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shorticus

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I was lucky enough to grab a tourney set from the Chip Exchange Sale this past week, and I've been coming up with ways to maximize these chips in a 10-player tourney. I posted in the Chip Exchange thread and then realized "ah, we actually have a tourney thread where I can get help." So here's pictures of what I've come up with for 10-player events. Everything can color up to 100s (don't think I'll color up any higher, even though coloring up can be accounted for).

Please share your thoughts on possible improvements any parts of this that you can see which could be improved.
T5K-R.jpgT15K.jpg
 
Two observations:

I personally prefer a 2-3-4-6 progression on the blind levels. It makes it so that you never have to double the blinds and makes leveling up a little smoother while allowing you to color up every 4 levels. The one down side is that it breaks down a bit after level 12, but there are ways around that.

20 greens seems like a lot chips (even more so if you use the 2-3-4-6 progression) It's fine if your players are good at handling chips. It can really slow the game down if they are not.
 
Half of your starting chip stack (20 of 41 chips) gets raced off in three levels. I'm guessing that will be a hassle.
 
20 greens seems like a lot chipsIt's fine if your players are good at handling chips. It can really slow the game down if they are not.

Could someone explain this to me? I’m serious: I would like to learn.
I have seen how too few chips causes delays with inexperienced players (making change & confusion over 1-chip calls), but what negative impact does too mane chips have?
 
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You make a good point. On the flip side I’ve seen novice players spend a frustrating amount of time stacking and arranging their chips after sucking out on a hand they had no right to be in.
That’s if they even bother stacking them at all.
 
Those greens will need to be removed from play after 3 rounds into the game. So you'll need to take 200 chips off the table after 45 min of play. You can do it, but its a little overkill. Not to mention racing that many chips off the table can be a pain in the arse.

Traditionally, its more like 8 greens, 8 blacks (1k total). Or 12 greens, 12 blacks (1.5k total). More manageable numbers compared to the blind structure.
 
Got it. So for the novices it’s ‘pick your poison’: which do you hate less, and there is a balance between usefulness and time to chip up. I guess I already knew that but had not thought about it in those terms before: thanks!

I prefer breakdowns with a lot more 100s with novices around because when you get to levels like 200/400 and 400/800 a whole lot of them get used. And I’m willing to put up with time to stack & time to race off in order to avoid confusion around bet sizes and change-making. All down to “what tilts me less”. :)
 
Your challenge with this set is you really are too short on T1000 chips to even be thinking about T10K stacks. The low quantities are going to make it extremely difficult to make change for the T5000 chips. Putting 40 of each out means you have only 40k of T1000 to break 200k worth of T5000 in a sport where the average number of T1000 per stack is only two. It's very possible to end up in a spot where no one can break a chip.

I think 12/12/3/2 for up to 13 stacks of T5000 or 8/8/2/2 for up to 20 stacks of T4000 with blinds starting at 25-25 is the way to deal with this set.

If you do two T5000 and two T1000 chips per stack you will only have 40k worth of T1000 chips to break potentially 200k worth of T5000 chips.
 
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I like lots of chips on the table at once which is why I like all the 25 chips on the table. Looking at my spreadsheet, I'm seeing that I can go 12/17/2/2/2 or 8/18/2/2/2.
 
Your challenge with this set is you really are too short on T1000 chips to even be thinking about T10K stacks. The low quantities are going to make it extremely difficult to make change for the T5000 chips. Putting 40 of each out means you have only 40

I think 12/12/3/2 for up to 13 stacks of T5000 or 8/8/2/2 for up to 20 stacks of T4000 with blinds starting at 25-25 is the way to deal with this set.

If you do two T5000 and two T1000 chips per stack you will only have 40k worth of T1000 chips to break potentially 200k worth of T5000 chips.

Hmmmmm....that's a very interesting point. I never thought about changing out the 5k chips....nice catach
 
So to finish the thought, I would do 12/12/3/2 use the spare T1000 chips to color up the green, and use the T5000 chips to color up black and purple. Hopefully by then the T1000 chips will be concentrated in a few stacks so breaking T5000 chips will be less of a problem than it would be at the outset of a tournament.
 
Could someone explain this to me? I’m serious: I would like to learn.
I have seen how too few chips causes delays with inexperienced players (making change & confusion over 1-chip calls), but what negative impact does too mane chips have?

In no limit, instances where stacks need to be counted can be rather frequent. The more chips the longer it takes. Also it's a lot of effort to out out extra small chips just to remove them from play right away.
 
So to finish the thought, I would do 12/12/3/2 use the spare T1000 chips to color up the green, and use the T5000 chips to color up black and purple. Hopefully by then the T1000 chips will be concentrated in a few stacks so breaking T5000 chips will be less of a problem than it would be at the outset of a tournament.
My goal is to stay at T15000. Not attempting to be stubborn, but I'm trying to build a deep stack format for low cost entry to draw in a few more people who enjoy the game but don't like to play a cash game because they lose too much for their liking. Ultimately, I want to play a deeper stack tourney to allow people to play for a decent amount of time while still rewarding skill.

I'm open to alternative ideas so shoot em if you got em LOL! The first thing that comes to mind is to add on a barrel of 1k chips (if available) and go 8/18/4/6/1 which still keeps the starting sizes fairly sizable and I feel like it resolves the change issue with the 5k chip.

Thoughts?
 
Also, theoretically, using my current structure, in the case that we have a situation where a 5K chip needs to be changed out, I'll still have 20 1k chips on the side that I could just change out during the game as well.

What say you?
 
My goal is to stay at T15000. Not attempting to be stubborn, but I'm trying to build a deep stack format
The first thing that comes to mind is to add on a barrel of 1k chips (if available) and go 8/18/4/6/1

I think you really need to be thinking about more like an additional 60-100 T1000 Then you can do formats of 12/12/3/7/2 (or deeper in the low chips if it's your preference, but the issue is the ratio of t1000-t5000 needs to be heavier on t1000. With the average number of T1000s at 7 to start, it's much easier to make change if you want to use the T5000 to make deeper stacks

The issue is with the average of two T1000 chips per stack to start it will get difficult to make change.
 
Could someone explain this to me? I’m serious: I would like to learn.
I have seen how too few chips causes delays with inexperienced players (making change & confusion over 1-chip calls), but what negative impact does too mane chips have?
If people can't handle stacks I see how it can be an issue.

I tried a 20 player T10000 with stacks of 20/20/15/0, but was worried due to all I've heard here at PCF so I made sure to educate my players on the importance of tidy stacks, how it speeds up the game etc. It went very smoothly, I don't think it slowed down the game that much. Coloring up goes fast if you use racks (since you don't really need to count as much with racks) and if you instruct your players to exchange their chips with their table's chipleader, that way you only need to color up only player.

Now all my T10k are 20/20/15/0 and my T20k and above are 20/20/5/15/X, 'cause tall stacks are cool and I honestly don't think the drawbacks are that big, and we're usually more than 20 players nowadays so it's a lot of chips! YMMV
 
I agree with everything that @JustinInMN has posted. You need a lot more T1000 chips in this set to run larger starting stacks containing T5000s.

For a single-table event, both T25s and T100s should eventually be colored-up and replaced -- and preferably by T1000 chips, which will be necessary in the mid- and later-stages of the event.

I also don't like the jump from 100/200 to 200/400 in your structure -- add a 150/300 level and remove the T25 chips afterwards.

And if wanting smaller stacks to play deeper, start with 25/25 and don't double the blinds, instead going with 25/25, 25/50, 25/75, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, and 150/300 for the first 7 levels -- even with T5000 starting stacks, that is 200BB (plenty deep) with lots of play.

Deepstack tournaments have very little to do with how many total chips are in play (T15000 is a meaningless number without appropriate blinds), but more about how many Big Blinds are in play at the start *and* how quickly they diminish during play.
 

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