Controversial Chip & Poker Opinions (61 Viewers)

What I think creates so much distaste around Tinas isn’t the underlying product. It’s how it’s being used to mass replicate existing designs.
Bingo.

The greek key chips themselves are almost unbelievable how nice they are for the price.

Are they even remotely close to cpc, Paulson, TRK etc? Hell no. But at the price it’s near impossible to compete especially for those that want something custom and unique to them.
 
shadowy Chinese “Tina” is a bit of a turn off.
scary-asian-horror-movies-u1.jpg
 
I also think if SunFly, BR PRo or another vendor had come out with them and had marketed them people would feel different but the shadowy Chinese “Tina” is a bit of a turn off.
IP issues aside, it’s easy for plenty of us to attack Tina because we’d rather support a forum vendor or a made in America product. But talk is cheap and we’re all hypocrites to some extent (that’s why Walmart put all the mom and pops out of business and now Amazon is putting Walmarts out of business while we all chant ‘shop local.’) If Tina can put out a product that’s more than 50% as good for less than 50% of the price, it’s going to sell. And a lot of us are going to feel a little dirty about it (said as I tear open my pack of phone screen protectors, just delivered to my door.)
 
Tina and @justincarothers and Danny offering so many custom solutions has salvaged Tina’s business model of not simply just copying live casino chips (not controversial just adding in to the convo).
 
Tina and @justincarothers offering so many custom solutions has salvaged Tina’s business model of copying live casino chips (not controversial just adding in to the convo).
That’s an interesting point, but personally I have a hard time believing that Tina chooses to do something else INSTEAD of printing Arias, if she could do something else AND continue printing Arias.
I suspect forces have gotten in the way of her printing live casino chips, like maybe nobody wants to risk distributing them.
So for me, a guy who dislikes copies of dead casino chips as much as live ones, this isn’t at all persuasive.
Make your own designs, people!
 
You’d be surprised. I don’t really wander through those sections though. These are enough for me.

View attachment 1293101

Apparently there is a section for “replica” cars. The site owner doesn’t understand it but it exists.

I bet the PCF politics sub forum is just as spicy as theirs.
Thanks for that. I just wore out my mouse trying to open the Official side boob bottom boob thread. :mad:
 
Here’s a potentially controversial question - what’s fair value for those MGM fracs?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. With rare exceptions, I think no live chip is worth more than 30% above face value. Because that seems wildly incongruous with the actual market for fracs I’ll say I think live fracs can reasonably cost 2x face.

But what is fair market value? Idk all the frac flippers consistently boast about how many sales they’re getting. Is this real? Who knows? Does that means their prices are fair market value? Some would say yes.
 
I’ll say I think live fracs can reasonably cost 2x face.
But you must know that the price out of the factory for Paulsons is over a buck a chip. So that seems like a good starting point for what they’re worth. And demand will push their market value up plenty.

I don’t know that their face value has much impact on what they’re actually worth. I guess I could fly to Michigan, pay for a hotel, blow the money necessary at whatever wacky table game uses fracs, and then steal the fracs from the casino. Do the math on that and they’re gonna cost a lot more than 2x face value too.
 
Partly because we are all assholes up here, but also because to them, dollars are white and fives are red and twenty-fives are green, so let’s just play some goddamned poker. They’re still annoyed that I use $20s instead of $25s, and do you know what I’ve eventually learned? They’re right.

No, they’re babies.

If they play regularly at your house they can learn your unique chip colors and denoms. It’s really not hard.

Last year I replaced my Cali-colored suits mold cash set with a completely non-standard custom THC set.

I had only one reg who was flummoxed by the brown $5 chip.

The mustard $25 and orange $100? No confusion.

But it took him a couple games to get the $5. Even though it is used by everyone as their big blind every hand. Even though the whole table gets starting stacks made up mainly of barrels of brown chips.

Now after a few games he has finally stopped asking. He was the lone exception. So I have the chips I want and the players all know my set well.

I guess if I went to a game where the host consciously decided to screw with everyone’s head and do a red $1, green $5 and white $25, that would seem gratuitously obnoxious. But after a couple orbits I’d forget about it and just play.
 
Last edited:
I think there are many customs that are trash, but they just don’t get torn apart because they are customs that someone spent their time and money on. And the owner loves em so that’s what matters in the end.

Agreed. Though as someone who has done some graphic work and written about design, I admit I am sometimes biting my tongue about people’s clunky inlays.

Doing typography and iconography well, then cramming it into a 7/8"-1" circle isn’t easy. There are so many ways to blow it. But I try not to hand out design parking tickets, if I can restrain my opinionated nature.
 
No, they’re babies.

If they play regularly at your house they can learn you chip colors and denoms. It’s really not hard.

I replaced my Cali-colored suits mold cash set with a completely non-standard custom THC set.

I had only one reg who was flummoxed by my brown $5 chip. The mustard $25 and orange $100? No confusion. But it took him a couple games to get the $5. Even though it is used by everyone as their big blind every hand.

Now after a few games he has stopped asking. I have the chips I want and the players know my set well.
Okay, my friends are babies. I must be one too, because I pretty much agree with them. If you want non-standard colors, go nuts. But I don't have to like them, and that was my point. We're all entitled to like chips for whatever reasons we want. Somebody insisting a chipset is good doesn't make it so.
 
Okay, my friends are babies. I must be one too, because I pretty much agree with them. If you want non-standard colors, go nuts. But I don't have to like them, and that was my point. We're all entitled to like chips for whatever reasons we want. Somebody insisting a chipset is good doesn't make it so.

I dunno, to me it just sounds like maybe you gave up too soon on your preferred plan.

Change takes a little time to stick. Many people’s taste is reactionary — if it’s new or different, there will always be people who turn up their nose automatically and try to avoid adapting.

But they usually get over it and expand their taste, if the person making the change doesn’t cave in immediately.

Many young children put up a fight when they are presented with a new food. The solution is not to say, oh OK fine kid, you can eat Frosted Flakes and french fries three meals a day. You encourage them to try the green beans. And if necessary, give them no other option. Eventually, they try them and like them.

(I have an aunt who absolutely indulged her daughter about meals. Unlike my parents, who just said “Here’s our dinner, time for us to eat,” my aunt made every upcoming meal a multiple choice game. “Honey, do you want this or this? Neither? How about this? No? OK, what do you want? We don’t have that, I can go to the store…You can imagine how this kid turned out.)

And yes, many adult poker players act like children when it comes to anything new. The reactions to four-color decks is an example I’ve noted many times before.

Though objectively more usable, reactionary minds bridle at the switch. But after a few orbits or games people forget their initial reaction and either get used to them or come to prefer them.
 
Last edited:
But you must know that the price out of the factory for Paulsons is over a buck a chip. So that seems like a good starting point for what they’re worth.

Ya but we see live Vegas $1s sell for close to or not much more than 30% above face all the time when (from my understanding) the Paulson price is surely above that. Especially for housemolds where you have to amortize the upfront mold cost over all the chips purchased.

But as I said, my proposal is not remotely valid for determining secondary market pricing as your second paragraph elaborates.
 
I dunno, to me it just sounds like maybe you gave up too soon on your preferred plan.

Change takes a little time to stick. Many people’s taste is reactionary — if it’s new or different, there will always be people who turn up their nose automatically and try to avoid adapting.

But they usually get over it and expand their taste, if the person making the change doesn’t cave in immediately.

Many young children put up a fight when they are presented with a new food. The solution is not to say, oh OK fine kid, you can eat Frosted Flakes and french fries three meals a day. You encourage them to try green beans. And if necessary, give them no other option.

And yes, many adult poker players act like children when it comes to anything new. The reactions to four-color decks is an example I’ve noted many times before.

Though objectively more usable, reactionary minds bridle at the switch. But after a few orbits or games people forget their initial reaction and either get used to them or come to prefer them.
I haven't given up on anything. We still use the twenties, I just agree with them that 25s would be better. Because that's what we're all used to.

And you're right about changes. But I don't think changing denominations or chips colors is a change worth making - there's no benefit to wacky color chips.
 
Sounds like the first requirement of HoF is ‘chips must be made by CPC:unsure: :ROFL: :ROFLMAO: … because even custom Paulsons that are not made for the masses and are truly one of a kind are not considered ‘custom’ enough … even though they are not available for sale. :tup:
 
Opinion: You can start with a solid Paulson fantasy set, and take it to near GOAT status by simply swapping out the weakest denomination with live Paulson chips.

Example: The NPS set is about as good as it gets from $25 up with the bright colors people like, but has pretty boring 1s and 5s. In this example I simply swapped the plain 1 for a similar 1 from Aqua Cliente Cathedral City, that perfectly ties the set together. GOAT?


IMG_0747.jpeg
 
Opinion: You can start with a solid Paulson fantasy set, and take it to near GOAT status by simply swapping out the weakest denomination with live Paulson chips.

Example: The NPS set is about as good as it gets from $25 up with the bright colors people like, but has pretty boring 1s and 5s. In this example I simply swapped the plain 1 for a similar 1 from Aqua Cliente Cathedral City, that perfectly ties the set together. GOAT?


View attachment 1295075
If it makes you happy go for it.

The different mold, inlay size and lack of progression (multi colour spots to monotone) would be too much of an obstacle to me.
 
I have 5 tournament sets. Two are non denom. All but one have green :5 black 100 purple 500 so even though there are no printed denoms the colors are standard. The one non standard set has denoms but only on one side which would tilt others, but not my guys. Both cash sets have denominations on both sides so there’s no confusion because one has white $1 while the other has blue.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Back
Top Bottom