Why would you prefer 43mm over 39mm for all chips in play? (1 Viewer)

chippitydoodah

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Just watched an episode of Super High Stakes Poker at The Lodge and it was apparent they all had 43mm chips. I gotta be honest they looked delicious to shuffle and stack. I've never played with all 43mm chips only higher denoms. What are your experiences playing with 43mm chips in your home sets vs 39mm? Pros & Cons.
 
Pros: They're larger, more room for artwork, stack better, fun to shuffle, feel sturdier.


Cons: If your players are casino fans, they might prefer the smaller 39mm. Require more room to store.


My players love the 43mm; even bigger than dice chips. They aren't casino players so that's the only comparison they have.
 
If the chips have some amazing artwork like the DDLMs, then that right there is a reason to go bigger.

But I also like the feel of the larger chips.
 
I think the $1k and $5k chips at the lodge are 50mm

From one of Doug Polk’s videos:
A5461E7A-746E-415E-97B7-54650E78CAFA.png
 
I have 2 43 mm sets as of now. While I am a huge fan of the 43 mm chip, I found that I didn’t like the full set of 43 mm as much as I thought I would. I think it takes away from the hi denomination chips when they come out (and hi denomination is relative to the stakes you are playing). I think the sweet spot for 5/10 and up is 39 mm up thru $100s and 43 mm for $500 and up. For lower stakes, I would say the one/two highest denominations that get into play should be 43 mm. When the big boys hit the felt they make a statement and players love having a lot of them.
CA2EAB67-E873-4708-B7F4-A2259CA87171.jpeg
717BAAD1-2B73-465F-A971-66226D350C86.jpeg

Typical set up:
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I have 2 43 mm sets as of now. While I am a huge fan of the 43 mm chip, I found that I didn’t like the full set of 43 mm as much as I thought I would. I think it takes away from the hi denomination chips when they come out (and hi denomination is relative to the stakes you are playing). I think the sweet spot for 5/10 and up is 39 mm up thru $100s and 43 mm for $500 and up. For lower stakes, I would say the one/two highest denominations that get into play should be 43 mm. When the big boys hit the felt they make a statement and players love having a lot of them.
View attachment 1128589View attachment 1128590
Typical set up:
View attachment 1128593
Like now it's "big boy: time! Love that
 
I have 2 43 mm sets as of now. While I am a huge fan of the 43 mm chip, I found that I didn’t like the full set of 43 mm as much as I thought I would. I think it takes away from the hi denomination chips when they come out (and hi denomination is relative to the stakes you are playing). I think the sweet spot for 5/10 and up is 39 mm up thru $100s and 43 mm for $500 and up. For lower stakes, I would say the one/two highest denominations that get into play should be 43 mm. When the big boys hit the felt they make a statement and players love having a lot of them.
View attachment 1128589View attachment 1128590
Typical set up:
View attachment 1128593
I would agree so for my .25/.50 ceramic set (43) I went with a $20 47 ( from br pro) pic in sig (Icarus)
 
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About the only time my players have ever commented on my chips is when I broke out the all 43mm Sunset Beach set. I like these big chips they said.

For the Bellagio I decided to go 39mm up to the $5 and 43mm $20 chip. Went with fewer $5s than normal just to try to get the $20s in play.

The 43mms definitely stack better.
 
I could go either way. 43mm are awesome. Going back to 39mm for an upcoming session takes a bit of getting used to for me. I would never mix them.
 
I wouldn’t prefer a whole set of 43mm. There is a reason the game settled down to 39mm: It’s an optimal size for a large number of people all with different fingers.

I don’t like shuffling 43mm+ chips and they are worse to handle. And I have long fingers.

I *do* like adding a few 43mm high denoms to a mainly 39mm cash set to reduce the chances that someone either throws in a big chip by mistake. Also larger ones are a little harder for anyone to hide their high value chips among the smaller workhorse chips, as some anglers try to do when everything is the same size.

For tourneys I’ll also sometimes make the larger color-up chips 43mm. These only come out in the late stages, and signal that “Hey, you’re getting close to the money, now the big chips come out.” But that’s mostly for fun/drama. (OK, my chipper’s idea of “drama” is probably not shared by my regs.)
 
I think 43mm is the best size. I think it's more fun to rake pots full of big chips and they generally sound better. Personally I think they might be a bit eaiser to shuffle than 39mm. I do think 48mm and 50mm is too big. 43mm is the sweet spot in my mind.
 
There is a reason the game settled down to 39mm: It’s an optimal size for a large number of people all with different fingers.
I dont think this it is fair to assume, that 39mm is optimal for people because it's used more; might instead be optimal for the purchasers/casinos because its less clay and easier to store.
 
I dont think this it is fair to assume, that 39mm is optimal for people because it's used more; might instead be optimal for the purchasers/casinos because its less clay and easier to store.

This is something I’ve actually researched for my long-running book project... Amazingly, the same 39mm/1.5" size has been the standard going back almost 150 years—no matter what material is used, including early “clays,” acetates, various composites, bakelite and other resins, ceramics, plastics/injection molds, etc.

If anything, the cost and availability of materials has steadily gone down over time, making economics less of a consideration. My research suggests that the widespread, parallel and virtually unanimous decision to settle on this 39mm/1.5" size arose first and foremost from ergonomic, not economic, considerations which developed organically over decades of trial-and-error.

And if economic and storage considerations were the main factor, you would expect companies to be using the major advances in both material options and mass-production techniques to be shaving a mm or two here or there off the 39mm standard—same way that cereal boxes keep getting verrrry slightly smaller with less and less actual cereal inside the bag.

You’d also expect them also to try to make chips *thinner*, if even just by a fraction of a millimeter... But neither is happening. Why? I believe it’s because the standard dimensions and thicknesses used by Paulson/GPI, ASM/CPC, etc. are not just familiar to people, but actually ideal from a usability standpoint.

Both smaller and larger size chips that were tried at various times have by now either been eliminated completely, or else relegated to specialty runs (e.g. chips for children, the occasional 36mm tourney chips, and more gaudy showcase chips at 43mm+ sizes).

Much the same can be said about cards: The standard size and ratio of dimensions (what we now call “poker size”) has been shockingly almost completely unchanged since the late 18th century. It’s hard to think of many other products which have been so consistent overtime.

Card makers, too, had every economic incentive to make cards smaller, especially back when cards were made of laboriously-produced papers with a high cloth content, and strenuously inked by hand or on old-fashioned presses. Yet once the current standard size was arrived at (through another long process of trial-and-error), there was a widespread recognition across manufacturers and regions of the world that that this was the best size for the most people.

It’s a lot like countless other everyday objects such as doorknobs or computer keyboard keys or mop handles... After decades or even centuries of making such things, producers of these goods see what the optimal size range should be for the largest percentage of users. You can deviate from them, and sometimes manufacturers do; but people are not just going to dislike the change from what’s familiar, many are actually going to have trouble using the product.
 
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