Cash Game Good enough for one table (cash or tourney)? (1 Viewer)

[MaxB]

here's the breakdown of what I have.... I'd like opinions on yay/nay , get more of that, lose these, etc.

Sorry for a lot of questions, but I'm trying to put together my perfect chip sets

Cash chips: usually 5-9 people $20 buy in with either .25/.50 or .50/1.00 blinds, no limit. Not very high stakes
Here's what I have/will have soon:

0.10 (0) really needed? was thinking of getting 100 of these instead of 100 quarters
0.25 (280 of the $25) ... or 100 dedicated 25 cents (instead of dimes)
0.50 (100) ....working on getting these
1.00 (300)
2.50 (200) .... probably dumping most of these
5.00 (150) .... probably dumping some of these
10.00 (30)

Tourney chips: again usually 5-9 people but would love the option of having two tables. No limit with blinds starting at 25/50. We start with 5000 stacks and usually do rebuys the first hour
here's what I have/will have soon:

25 (280)
100 (300)
500 (80)
1000 (40)
2500 (12)
5000 (6)

Since just about everyone here has collected longer than I have (and has many more sets/chips), feel free to fire away suggestions.

Thx
Chris

 

[manamongkids]

Ideally for a .25/.50 NL game your $1 chips are going to be your workhorse chip. The only denominations you should have in play would be .25c $1s and maybe a single $5 on a $20 buyin.

If you move up to .50/1. Your $1 and $5 will be your workhorse, and the .25c will be mostly used for blind purposes. You could get away with 1 rack of .25c for .50/1

For .25/.50, you should have at least 2 racks (200) or more of .25c

 

[MaxB]

good to know about the quarters...... it's not too late for me to get a second rack of those to custom label them (unless I use the $25 which I have enough)

 

[chipjoker]

Here is my Ideal breakdown for 6-9 players (sometimes 10) with $40-$100 BUY-IN @.25/.50 blinds: My players us mostly 1's and 5's and we do not make change as offten as I thought I would when I started with this breakdown.

100 - $ .25
100 - $1
100 - $5
40 - $25
10 - $100

This is my Ideal breakdown (Partial OCD) This will fill out 4 racks.

100 - $ .25
120 - $1
120 - $5
50 - $25
10 - $100

 

[detroitdad]

For a .25/.50 game, 10 player max this is what I would do.

125 x .25 (12 per player)
200 x 1 (17 per player)

above gives you your 20.00 buy in.

Since your buy in is only 20 bucks. You could get away with only buying fives for rebuys and add on's. 100 would probably suffice.

100 x 5's
40 x 25's

Question: Does the buy in increase when you play .5/1? If so then you might need to adjust the stacks above.

I routinely host a 10 player cash game at .25/.50 blinds with an 80.00 buy in. 600 chips is more than enough. Our game plays more like an active .5/1 or even 1/2 .

You don't need the .10 chips at all.

 

[manamongkids]

I would say that you need to choose between .25c or .50c chips. Having both is overkill IMO

 

[jbutler]

I would say that you need to choose between .25c or .50c chips. Having both is overkill IMO

agreed. i have both for my set, but each for specific individual purposes and they're never on the table at the same time.

i played in a regular game for a while with all the following denoms: .25/.50/1/2/5/10. god forbid two big stacks go all in. thank god an accountant ran the game.

 

[detroitdad]

25/.50/1/2/5/10

I play in a game that is quite similar. Thank god its only a couple of times a year.

.25, .50, 2.50, 5, 10, 20. All are on the table at the same time minus the 20's. Its just horrible.

 

[Mental Nomad]

$20 buy-ins for a $.25/$.50 game are only 40 bb - you're short stacked at the start. I'd recommend playing a $.25/.25 game or a bit/quarter game, so that people can learn more/better poker without having to double up to approach a full stack.

That said...

I don't think you need the dimes at all, except if you want to use them for SB in a $.10/.25 game. If so, you don't need more than 40, but 80 (ten per player, average) is plenty.

Quarters - a workhorse chip. Get plenty. I'm not tilted by $25's, but don't plan to use them for the cash side game while a tourney is running!

Halves - don't need. In a $.50/1.00 game, a pair of quarters does your small blind just fine. (If you had no quarters, I'd advocate for 80 halves for small blinds. Or else, if you're unlimited on budget, get the halves.)

Dollars - a workhorse chip. Get plenty.

Snappers - dump. They are a specialty chip for a specialty set/game. Mind you, I personally love the idea of a set built from .50 / 2.50 / 10.00 / 50.00. This may tilt others.

Fives - do not lose them! In a $1 game, they are a workhorse! You can get by with $10s if you have a lot of singles, but a 5x ratio is well-accepted and plays well. Not everyone is pleased with a 10x jump. (Side note: fives are a workhorse in a full-stacked $.50/1.00 game, but that means buy-ins of more like $100. Your group may get there, eventually.)

Tens - skip them. On a set built of ones and fives, they are not a big enough multiple to really get you leverage. The time/cost/effort will pay off better with $20s or $25s.

To figure total bank needs, I'm beginning to like this formula:

Take you max players (9) times your buy-in (20) and quadruple it (for massive rebuy night.) That's a bank of $720 for your small game, bearing in mind that those buy-ins are short-stacked.
If you guys work your way up to fuller $50 buy-ins on the $.25/.50 game, that's 9 * 50 * 4 = $1800. After your fives and dollars are accounted for, I'd build up to this number with $20s or $25s.

Your dollar game ought to work its way towards double that... but you can add $2000 in bank with a single barrel of $100s. You may nearly never need the hundos.. but trust me, the players will get a rise out of it every time you bring one into play on a big rebuy in lieu of a stack of $20s or $25s.

You may never threaten those banks with your current players... but you don't know who will be playing with you in a couple of years; it may be a whole different crowd.

I think your group would have a blast if you all saved up and played a "deep stack poker night" and all bought in with $100 playing $.25/.50 blinds Implied odds go up; reverse implied odds go up; people will be protecting their stacks, not just protecting their pots - the depth of poker increases... Nine people buying in for $100 already pops the $720 bank.

 

[TexRex]

I agree with Mental Nomad! Here's my specific thoughts:

0.10 (0) really needed? was thinking of getting 100 of these instead of 100 quarters .10 NOT needed! You might want to go with .05 given the buy-in. As Nomad said, your buy-in is very short stacked, so you really need a lower value chip at those stakes.
0.25 (280 of the $25) ... or 100 dedicated 25 cents (instead of dimes) Good!
0.50 (100) ....working on getting these Not needed, and useless when you have .25 and/or 1.00
1.00 (300) Good!
2.50 (200) .... probably dumping most of these Not needed, and odd to go from 1.00 to 2.50. Not divisible at all.
5.00 (150) .... probably dumping some of these I'd keep these, especially if you already have them!
10.00 (30) Not needed -- go with either 20.00 or 25.00 instead. I personally like 20.00 for cash chips, but that just my preference.

Tourney chips: again usually 5-9 people but would love the option of having two tables. No limit with blinds starting at 25/50. We start with 5000 stacks and usually do rebuys the first hour
here's what I have/will have soon:

25 (280) Great!
100 (300) Great!
500 (80) Great, and probably about the right number!
1000 (40) Need more -- at least 200-250.
2500 (12) Don't need.
5000 (6) This depends on several things, but I personally like 5000s want at least as many as it took to color up the lower value chips. Min of 60, but I'd like probably double that, and maybe more depending on how deep stacked you like your tournament. I personally also have 25,000s that though I don't have a lot of them, we are using at the end of tournaments. We have really deep stacks -- start at 25/50 with 25,000 in starting chips.

 

[Poker Jedi]

$20 buy-ins for a $.25/$.50 game are only 40 bb - you're short stacked at the start. I'd recommend playing a $.25/.25 game or a bit/quarter game, so that people can learn more/better poker without having to double up to approach a full stack.

That said...

I don't think you need the dimes at all, except if you want to use them for SB in a $.10/.25 game. If so, you don't need more than 40, but 80 (ten per player, average) is plenty.

Quarters - a workhorse chip. Get plenty. I'm not tilted by $25's, but don't plan to use them for the cash side game while a tourney is running!

Halves - don't need. In a $.50/1.00 game, a pair of quarters does your small blind just fine. (If you had no quarters, I'd advocate for 80 halves for small blinds. Or else, if you're unlimited on budget, get the halves.)

Dollars - a workhorse chip. Get plenty.

Snappers - dump. They are a specialty chip for a specialty set/game. Mind you, I personally love the idea of a set built from .50 / 2.50 / 10.00 / 50.00. This may tilt others.

Fives - do not lose them! In a $1 game, they are a workhorse! You can get by with $10s if you have a lot of singles, but a 5x ratio is well-accepted and plays well. Not everyone is pleased with a 10x jump. (Side note: fives are a workhorse in a full-stacked $.50/1.00 game, but that means buy-ins of more like $100. Your group may get there, eventually.)

Tens - skip them. On a set built of ones and fives, they are not a big enough multiple to really get you leverage. The time/cost/effort will pay off better with $20s or $25s.

To figure total bank needs, I'm beginning to like this formula:

Take you max players (9) times your buy-in (20) and quadruple it (for massive rebuy night.) That's a bank of $720 for your small game, bearing in mind that those buy-ins are short-stacked.
If you guys work your way up to fuller $50 buy-ins on the $.25/.50 game, that's 9 * 50 * 4 = $1800. After your fives and dollars are accounted for, I'd build up to this number with $20s or $25s.

Your dollar game ought to work its way towards double that... but you can add $2000 in bank with a single barrel of $100s. You may nearly never need the hundos.. but trust me, the players will get a rise out of it every time you bring one into play on a big rebuy in lieu of a stack of $20s or $25s.

You may never threaten those banks with your current players... but you don't know who will be playing with you in a couple of years; it may be a whole different crowd.

I think your group would have a blast if you all saved up and played a "deep stack poker night" and all bought in with $100 playing $.25/.50 blinds Implied odds go up; reverse implied odds go up; people will be protecting their stacks, not just protecting their pots - the depth of poker increases... Nine people buying in for $100 already pops the $720 bank.

great post, lots of good points here. I much prefer deep stack play, which is why I will most likely start my home cash game with .05 \ .10 or maybe .10 \ .25 but will see how it goes. working in a casino I like the snappers too, will end up with some eventually if for no other reason then i can play blackjack sometimes.

 

[courage]

Get rid of the .10, .50, 2.50, and 10. For NL and two tables a good breakdown at the 1000 chip set you're proposing would be:

180 x 25c
200 x $1
500 x $5
100 x $20 or $25
20 x $100

 

[MaxB]

ok, so I think I'll get a couple hundred custom 25 cent chips done up. That way I keep the $25 chips separate in the tourney set. The 10 cent chips idea I will scratch. I have 30 $10 chips already (custom labels).... I may just dump those. I'll keep a small amount of 2.50's, but dump the majority of them. Keep most or all of the 1's and 5's. I think I may keep the 50 cent chips though

 

[chipjoker]

I play in a game that is quite similar. Thank god its only a couple of times a year.

.25, .50, 2.50, 5, 10, 20. All are on the table at the same time minus the 20's. Its just horrible.

THE HORROR.......I have had lots of .25 on the table in the past and when poeple started betting 18 quarters and ALL in quarters, I now limit the amount of .25 on the table. For Re-buy's, I now use $5's or $25's and if we have had 5 or more buy-in for hundo and then someone wants a hundo I break out the HUNDO'S.

 

[Mental Nomad]

I like the snappers too, will end up with some eventually if for no other reason then i can play blackjack sometimes.

You don't have to have snappers to play blackjack. In fact, even if you have snappers, you still need quarters... to pay off when someone bets a snapper and gets a blackjack! (I've dropped many $6.25 tokes over the years.)

 

[MaxB]

I never should have joined here ..... I just bought 200 Garden City $1 chips to convert into quarters They are the same type of Paulson's as my Indiana Aztars

 

[Poker Jedi]

You don't have to have snappers to play blackjack. In fact, even if you have snappers, you still need quarters... to pay off when someone bets a snapper and gets a blackjack! (I've dropped many $6.25 tokes over the years.)

We just use snappers here. At the 6:5 table you get $3 and at the normal 3:2 table we round up and you get $4 instead of $3.75 it seems to work.

For clarity the 6:5 table is the $5 min bet table the rest are 10$ and up

 

[MaxB]

ok, so based on everyone's feedback, here's what I ended up with. Thanks again for all of the help. I will need to add a splash picture once I custom label the quarters and $20's

cash game (803 chips now, 868 when all are bought):

(200) 25 cents - to use for .25/.50 blind games without the 50 cent chips
(35) 50 cents - need another 65, figured to use these for 50/1.00 games instead of quarters
(350) 1.00 - got my work cut out cleaning these white chips
(45) 2.50 - I had to keep a small amount but I'm selling the other 160
(150) 5.00 - was going to dump 50 of them but changed my mind
(20) 20.00 - instead of taking $25's from the tourney set, I made $20's for easy rebuys with a $20 bill
(3) 100.00 - bought three primary 100's instead of using the secondary 100's from the tourney set. Just in case someone really racks up the chips

Tourney Set (728 now, 788 when all are bought):

(265) T25 - no longer using as quarters
(305) T100 - need another 45 for 350 total
(85) T500 - need another 15 for 100 total
(40) T1000 - I love these oversized chips
(20) T2500 - I know they are not needed because I have 5k's, but I didn't want to dump them
(10) T5000
(3) T10000 - not sure if I really even need these .... I haven't added custom labels yet

 

[chipjoker]

Looks good, have fun..