beyond those boundaries start getting into nearly-unplayable situations.

Most of my T25-base tournament sets contain 200 chips each of T25 and T100 chips. For two-table events (8 players each), we use 12/12/5/6/x. But for single-table events (up to 10 players), we use 16/16/6/5/x.

 

[K ALL IN 9]

We do deep stacks with 12/17/4/11/2 for T25k. With limited availability of T500s in my set I've had to work around it but never had an issue. In my experience having more 1000s is more important

 

[Rhodeman77]

I have used 12-17-4-6 for 2 table games for along time. The 100 gets used as the workhouse for a while so it good to have extra.

And if you go to 3 tables you don’t need many more T100 to go to 12-12-5-6.

 

[Sparty]

I have used 12-17-4-6 for 2 table games for along time. The 100 gets used as the workhouse for a while so it good to have extra.

And if you go to 3 tables you don’t need many more T100 to go to 12-12-5-6.

great advice. when you say "extra" how many of each denom do you have/need may i ask?

 

[Rhodeman77]

great advice. when you say "extra" how many of each denom do you have/need may i ask?

If you go with 12-17-4-6 for 20 players, you will need 340 T100 chips. You will need 360 T100 for 30 players using 12-12-5-6.

Of course you will need more of all of the other chips too, just not many T100.

 

[Sparty]

If you go with 12-17-4-6 for 20 players, you will need 340 T100 chips. You will need 360 T100 for 30 players using 12-12-5-6.

Of course you will need more of all of the other chips too, just not many T100.

thanks., simple math...not sure why i had to ask LOL

 

[Darson]

I'm very interested to read the comments here - I'm trialing a base T25 game this Friday. The STT games my lot play are either base T5 (1k starting) or T500 (100k starting). The T25 game will be 10k starting (200BB) and since I only have 100x T25 & T100, I'm planning on 12/12/3/7 for all if we only get 8 players, and 8/8/4/7 for the last two if we get 9 players.

I have used 12-17-4-6 for 2 table games for along time. The 100 gets used as the workhouse for a while so it good to have extra.

I really like this starting stack since my game tends to have a lot of rebuys and the smallest denom quickly becomes irrelevant/annoying after the first hour. The only downside is the need to have two racks of T100 (not really a bad thing).

 

[Ken]

I have done 20-20-15 to force the experiment to see if the number of chips helped keep things going or slowed it down.

I think on net it slowed things down. Some players ended up with many stacks of T25 in front of them so would bet several stacks at a time. It took them a while to count it out, depending on how adept they were at cutting out the amount and re-stacking as necessary. It also slowed down the callers with "how much is that" type of questions as it took longer to count it.

Lastly, it added the potential to make a mistake when coloring up as more chips are being colored up at each level.

However, it was fun to have 200+ chips in front of you if you were doing well.

I have now biased toward 12 x T25 and 12 x T100 so there are just enough to get through with less making change than if they started with only 8 x T25.

Even at 20 x T25 there was just as much change making as the same people called or bet with the smallest chips they could, saving the high denominations for later, I guess. And others would throw in a T500 to call a T100 bet even though they had at least 4 x T25 or a T100 chip.

 

[BGinGA]

I have done 20-20-15 to force the experiment to see if the number of chips helped keep things going or slowed it down.

I think on net it slowed things down. Some players ended up with many stacks of T25 in front of them so would bet several stacks at a time. It took them a while to count it out, depending on how adept they were at cutting out the amount and re-stacking as necessary. It also slowed down the callers with "how much is that" type of questions as it took longer to count it.

I have now biased toward 12 x T25 and 12 x T100

Our league events (with antes) have used 12/12/5/6/x starting stacks for years (minimal change-making, since most of the players know how to efficiently manage their stacks).

However, the championship game (average stack size of 34k) has always used 20/20/15/x stacks (also with antes), although the T25 chips do not play except for posting antes, blinds, or if all-in.

This prevents players from using the small value chips for large or odd-value bets, but still provides a sufficient number of small denominations for antes and blinds while avoiding unnecessary change-making or struggling with large numbers of small chips in pots.

 

[Mtvernonbryan]

Does anyone do 8/8/6/6 or 8/8/4/7 anymore? That’s how I always played T-10k tourneys. Found that only 4 $500’s is better.

 

[BGinGA]

Does anyone do 8/8/6/6 or 8/8/4/7 anymore? That’s how I always played T-10k tourneys. Found that only 4 $500’s is better.

I do 8/8/4/7 only if spreading a set across a large number of tables, and where chip set size requires it. Otherwise it's 12/12/5/6.

 

[TexRex]

I've tried, for the T25, configurations of 8, 12, and 16. I like 12 the best; 8 requires more change making, and oddly, 16 seems to as well. It seems to me that when they have 16, players use those chips a lot. I personally tend to make a bet with the fewest chips. When we used 16, most games I wound up with several stacks of 25s and 100s. That's because when a bet was 350, someone would put in 14 T25s; I'd just put in 100x3 + 25x2. You only have to win one or two hands like that to have many of those smaller chips. I've also played in a game where you got 25x4 and 50x4 for a 25 base. That was not a good way to do it. There was way too much change making, and too many color ups.

For the 100s (almost all of ours are base 25, but sometimes I use base 100), I've used 7, 8, 12, and 16. I like 12 the best because when the smallest chip is T100, you get the same issue as above. However, when we were using 7 or 8, we tended to color up with the T100, putting more on the table. If we had 25x12, and they got 3 more T100s in color up, it seemed to be about the right number of chips.

BG is a fan of not coloring up except with much larger chips. At first, I didn't like that system, and my chip sets weren't designed that way, but they are now. I generally agree with him on that. It is more efficient in play because you aren't adding chips on that will soon come back off. You also don't need as many chips in the set to accomplish the same thing, though it might not matter if you are doing 7 or 8 and adding 3 or 4 vs. just starting with 12 when it comes to purchase, but it does make the game go faster to have them on at the beginning.

 

[Wils]

I have done 20-20-15 to force the experiment to see if the number of chips helped keep things going or slowed it down.

I think on net it slowed things down. Some players ended up with many stacks of T25 in front of them so would bet several stacks at a time. It took them a while to count it out, depending on how adept they were at cutting out the amount and re-stacking as necessary. It also slowed down the callers with "how much is that" type of questions as it took longer to count it.

Lastly, it added the potential to make a mistake when coloring up as more chips are being colored up at each level.

However, it was fun to have 200+ chips in front of you if you were doing well.

I have now biased toward 12 x T25 and 12 x T100 so there are just enough to get through with less making change than if they started with only 8 x T25.

Even at 20 x T25 there was just as much change making as the same people called or bet with the smallest chips they could, saving the high denominations for later, I guess. And others would throw in a T500 to call a T100 bet even though they had at least 4 x T25 or a T100 chip.

FWIW I've done 20 X 20 X 15 before. It certainly helped loosen up early play, and I think everyone got a kick out of a starting stack of 55 chips (I usually do 12 X 12 X 3 X 7 so psychologically you're working with less).

From my own experience, there was less change making, but like you say all the 25's tended 5o congregate to one or two players throughout the first half of the night.