Chip buying advice (2 Viewers)

[L0k1]

Hi everyone,

I got recommended here from r/poker. So right now I have 3 sets of mismatched chips that my friends play home games with, both cash and tournaments.

For christmas my mom gave me a nice 1000 chip rolling case and 150 dollars for new chips. I am looking at buying chips to cover our 25c/50c and also tournament with up to 15 including rebuys. I am hoping to fit all the chips into this 1k case so I can stop bringing multiple to my friends house. I am not worried about using the chips both for cash and for tournament I dont play with any randoms that would poker a chip to try and get it from a cash game later.

We just recently started playing these 25c/50c cash games. So I bought 100 25c and 100 50c chips for it. I would like to have the same style for the rest of the chips and was hoping that you guys could help me get the right amount bought.

If it matters here is the ones I am looking at.

https://www.discountpokershop.com/25pc-135g-monaco-casino-clay-poker-chips-colors-p-605.html

I had something like this but I think the numbers are all wrong:

https://imgur.com/a/E2n93

Honestly I am not stuck on these chips and if you can find me a suggestion on chips with denomations from 25c up to what ever I should use for tournaments.(which I am open too we need to rework how we do tournaments.) and it cost less then 150$ shipped I will consider switching up these chips.

Thanks

 

[Frogzilla]

Those are pretty economical...haven't played with that specific set but likely plastic at 12 cents per chip. If you want to go up in quality "china clays" are about 40 cents per chip and there are some great looking sets. High quality ceramics will run 70 cents per chip, and then custom clay or casino used clay will be $1+ per

It won't work for your cash game, but there is a decent dunes China clay tourney set posted in classifieds earlier todat

 

[Quicksilver-75]

I have a set of these I used to use for tournaments. I relabled them but they are a decent chip for the money. Personally I would look at what our classifieds have as far as used China clay sets go. Or check out www.apachepokerchips.com and look at what he has. The Monaco are nice but any China clays are substantially better and will offer a resale value of you ever need to flog them.

 

[upNdown]

The amounts of chips you're looking to order don't make a lot of sense to me from a tournament perspective. What are your starting stacks and starting blinds for your tournament (or what do you want them to be?) There's lots of things that will work, as long as the structure is good, but I can't figure out what you're trying to do.
For example, the most common tournament starting blinds are 25/50. For a structure like that, the most common starting stacks would have 12 x 25 chips, 12 x 100 chips, and then a number of 500's and 1000's (and maybe a 5,000 or two if you're playing deep.) So on the tournament end of things, for a structure like that, for the number of players you've proposed, you might be looking for 200 x 25 chips and 200 x 100 chips.
We need more details on exactly how your tournament works.
Whatever you decide to do, there's very little use for $10 chips or $50 chips in most sets.

 

[Quicksilver-75]

What upNdown said. I however use a ten in my sets as well as a twenty. You won't need any abundance of them though. They are handy for rebuys. Especially when you can hand the chip leader a $10/$20 chip and take smaller denoms to issue the rebuy. But yeah. Try to keep usable chip values at the 4x/5x ratios. 1,5,20/25, 100/200.....ect.

 

[Frogzilla]

The amounts of chips you're looking to order don't make a lot of sense to me from a tournament perspective. What are your starting stacks and starting blinds for your tournament (or what do you want them to be?) There's lots of things that will work, as long as the structure is good, but I can't figure out what you're trying to do.
For example, the most common tournament starting blinds are 25/50. For a structure like that, the most common starting stacks would have 12 x 25 chips, 12 x 100 chips, and then a number of 500's and 1000's (and maybe a 5,000 or two if you're playing deep.) So on the tournament end of things, for a structure like that, for the number of players you've proposed, you might be looking for 200 x 25 chips and 200 x 100 chips.
We need more details on exactly how your tournament works.
Whatever you decide to do, there's very little use for $10 chips or $50 chips in most sets.

Although, on a $150 budget, why not use cash game denominations for a tournament? 25c/50c blinds should work just the same, even though it isn't common

 

[BGinGA]

Hi everyone,

I got recommended here from r/poker.

Welcome to PCF.

right now I have 3 sets of mismatched chips that my friends play home games with, both cash and tournaments.

I am not worried about using the chips both for cash and for tournament

Using the same chip set for both cash and tournaments is not recommended. The opportunity for disaster (even accidental, not just intentional) is just too high. But ultimately, it is your wallet and reputation that will suffer for it, so if you're willing to take on that very real risk, so be it.

We just recently started playing these 25c/50c cash games. So I bought 100 25c and 100 50c chips for it. I would like to have the same style for the rest of the chips and was hoping that you guys could help me get the right amount bought.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, having denominations that are closer than 4x apart is a very inefficient way to construct a chip set, and can lead to spending more than necessary to accomplish the same chip set goals. You have already screwed the pooch in this regard, with your purchase of 100 x 25c and 100 x 50c chips. You would have been much better off skipping the 50c chips and going directly to $1 chips (which are 4x the 25c chips). There is nothing that a 50c chip can do that two quarters cannot accomplish.

For christmas my mom gave me a nice 1000 chip rolling case and 150 dollars for new chips. I am looking at buying chips to cover our 25c/50c and also tournament with up to 15 including rebuys.

I would like to have the same style for the rest of the chips and was hoping that you guys could help me get the right amount bought.

If it matters here is the ones I am looking at.

https://www.discountpokershop.com/25pc-135g-monaco-casino-clay-poker-chips-colors-p-605.html

A maximum budget of $150 for a dual-purpose chip set is a pretty tall order, and will limit both the quality and quantity of chips available to you for purchase. In the 15c/chip low-end segment of the chip market, I think there are better options than the Monaco chips you already purchased. But if you have already purchased chips, and want subsequent chips to match, then you're pretty much stuck with those injection-molded plastic chips with metal slugs inside, sold in increments of 25 chips. Your stated budget ceiling pretty much rules out any chips costing more than 19c each.


For your 25c/50c cash game:

• you will need at least 100 x 25c chips per table (it's not clear if your cash game runs on just one table or two).
• you do not need 50c chips
• you will need at least 100 x $1 chips per table, and 200 per table would be better
• you need enough $5 chips to handle re-loads, and this is highly crowd-dependent

That puts your estimated cash chip requirements at around 350 chips per table (100 x 25c, 200 x $1, 50 x $5).


If going with a dual purpose set, you need the following for your 16-player two-table tournaments using $100 starting stacks (8/8/8/2):

• 150 x .25
• 150 x $1
• 150 x $5
• 50 x $25

That puts the two-table tourney set requirements at 500 chips, with plenty of chips for color-ups and re-buys.

Combined, you're looking at the following set (assuming two tables):

• 200 x .25
• 400 x $1
• 150 x $5
• 50 x $25

or a total of 800 chips designed to be used for both cash and tourney.



However, if you want to use different denominations for tournaments vs cash (highly recommended), I recommend a T100-base set using 20K stacks (10/4/7/2):

• 175 x .$100
• 75 x $500
• 150 x $1000
• 50 x $5000

for a total of 450 dedicated tournament chips.

Combining those with your two-table cash set requirements, you get:

• 200 x 25c
• 400 x $1
• 100 x $5
• 175 x .$100
• 75 x $500
• 150 x $1000
• 50 x $5000

for a total of 1150 chips. You can cut back 50x each of the 25c/$1/$5 chips to meet your maximum 1000-chip limit. Budget-wise, 1000 chips will cost $120 plus shipping.

However, if you are only running one cash table, then the combined set looks like this:

• 100 x 25c
• 200 x $1
• 50 x $5
• 175 x .$100
• 75 x $500
• 150 x $1000
• 50 x $5000

for a total of 800 chips.

 

[v1pe]

This question looks familiar... Some wise person to recommend you come here for advice!

Welcome to PCF!

 

[Pablito]

These ones from the same website and same budget are at casino weight...

https://www.discountpokershop.com/25pc-95g-roman-times-true-clay-poker-chips-colors-p-662.html

I.e. Roman times chips

The weighted 14 gram chips typically have a metal slug inside. I don't know where/when the market demand for these hefty chips started. However, traditional casino chips weigh around 10 grams, give or take. If possible, get samples first.

Be sure to check out Jon Hobby's hobbyphillic youtube videos for general info.

Cheers

 

[MaxB]

Just for the record...I am a major Paulson snob. Since I started getting into chips, my sets have always been Paulsons and they continue to be Paulsons. That being said, I sold off my Aztar tournament set and picked up 2000 of these in their place (for hosting charity tournaments): https://www.apachepokerchips.com/product/monaco-club-poker-chips/

For the money, they are actually pretty good. They are heavier than Paulsons but feel ok when using. With $150, you can easily get a set of 800 chips with shipping (y) :thumbsup:

Ran out of racks so 100 are not pictured

 

[BGinGA]

Agreed, the spade & sword molds are some of the nicer chips in the low-end 15c/chip segment.

 

[Pablito]

Let's build a time machine so we can go back to 2003 and scoop up all the Paulson NPS, Noir, Pharaohs, Classic, and THC chips.

 

[L0k1]

Hey everyone, thank you for your replies. It means a lot you taking the time to write all these detailed reponses.

To clear things up. We never run 2 table cash. Only about half my friends feel comfortable enough to play cash. So that's a Max of one table cash.

We do some times get 2 tables for tournaments though. I understand my tournament structure sucks and I am open to buying chips and running a new structure.

Also I am okay with pulling the 100 50c chips out of the cash set. I wish I would have done the research on that before I bought them.

Thanks

 

[MD Mike]

Let's build a time machine so we can go back to 2003 and scoop up all the Paulson NPS, Noir, Pharaohs, Classic, and THC chips.

We don’t have to go back in time for that. We are still trying to scoop them all up!

Just at 2-4$ a pop instead of $1.25