Max (OP), T25s are neither good nor bad. You can develop a great tournament structure with any starting chip -- T.25, T1, T5, T25, T100, or other. It's the structure itself, not the starting chip value, that is critical. Like almost everything else, what you decide to start with is up to you, and everyone has an opinion.
While you can duplicate what the big casinos do (or something like the WSOP does), I've learned that they develop chips for something very different than a home game. Realize this: Casinos are selling you a dream, not a great player experience. They develop chip sets to allow them to maximize players while minimizing the combination of their cash outlay for chips and what it costs them to host and manage the game. The starting chips they use will be out the fastest, so they don't buy as many as a home game host. Casinos host tournaments to make a profit, and they will choose a chip set that helps maximize their profit. Their formula is very simple: Revenue - Costs = Profit. Make no mistake about this -- the casino does poker tournaments to make a profit, and that affects how they put chip sets together.
Home game hosts should look at it differently. Duplicating the "dream selling" doesn't make sense in a home game. Home hosts are not looking to make a profit (I'm assuming a normal home host and not someone who is being a casino on a small scale). Home hosts can look to make it a good experience for players. You want to build your game, but only to a certain point. I personally think that a good player experience that gets the kind of people you want coming back should be the primary objective of the host. So when buying a chip set, look for features other than maximizing efficient chip purchase and management.
Early on, I duplicated the WSOP Main Event chip stacks -- either 12x25, 7x100, 2x500, 3x1000, and 1x5000 (25 chips) or 8x25, 8x100, 3x1000, and 1x5000 (22 chips). The latter uses fewer chips. They work, but that doesn't make them the ideal home game set. It is very efficient for a host to manage, but not that efficient for players. They were easy to put up. In the 4x25 boxes I used, I could easily fit the starting and color up chips for a 10 player table into 3 boxes. Now I use 6 boxes, but it's not twice as many chips.
Generally, you want 10-12 each of the lowest two denoms. Which you use depends on your lowest denom. 12 works better if the next chip up is 4x and 10 works better if the next chip up is 5x. Any fewer and you probably have too much change making; any more and you either have too many chips, or you have players like me who tend to bet with the highest value chips and they wind up with a boatload of the smallest chips, which sort of leads to more change making. To make sure you understand, if the bet is 350, I'm most likely going to use 3x100 and 2x25. Others will use more T25s because they have a lot of them. Neither is right or wrong, but they do affect chip management.
Chip efficiency means different things to different players. Some think it means how many chips you must purchase to get a certain starting T-value; some think it means how few chips can you make the most bets with; others think other things. None of those is right or wrong, but they will lead you to different purchase configurations.
For a home game, the T25 is not the most efficient in most scenarios, but it's very workable. And players like using values they either see in the casino or on TV. As a host, you aren't bound to how casinos do it. So do what makes the most sense for your game. If you use the same values as the casinos, even if it's not the most efficient possible chip set, you can duplicate something familiar but add your how "good experience" flair to it.
For purchase, I'd play with what you think is your ideal starting T-value, but then I'd look at other things. What if your starting stacks increase (highly likely in my experience)? What if you find a formula that works very well for your game, whatever that means to you, but you didn't consider that in purchase and you can't get any more of those chips? Does your group like gentle blind increases (20-33%) or more aggressive increases (40-67%)? There can be other levels outside of that, but when looking at buying, I consider something above the most aggressive I expect to use.
Start with a budget. Here's how I consider a purchase. I start with looking at two sets. One starts with T25 and one with T100. For even more flexibility, if I wanted T1 and T5, I'd even consider having a single table tournament with those values, though I have only done that once. I look for 3 10-player tables since that is what I can do in my house. I look at starting T-values from 100BB to 2500BB (that's a wide spread, but it guarantees a very flexible set), but primarily look at 200BB to 500BB. Then I look at those sets as though I'd have to host one additional table (40 players) but am willing to have fewer chips per player. That means I'll end up with a set with probably more chips than most, but it will be very flexible.
Others starting with the same budget would decide to buy fewer of the best chips. It won't be as flexible, but their chips will be awesome! Neither approach is right or wrong, but there is an approach that fits your situation better.
General rules:
- Don't duplicate casinos exactly. Use what they do as a guide, but look at it like a home model and not a casino model.
- Look at a variety of scenarios.
- Look for sets that either you are likely to be able to get more of later, or buy big enough that you would have to get a much bigger venue and are willing to invest in a different chip set to accommodate that venue and structure.
Finally, remember the primary rule of this site -- the answer is always more chips.
