The Limits of a Limit Set (1 Viewer)

CrazyEddie

CrazyEddie

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Say I'm building a set to use in 3-chip/6-chip fixed limit games. How many chips can I expect the losers to go through in a night of such games?

I ask because I'm interested in putting a ton of chips on the table for the fun of having them there, but I'm not interested in having them be just for show. I could give everyone five racks of singles, but if nobody ever lost more than 200 of them, then I'd feel like the other three racks were just empty props instead of having any purpose for existence.

The answer also factors into considerations about how much of each player's bank should be in piles of singles versus in value chips (20s) or even prize chips (100s). I like the idea of giving everyone, say, at least one rack of singles and at least one hundo, with there being some prestige attached to winning enough chips that people have to cash in their hundos to you in order to get a playable stack of singles back. But if no one's ever going to lose enough to run out of singles (because it's limit, and a limit buy-in can last quite a while) then there's not really any purpose to having the hundos on the table in the first place.

Related question: does the answer change much if it's dealer's choice mixed games rather than just FLHE? What if it's not just mixed games, but kitchen table games?

Seeking guidance from those with experience. Thanks.
 
My understanding is to use a value chip equal to one barrel of chips being used to bet.

So if $1 is your base then $20 is your value store. It also gets 5x as many chips on the table compared to using one $100 chip.

(My game uses 12 racks of quarters and we generally have 6 players for limit games, so 2 racks per person. Then I have some $5s to use if people go overboard. Seems to work.)
 
The limits of a limit set is actually the size of your table. Unless you have a massive 8-9 footer oval like at a casino, you and nine other poker buddies will have trouble handling 5000+ chips.

If you like having mountain of chips on the table, don't color people up until they ask for it. A rack of 20s or 25s is sufficient. Don't use 100s. It's discouraging to exchange a rack of chips for only one chip of a different color.
 
Most players buy in for about 2 racks, and the ones who short buy for just one rack often find themselves buying more fairly quickly. I usually buy in for 4 racks in limit games. A true limit set is at minimum, 2000 chips IMO. Others will disagree. You can get away with fewer chips by also using more value store denoms, but that deflates half the fun of playing limit games. Someday, I'll have my dream limit set, and it will consist of at least 3 or 4 thousand chips.
 
Last edited:
Players get a rack of ones each, we split out till the rest is needed...
IMG_20200229_123847.jpg

Wtf people, it's like all of you are afraid of pRon.
 
CrazyEddie said:
Say I'm building a set to use in 3-chip/6-chip fixed limit games. How many chips can I expect the losers to go through in a night of such games?

I ask because I'm interested in putting a ton of chips on the table for the fun of having them there, but I'm not interested in having them be just for show. I could give everyone five racks of singles, but if nobody ever lost more than 200 of them, then I'd feel like the other three racks were just empty props instead of having any purpose for existence.

The answer also factors into considerations about how much of each player's bank should be in piles of singles versus in value chips (20s) or even prize chips (100s). I like the idea of giving everyone, say, at least one rack of singles and at least one hundo, with there being some prestige attached to winning enough chips that people have to cash in their hundos to you in order to get a playable stack of singles back. But if no one's ever going to lose enough to run out of singles (because it's limit, and a limit buy-in can last quite a while) then there's not really any purpose to having the hundos on the table in the first place.

Related question: does the answer change much if it's dealer's choice mixed games rather than just FLHE? What if it's not just mixed games, but kitchen table games?

Seeking guidance from those with experience. Thanks.
Click to expand...
We have a 4/8 Omaha Split game that runs once a week. The players buy in for $100ish each and by the end of the night, we have averages of around 1.5k to 2k chips on the table. All $1's.
 
My general rule of thumb regarding minimums:
1 rack for 2 chip / 4 chip structure
1.5 racks for 3 chip / 6 chip structure
2 racks for 4 chip / 8 chip structure

And assuming the $1 chip is your base (workhorse) chip, I would be using the $20 chip as your value chip to store value.

20 workhorse chips (or 1 barrel) = 1 value chip

I would only add a barrel of hundos to the set if I felt I didn’t have enough bank with the $1’s and $20’s.
 
@Josh Kifer those look gorgeous! But posting that set kinda gets right to the heart of my question. I want to make a set like that, but that seems like a really big bank for a limit game. Do your blacks and blues ever get put into play?
 
CrazyEddie said:
@Josh Kifer those look gorgeous! But posting that set kinda gets right to the heart of my question. I want to make a set like that, but that seems like a really big bank for a limit game. Do your blacks and blues ever get put into play?
Click to expand...
Black's normally might hit the table with a barrel of 20s, but it's mostly a huge stack of 1s....
 
I plan on 2 racks per player. In a 2/4 chip structure 1 rack/player is plenty but more value chips will be in play.

for 3/6 and especially a 4/8 chip game I would want 2 racks per player.

anything above 2 racks per player is for looks.

my 7 player $4/8 (With kill to $6/12) mixed circus games limit set.

I get all 14 racks of $2’s in play and a few barrels of $20’s by the end of the night.
71782294-D518-45CE-821B-DFC5D06DC656.jpeg
 
Rhodeman77 said:
I plan on 2 racks per player. In a 2/4 chip structure 1 rack/player is plenty but more value chips will be in play.

for 3/6 and especially a 4/8 chip game I would want 2 racks per player.

anything above 2 racks per player is for looks.

my 7 player $4/8 (With kill to $6/12) mixed circus games limit set.

I get all 14 racks of $2’s in play and a few barrels of $20’s by the end of the night.
View attachment 537907
Click to expand...
They’re all in play for a 2-chip/4-chip game? Fun!
 
warma said:
They’re all in play for a 2-chip/4-chip game? Fun!
Click to expand...

4 of us buy in for 2 racks each from the start. The rest for 1 but quickly add on. The Kill is on a lot of the so it probably plays closer to a $5/10 limit game on average.

We play all split pot games so if someone scoops with at least $40 in the pot the Kill is on.
 
The only chip limits in a limit game are the bets. There is no limit to the buys in, racks per player, or fun to be had.
 
Josh Kifer said:
Wtf people, it's like all of you are afraid of pRon.
Click to expand...

Free River Club Limit Set Mode

1600795279025.png


I did get a few limit games in pre-lockdown with this set. We were playing 2/4 with optional overs to 4/8, mostly 6-8 handed. Even with only 800 singles, it was plenty of chips, never dipped more than one barrel into the twenties.

And as a +1 to this point.

ArielVer18 said:
The limits of a limit set is actually the size of your table. Unless you have a massive 8-9 footer oval like at a casino, you and nine other poker buddies will have trouble handling 5000+ chips.
Click to expand...

I did find with the racetrack table plus these being 43mm, having more than 200 chips (sneaky brag) does start to get a little awkward unlike at a casino table without a racetrack.

But the point is well taken that table size is truly the upper limit. Otherwise I think 200 chips per player should cover all structures up to four- and eight- chip pretty well. Even 100/player is workable just by using more value store chips.
 
So I have thought of another way to think about the original question. Let's consider the number of chips needed to cover all bets to the cap on all rounds in a limit game. Now this would rarely actually happen, but it seems like a good place to start where we would want the average player to have at least that many chips. Meaning more often than not, players get through any hand without breaking a value chip.

So in 2/4, that would be 10 chips preflop and on the flop (we do a bet and four raises in Minnesota, btw) and 20 on the turn and river, for a total of 60. (Or a shortcut calculation, 15 chips times the upper limit) Let's call that the "need" number.

Now it would be nice to afford each player at least one full buy in at the start without dipping into value-store chips, and typically limit buy ins are between 20-30x the upper limit. Let's middle that at 25 and call that the "nice" number.

Now it would be awesome to afford each player three full buy ins in workhorse chips. This would pretty much guarantee never having to dip into value-store chips. So 75x upper-limit is the "awesome" number.

Structure - Need - Nice - Awesome
(per player)
2/4 60 - 100 - 300
3/6 90 - 150 - 450
4/8 120 - 200 - 600

So to cover the awesome number 600 per player may be the answer to the "limit of the limit set" question posed. But I think most games would operate just fine somewhere around the "need" and "nice" numbers.
 
I just wrapped up a 2-table Limit Omaha game this past weekend. We had a 2-4 chip game and a 3-6 chip game where each "workhorse" chip was 25¢. Used 1 rack of workhorses per player, with color-up chips that represented 20 workhorse chips ($5). Had plaques available for $100s if needed.

I could have given more workhorse chips per player, but the chips are slippery, so mountains are not recommended. Composition of the chip should be a consideration when deciding how many to put on the table.
 
For a $1-$2 limit game, I give out a rack of $1's to each player, some $2's, and the rest $20's (for that one barrel of workhorse equals the high chip). 130 chips for each person is a big enough pile). This is for a $250 buy in limit circus game for 8 players.

1600807151658.png
 

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