Playing penny stakes, that set might leave you a bit short. Even with college kids, I think paying $20 a person is pretty foreseeable
I can't say I agree - if the blinds are 1/2, then there will also be lots of limping and betting with the singles. In a 1/2 game, I see lots of bets that are not 5 or 10 or 15, so singles get used for all of those. The single is a workhorse, here.
Even with college kids, I think paying $20 a person is pretty foreseeable
Yes, it's possible they'll bump the stakes - especially if too many people start playing poorly because they don't care about losing another $2. But I can't agree that $20 a person is pretty foreseeable if it's really a 1/2 game. It's very unusual for the average stack to be 1,000 big blinds. And remember, the winners won't have been rebuying so much... so you're talking about people buying in for well over ten full buy-ins of 100 BB.
Also, we're talking about a cash game, not a tournament. If this penny game manages to get all the 500 and 100 chips in play, that's $150 in buys... subsequent twenty-dollar bills can simply play. "Cash on the table plays" is the standard rule in cash poker games.
Still, I don't see cash on the table as very likely unless they start playing a penny game at 2/4 or 3/6... but again, a couple Yuppie Food Coupons on the table is not a big deal.
This is probably a big part of why
@BGinGA advocated 200/200/100 - a game with an even smaller total bank! Why? Those 25's are going to get a lot more use and be very effective in game. Even when there's cash on the table, the cash sits at the big stacks. It doesn't get played, except for the occasional all-in. So keeping as many chips as possible at the 25-level makes the actually "playing" zone better.
The chips, after all, are most useful in the "working zone" where bets are made and called, where stacks get matched, etc. Once you get to the "all-in," it doesn't matter that much - usually, you don't go much further than figuring out who covers whom, and stacks don't even get pushed around until the hand is settled. So there's no problem handling cash; it just sits there.
Plus it covers the 5c/10c middle ground before the game grows to face value.
I do see the game growing. My first college game - in the early 90's - was 7-stud, played spread-limit, 1-5. It didn't play well as a penny game; the bets and raises were never enough to make anyone who fold who felt like seeing more cards. We ended up going to a nickel game and then a dime game. The time game worked, and it stuck around for years. (If we were playing no-limit, we would not have needed to go as high as a dime game.)
That being said, a set denominated for a 1/2 game can play many levels easily:
Penny game: $1 buys 100 in chips.
Nickel game: $5 buys 100 in chips.
Dime game: $10 buys 100 in chips.
Quarter game: $25 buys 100 in chips.
Of course, once you get to a quarter game, it really does start to beg for busting out 25-cent denominated chips and playing at face value
I would like to know if you agree with the above breakdown of chips. I'm going to do the denominations, $1 will equal 1 cent. I have not heard of anybody making a 50 cent bet, but I could see where that is possible.
