Yes. All of this except the suggestion of two ND chips. “WHATS THIS ONE WORTH????!?!”
The Beginners Guide To Mapping Out A Cash Game Chip Set - 5c/10c to $5/$10 (7 Viewers)
- Thread starter Quad Johnson
- Start date
merkong
Flush
So if a guy wanted a non-denom, skip the .50?
I have to talk to you soon about just suck matters as I have a large lot hitting the mail system soon. Decisions must be made and when I get to that point I’d like to get your thoughts.
Thanks Justin.
I've given this a lot of thought, I plan to add a 20 and a .05 to my CPC lineup at the end of the year (hopefully, based on Mold Schedule)
I wouldn't mind 2 non denoms, but I don't like the way .5 plays; Maybe someday I'll build a .5/2/10 set, but I doubt it. In fact the only way I'd rock a .10 is if I could get my grubby little hands on Ben's TRKs or some .10 TRKs!
.05 / .25 / 1 / 5 / 20 / 100 is ideal to me.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
To be honest I have a bias toward denominating all chips of doing customs. I know there are posters here that like the flexibility of having a "blank value" but to me it's feels like cutting a corner.
So take my opinion with a grain of salt knowing it comes from that bias.
That said, think about the blinds for all the games you could see and the chips required. I did that sort of analysis before committing to my dime-half breakdown for the FRC set and documented it here.
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/dime-half-single-alternative-micro-breakdown-idea.39237/
You should try and enumerate your possibilities and hopefully reveal the answers that way.
Hope it helps.
dmoney
Full House
I went with two non-denom chips in my Santa Ysabel set for:
- playing microstakes .05/.10 e.g. orange 5c, white 25c)
- an alternate frac choice if I wanted
- could also be used as a $20 e.g. white 25c orange $20
merkong
Flush
I like that.
merkong
Flush
That is what frightens me
merkong
Flush
Or I could just denominate the works. I believe I’ll have the colors for it.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
Well this is among the reasons I favor denominating all chips.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
I do like the 50¢ as the sole frac in games for a couple reasons.
1) Change when scooping bets (50¢ limps for example) is always easy, always a 1-for-1 swap of a single for half.
2) You can get by with about half the fracs as you would comparing to quarters, making more room for workhorse chips to shine.
I then added the 10¢ to my lineup just for downward compatibility with my lower family stakes. Using dime-half-dollar chips is somewhat akin to the base T100 tournament structures that use T100-500-1000 chips and proved rather workable.
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/dime-half-single-alternative-micro-breakdown-idea.39237/
I grant it's not as intuitive as nickel-quarter-dollar, but it suits the games I want to spread very well.
THIS. 100%.
I always use 5c and 25c as my fracs as they are more flexible and you don't need a non denominated chip. You can play 5c/10c, 10c/20c, 10c/25c, 25c/25c and 25c/50c. I personally don't see any reason to have a 50c chip as they are only half the value of a $1 chips. Exception would be if you know you are going to play A LOT of 50c/$1 And just want a few less chips than you would need if you made them 25c chips instead. But if that's your lowest stake, then you only need 100 25c chips anyway, so what are you really saving?
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
The 50¢ chips work well for 50¢-50¢ as well as a substitute for 25¢-50¢.
I still usually get about 50-60 of the 50¢ in play when I spread 50¢-50¢, but I think as few as 40 is workable. I only have one rack of them in my set of 2000 chips and figure that's fine even for two full tables.
Agreed. My point was that the only reason for a 50c chip is if that is the only frac you'll ever use. Otherwise the 25c frac is FAR more useful. And for the same reasoning, nickels are better than dimes.
YeaIKno
Waiting List
ninedeuce
Two Pair
tl;dr A total bank of 5000 BB should safely cover 95% of your single table games, and 4000 BB should cover 90%
I've found this thread to be a great resource for deciding on chip set breakdowns.
I'm in the process of buying/augmenting a few cash chip sets. My parameters are 9 players max, single table only.
I wanted to see how the conventional wisdom of "3 buyins per player" stacked up against real world data.
I've been running an online .5/1 game for almost two years on Pokernow, and have saved the ledgers for each game. The ledgers give an exact breakdown of how much each player bought in for.
My game plays pretty loose, with a mix of aggressive and passive players. Our buyin rule is 250bb max or half the largest stack, whichever greater. Starting stacks and rebuys usually fall betw 150bb and 200bb.
Median number of players (throughout the night) is 7. 75% of the time we have 6+ players.
Here's the data for 189 games we played.
Based on this data, for a 9 player full ring table, X bb should cover you Y% of the time:
Of course, you should adjust up or down based on how your game plays. Also, online may play differently than IRL.
I've found this thread to be a great resource for deciding on chip set breakdowns.
I'm in the process of buying/augmenting a few cash chip sets. My parameters are 9 players max, single table only.
I wanted to see how the conventional wisdom of "3 buyins per player" stacked up against real world data.
I've been running an online .5/1 game for almost two years on Pokernow, and have saved the ledgers for each game. The ledgers give an exact breakdown of how much each player bought in for.
My game plays pretty loose, with a mix of aggressive and passive players. Our buyin rule is 250bb max or half the largest stack, whichever greater. Starting stacks and rebuys usually fall betw 150bb and 200bb.
Median number of players (throughout the night) is 7. 75% of the time we have 6+ players.
Here's the data for 189 games we played.
| Percentage of games | Buyin per player (in BBs) |
|---|---|
| 99.9% (max) | 986 |
| 99% | 726 |
| 95% | 511 |
| 90% | 451 |
| 75% | 378 |
| 50% | 312 |
Based on this data, for a 9 player full ring table, X bb should cover you Y% of the time:
- 8900 bb - 99.9%
- 6500 bb - 99%
- 4600 bb - 95%
- 4100 bb - 90%
- 3400 bb - 75%
Of course, you should adjust up or down based on how your game plays. Also, online may play differently than IRL.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
I really think this is a great approach to the problem. The only thing I might mention is online is a faster game than live, and getting 2.5x as many hands in is not unheard of. Meaning 4 hours of online may be equivalent to 10 hours of live for a similar number of hands. So I might expect the total buy-ins to inch to higher-highs online over a comparable time of live play.
Still I really like this data, and it seems pretty in line with the 3 buy-ins per player homespun rule. Looks like that was a fit 99% of the time if I am reading this right. (726 BB of buy-ins per player in a 250BB max game)
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Kingsman08
Sitting Out
So this is exactly the kind of game I am hoping of playing. The guys I play with will probably want to start at 5c/10c, but I will absolutely move them up to 25c/25c and possibly 25c/50c. I am thinking about 600 chips for all these stakes, and my breakdown is tentatively this
5c - 100
25c - 200
$1 - 200
$5 - 100
Do you think that is adequate for hosting a 1 table cash game that can flex anywhere from 5c/10c to 25c/50c? Or is it not nearly enough?
It too many quarters, and not enough 5s for a .25/.5
60 x 5
100 x .25
200 x 1
200 x 5
40 x 20
20 x 100
would carry most all your needs, 300 x 5 if you plan to run a 1/2
Kingsman08
Sitting Out
Thank you! Would this also still be enough to run a 10-handed .05/.1? I just worry about having enough fracs.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
This is a pretty wide stake range for 600 chips, but I think this breakdown gives you the best of most worlds. The trouble with trying to cover this wide of a range is that there really are two "workhorse" denominations that you need to cover. Quarters in the case of a nickel-dime game, and the single in the case of the quarter-quarter or quarter-half game. So you correctly have 200 chips of each. However, the total bank for this is $755. So you have enough to cover 30 buy-ins of $25 each, which is a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. But a 25¢-50¢ game should accomodate buy-ins of at least $50, for that, I think another rack of singles and fives would be in order. That would take your bank to $1355, or still 26 buy-ins of $50. (Or swap out 20 or 50 fives for some twenties or twenty-fives to do an even higher bank.)
How I would build starting stacks:
5¢-10¢ (or 5¢-15¢)
10 starting stacks of (5¢/25¢) 10/20/x (where x is the number of singles to make the desired buy in, 4 for $10 buy in, 14 for $20 buy in)
25¢-25¢ (or 25¢-50¢)
10 starting stacks of (25¢/1) 8/18/x (where x is the number of fives to make the desired buy in, 1 for $25 buy in, 6 for $50 buy-in)
(Obviously in 25¢-25¢ and up we aren't playing the nickels, and I would remove at least 80-100 of the quarters from the set as well, so your effective set is 100/200/100 of 25¢/1/5 for these stakes.)
So again, this makes good use of the 100 nickles, 200 quarters, and 200 singles you are planning. I think you just need more singles and fives if you are seriously thinking about 25¢-50¢ stakes.
You do need the extra quarters though for a 5¢-10¢ game, though. The quarter really is the workhorse at that stake so I think 200 is not out of line and I would argue the minimum needed or change making is going to get ridiculous. Quarters are needed to construct most bets on at least the first two streets in a hold'em game with a 10¢ big blind. I also think 60 nickels is far too few on blind chips for that stake unless the game is 6-handed. Really need 10 per player on this in my experience. Hundreds are most certainly a waste at these stakes, I could go either way on a small quantity of twenties.
LATE EDIT:
I would say no, if 5¢-10¢ is going to be a core game, you really need 10 nickels per player. I think going for 100 as you originally planned is wise. This is just too wide a range for 600 chips, that's all. Your original plan covers the lower end of the stakes your discussed well.
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Kingsman08
Sitting Out
This is supremely helpful. Thank you! I think what Might end up doing is going with the 100-200-200-100 to start, as I don't know how quickly we will get to 25c/50c, as most guys are relative beginners. So I think having a set that makes better use of 5c/10c to 25c/25c is more economical for now, but with the possibility of adding on later, should we expect to get to 25c/50c. And thank you for your advice on the starting stacks! Extremely grateful!
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
I appreciate the kindness, in all modesty, given where you are starting to build your game, I think that's the best advice.
If you don't mind a little additional advice as I see you are just getting a game started, it's important to figure out where your players are on their risk comfort levels. You can ask, but in my experience, many new players often underestimate how much they should plan to bring to a game. So what they say and and what they do can be different answers. For example, players may think they are rolled for 25¢-50¢, but in truth if they close their wallet after the first $50, they are playing too high.
Ideally, you want to identify the point where players are comfortable losing 300-400 times the BB in a session. (And really, a few posts up, @ninedeuce has examples of players taking over 700BB of risk in a session, albeit it's a higher stake game with a high max buy-in, and online of course accelerates how quick the money circulates, but still it's worth considering.) If players are quitting after $50, then 5¢-10¢ or 5¢-15¢ blinds are more appropriate stakes. If players are only willing to lose $20-$30 in a game, then honestly 5¢-5¢ or 5¢-10¢ blinds are where to be. Believe it or not, you really need players willing to understand $100-$150 swings before considering 25¢-50¢ stakes. Otherwise if you get a lot of one-and-done players, you'll have games ending early.
Bottom line, if you are seeing players buy in once and quit on going bust once, it's a sign the stakes are too high.
I know this is a bit off the original topic. But to bring it back, when planning a set, it's worthwhile to take an honest assessment of where the player base is on risk.
I've played lots of nickel/dime blinds. This is my starting stack for a $15 buy-in - 150 BBs.
0.05 x 10 = $0.50
0.25 x 14 = $3.50
1.00 x 11 = $11.00
Add a single $5 or 5 more $1s if you want to start at $20. Add more $5s for $25-$40.
But I agree with others that if you see going to $0.25/0.50 then you do not have enough $5s. And you may want to add a barrel or two of $20s just to cover if you run out of $5s due to the game getting splashy. At this stake level I strongly prefer using a $20 instead of a $25 chip due to the reasoning that your rebuys will usually be $20 - $60 in 20 dollar bills. $25s will still work, they are just a bit awkward if all of the $5s are on the table and someone wants to rebuy or top off.
This is my suggestion for a nickel game that you plan on growing.
0.05 x 100 = $5.00
0.25 x 140 = $35.00
1.00 x 200 = $200
5.00 x 200 = $1,000 (300 would be even better)
20.00 x 60 = $1,200
700 chips with a bank just over $2400. This will take you all the way up to a splashy $0.25/0.50 game or a moderate $0.50/$1.00 game.
Kingsman08
Sitting Out
Thank you so much! The options here have been so helpful, and I can't wait to put an order in. Not exactly sure when that will be, but definitely soon!
Kingsman08
Sitting Out
Looking at this again, and just had one question. Do you think that 140 quarters is enough for the 5c/10c game as the workhorse? Would having 175 quarters and 25 $20s work well enough?
Our general yardstick is 200 chips for each of the 2 workhorse chips, which in this case is the 0.25 and 1, per table of 10.
Hey guys, first post in this forum just to share my chip set mapping and starting stack planning.
I wanted a simple, versatile, futureproof chip set that abides by most of the rules and common wisdom I found on the Internet.
What I've worked out is that with a single 500x chip set, I can run a poker game of any ante (be it $0.25 / $0.5 or $100 / 200) for a table of up to 10 players. The chip set consists of standard denomination chips so that the correlation between denomination and their standard colours remains familiar even when playing at low antes.
Multiplying the starting stacks 10-player tables by 10, you really only use 100x $1, 100x $5, 100x $25, 100x $100, 80x $500. The surplus 20x $500 can be reserved for buy-ins for the $25 / $50 games, whereas there'd be plenty of higher denomination chips to be used for buy-ins for the $1 / $2 and $5 / $10 games.
I'm no seasoned host but it has worked well thus far. Hope this is helpful to somebody, and feel free to let me know if you guys have any thoughts or comments on this!
I wanted a simple, versatile, futureproof chip set that abides by most of the rules and common wisdom I found on the Internet.
What I've worked out is that with a single 500x chip set, I can run a poker game of any ante (be it $0.25 / $0.5 or $100 / 200) for a table of up to 10 players. The chip set consists of standard denomination chips so that the correlation between denomination and their standard colours remains familiar even when playing at low antes.
- 100x whites ($1)
- 100x reds ($5)
- 100x greens ($25)
- 100x blacks ($100)
- 100x purples ($500)
| SB / BB: | $1 / $2 (decimal: 0.1 / 0.2, etc) | $5 / $10 (decimal: 0.5/1, etc) | $25 / $50 (decimal: 0.25 / 0.5, etc) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100BB buy-in: | $200 (decimal: 20, etc) | $1000 (decimal: 100, etc) | $5000 (decimal: 50, etc) |
| Starting stack for 10-player tables: | 10x $1, 8x $5, 6x $25 | 10x $5, 10x $25, 7x $100 | 8x $25, 8x $100, 8x $500 |
| Starting stack for 5-player tables: | 20x $1, 11x $5, 5x $25 | 20x $5, 12x $25, 6x $100 | 20x $25, 10x $100, 7x $500 |
Multiplying the starting stacks 10-player tables by 10, you really only use 100x $1, 100x $5, 100x $25, 100x $100, 80x $500. The surplus 20x $500 can be reserved for buy-ins for the $25 / $50 games, whereas there'd be plenty of higher denomination chips to be used for buy-ins for the $1 / $2 and $5 / $10 games.
I'm no seasoned host but it has worked well thus far. Hope this is helpful to somebody, and feel free to let me know if you guys have any thoughts or comments on this!
@or4nge What stakes do you play now? and are you planning on playing up to $25/$50 in the future?
I'm not a fan of using the higher denoms, for example $25s as quarters, someone can play the low stakes game and put some 25c ($25) chips in their pocket on the way home, then to come back and cash out a night when the chips are worth $25
I'm not a fan of using the higher denoms, for example $25s as quarters, someone can play the low stakes game and put some 25c ($25) chips in their pocket on the way home, then to come back and cash out a night when the chips are worth $25
merkong
Flush
I believe in future proofing but I have a feel for our game. We’re not going to the moon.
Presently, I my standard build is a 400 chip set (all I spread are cash games) and laid out as follows:
100 non denoms (play as .25 or .50)
200 $1
100 $5 (could be 80 $5’s and 20 $20’s)
We play .25/.25 and last night had around $500 on the table.
Also, I’m aiming for 10 or so playable sets and rotate each session. We fill a table twice a week.
My first cash set was going to be 1000 chips. What. In. The. Eff?
I’ve learned a lot in my 6 months here.
Presently, I my standard build is a 400 chip set (all I spread are cash games) and laid out as follows:
100 non denoms (play as .25 or .50)
200 $1
100 $5 (could be 80 $5’s and 20 $20’s)
We play .25/.25 and last night had around $500 on the table.
Also, I’m aiming for 10 or so playable sets and rotate each session. We fill a table twice a week.
My first cash set was going to be 1000 chips. What. In. The. Eff?
I’ve learned a lot in my 6 months here.
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