Tourney What chip transition is better, T500-T1000 or T500-T2500? (1 Viewer)

I once used 2,500 denom chips to host a tournament. I've never seen so many unintentional betting errors. Conceptually you think it should work, but no one divides up 10,000 into fourths (like they don't divide 1,000 in to quarters -- imagine trying to play with T-250 chips).

Because of where the comma lies, a T-25,000 chip works. Essentially, by the time these are in play, you're taking the zeros out of the equation anyway, because the smallest denom on the table is 1,000 (maybe there are some 500s for antes, but it's pretty unlikely). But when the WSOP introduces a T-250,000 chip into the One Drop, even the best pros get confused, because it's essentially a 250-value chip, and they never play with that.

Unless you're planning a $5k/$10k limit game and want to play a 2/4 betting structure, I'd stay away from 2,500 denoms.
 
But not so much with a T2000. My experience is that it works quite well... and in most cases, there are not that many in play. The importance of the T500 chip is fully realized as well, as it stays in play to the end in most structures (and you never have to use more than three of them to make a bet).
 
Very late to the conversation. I like the aesthetics of 500 and 1000. While a little weird to have x2 jump, I think it makes for easy accounting. The approach I use is to have relatively few 500 chips in the game, and when building a set go something like this. T25, 100, 500, 1000, 5000 and have 300-400 x T25, 300 x T100, 100-150 x T500, 300 x T1000, 100 x T5000. There are so many ways to this though. Just another way.
 
The thing I hate about the 500/1000 progression is that it seems to lead to an excessive need for making change, or having so many 500s on the table that going from 500 to 2000 makes sense again.

I've never played a tourney with 2000 chips, but I love the idea.
 
The thing I hate about the 500/1000 progression is that it seems to lead to an excessive need for making change, or having so many 500s on the table that going from 500 to 2000 makes sense again.

I've never played a tourney with 2000 chips, but I love the idea.

I don't think this is necessarily true. I've never had a custom chipset made, so all my sets have a 500/1,000 progression, and I've never run into trouble with having to make a lot of change. Once the tournament gets to the point where the 500 chip is the lowest denomination, it's only used for blinds/antes, and by that time there should be plenty of them on the table because of the players already eliminated (unless you're starting out with 100/200 or 200/400 blinds or ridiculously deepstacked).

Since the jump from 500 to 1,000 is so small you don't need that many 500 chips as the 1,000s are doing all the legwork. The WSOP gives out 12x T25, 12x T100, 3x T500, 12x T1,000, 3x T5,000 for the Main Event. If you look at the footage when the 500 chip is the lowest denomination you'll see people sitting with stacks of them, because by that time 90% of the players have already been eliminated.
 
Once the tournament gets to the point where the 500 chip is the lowest denomination, it's only used for blinds/antes...

While that's true, it's not somehow inherent in the nature of the 500/1000 progression... it's inherent in the fact that we choose the blind progression based on the available chips.

The standard blind progressions work well with 500/1000 because they are chosen with the 500/1000 in mind!

You really can make progressions that work well with any chips you actually choose. Whether or not your players will like and/or be comfortable with them is another matter, entirely!
 
Once the tournament gets to the point where the 500 chip is the lowest denomination, it's only used for blinds/antes, and by that time there should be plenty of them on the table because of the players already eliminated.

The WSOP gives out 12x T25, 12x T100, 3x T500, 12x T1,000, 3x T5,000 for the Main Event. If you look at the footage when the 500 chip is the lowest denomination you'll see people sitting with stacks of them, because by that time 90% of the players have already been eliminated.

However, ^that ^ has no bearing on home game tournaments, unless your home group crowd is much larger than mine.....

A ten-player tournament with 3x T500 chips per player results in only 30 total T500 chips in play.... certainly not "stacks" of them. Even a two-table event would only have 60 total.
 
While that's true, it's not somehow inherent in the nature of the 500/1000 progression... it's inherent in the fact that we choose the blind progression based on the available chips.

The standard blind progressions work well with 500/1000 because they are chosen with the 500/1000 in mind!

You really can make progressions that work well with any chips you actually choose. Whether or not your players will like and/or be comfortable with them is another matter, entirely!

Absolutely true.

However, ^that ^ has no bearing on home game tournaments, unless your home group crowd is much larger than mine.....

A ten-player tournament with 3x T500 chips per player results in only 30 total T500 chips in play.... certainly not "stacks" of them. Even a two-table event would only have 60 total.

There won't be stacks of them, but the numbers will be comparable. In a home game with the same structure you'd have lost 90% of the players as well. So those 60 T500 chips will be distributed over two, maybe 3, players at that time, and that would be more than sufficient.
 
Also late to the party. Huzzah vacation! Now I can catch up on PCF!

I'm all for the T500 to T1000 jump.

Sure, a T2000 may play better, but in my games of ~20 players, the T2000 does not save many chips over the T1000. Is the T500 the purple-headed step child? Sure. It's only purpose is to help out with T100 color-ups, and make bets to 800 or 900 cleaner. That is it's function, and it does it well. After that, as Snooptodd said, it's all about where that comma lays. Can I do the math? Yes. Can I do it after 3 martini's? Yesh... mlaybe.... how mush again? 3 blues and 1 burple?? Fine, I don't need math at all.

If you have to develop an unusual blind structure to work around your unusual T2000 or T2500 chip, then just do away with numbers all together and build your set around x.
Tx
T4x
T20x
T100x

etc. We can all do the math, but who want's to? If I wanted to play "Knowledge Bowl, Math Edition" I would, but Poker is a game where math counts, but can also be secondary to psychology.

Do you want a T-Freud chip as well?
 
If you have to develop an unusual blind structure to work around your unusual T2000 or T2500 chip,

Ah, but that's the beauty of it -- no special structure is needed for a T2000 chip (the horrid T2500 is another story). More to your liking, it also reduces the overall number of chips needed. More T500 chips are required (but they become really useful workhorse chips instead of red-headed stepchildren), but fewer T2000 chips are needed than the T1000 chips they replace. And you need even fewer T10K chips than one would normally need of T5000 (and that's if you need them at all). Further, 25K chips become totally unnecessary (although ballers can go with T50K chips if stratospheric stacks/blinds are desired).

Not that it's a popular notion around here to advocate buying fewer chips, but I know you designed your Zombie set with efficiency and cost-savings in mind. If you'd talked to me first, I could have saved you even ~more~ monies. :cool:
 
I agree the T2000 is more efficient that a T1000, but not to the same levels the T5/T25 comparison. Running with the non-standard T2000 saves me 3 barrels to a rack maybe? Then I'm left with an under-filled birdcage or I need to find a non-standard case.

I could see pitching the idea to a casino mogul though. Their cost savings at something like the WSOP would be huge. This might lead to decreased chip sales and Paulson might return to the home market. Maybe the T2000 isn't sooo bad... :rolleyes:
 
just do away with numbers all together and build your set around x.
Tx
T4x
T20x
T100x

That is pretty close to both exising 1-5-20-100 and 1-5-25-100 breakdowns. I suppose you could design a T4 chip, but....

If building denominations from scratch, don't you think a more efficient breakdown would be:

Tx
T4x
T16x
T48x

unless you wanted to make everything divisible by five, for ease in counting/calculating:

Tx
T5x
T25x
T125x

But that top denomination might still be a little unwieldy. Perhaps this would be easier/better:

Tx
T5x
T25x
T100x

Oh....... that looks familiar. Nevermind. o_O
 
Ya know, you guys are missing the point here. When designing a custom set, use the T500 and T1000 setup. Don't order many T500s because they are the "red-headed stepchildren" and make the T500 chip totally balla with level 11 edge spots. Don't need many and everyone wins.
 
Why bump a thread who's last reply is almost a year old to say you started a thread on roughly the same topic yesterday?
 
Why bump a thread who's last reply is almost a year old to say you started a thread on roughly the same topic yesterday?

Because it seems like I'm not the only guy confused by this. It also seems like there no general consensus on which approach is best (and my gut says there should be, I mean, the WSOP chose their chip denoms for a reason).

So I'm curious to hear what the guys in the thread have learned in the last year since making their decisions (especially OP).

Does that answer your question about why a thread was bumped from a year back where I asked the same question in another thread yesterday?
 
Because it seems like I'm not the only guy confused by this. It also seems like there no general consensus on which approach is best (and my gut says there should be, I mean, the WSOP chose their chip denoms for a reason).

So I'm curious to hear what the guys in the thread have learned in the last year since making their decisions (especially OP).

Does that answer your question about why a thread was bumped from a year back where I asked the same question in another thread yesterday?
Don't see what it will accomplish besides getting two threads of the same topic going. The guys who posted last year are just as likely to read your new thread as they are to read this one so no, really doesn't answer it.

You feel there should be a consensus? Poker rooms use 500/1000 almost exclusively, that work for you? If you're trying to figure out what people in this forum prefer then start a poll... I would guess the majority use 500/1000/5000 but there is a substantial percentage who go 500/2000/10,000.
 
Mummel, here's my guess on why the WSOP does what they do. If they have 250,000 chips, they need more chip denoms than if they skipped it. No matter how illogical it might be, they can't sell (or get a royalty for look-alikes) 250,000 chips. So I honestly doubt it has anything to do with that being logical. Of course, the flaw in this is I'm not sure they have 10,000 and 50,000 chips. I might be wrong, but that's what I've always suspected.
 
WSOP also deals with antes. What a pain if you had a 500-2500, or even a 500-2000 change in chip sizes. Most home games don't use antes, so the 500-2000 ot 500-2500 is irrelevant, and more cost effective.
 
Thinking about it in terms of the chips I was going to label (300 Lucky Derby $3), I prefer: 1K > 2K >>>>>>>>>> 2.5K, although I haven't used a 2K or 2.5K chip in person. I never had the spark of an idea for labels in my mind so I didn't have to decide.

My original idea was for the set to function as a normal sit and go set all the way up to a high roller type set with extravagant denoms. For this, 500-2K-10K would have been better than 500-1K-5K. I do think the non standard denoms could trip some players up though. I was also caught up on the 500-1K progression being only double for whatever reason.
 
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Good luck rationalizing the WSOP chip progression... there's a mix of tradition, availability, convenience based on a several-month gap in play leading to a single-table game...


25, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 25,000, 100,000, 250,000, 500,000
 
WSOP also deals with antes. What a pain if you had a 500-2500, or even a 500-2000 change in chip sizes. Most home games don't use antes, so the 500-2000 ot 500-2500 is irrelevant, and more cost effective.
I don't see why using 500 chips instead of 1k chips for antes is a big deal.

As I said earlier, or in another thread, I agree the 1k chips facilitate people with poor number sense. And we want these people in our games.
 
I don't see why using 500 chips instead of 1k chips for antes is a big deal.

As I said earlier, or in another thread, I agree the 1k chips facilitate people with poor number sense. And we want these people in our games.
Hey! Some of us need all the help we can get!
 
Dumb question, but in a tourney, once there are two players left standing, would they just be using a single type chip. For example, if I bought a set with 25c/$1/$5/$25, when the last 2 are standing in a T10000 game, do they just use $25s ($100 X 16 players = $1,600 / $25 = 64 chips, so 32 each if they had equal stacks)?

Or do they use a combo of the $25 and $5 chips at the end.

I'm just trying to make sure I have enough $25 chips at the end of the game. TY.
 
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