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Tourney Has the t2,000 chip fallen out of favor? (3 Viewers)

I don't have any problem with my sets. Before we start I am sure to tell everyone that we are using a 2k just to remind everybody. My T500 chips are the workhorse and don't leave the table as my 2K is the largest denom.
 
Ben said:
Only if I'm paying attention - which I'm probably not. :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

Oh, and T2k FTW. We're tough around here. I and many of the locals play in a monthly tourney that uses the following denoms: T100, T500, T1000, T2000, T5000, T10000. The T500s are white, the T1000s are very pale yellow, and the T5000s are very light pink. A real poker player always knows what he's betting with. :p
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That progression reminds me of the $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 chipsets sold out there.

Still, if the game is fun, I'd play with dice chips. Just because it could be better, does not mean it's not good. (y) :thumbsup:
 
This isn't my original idea, but it's one I agreed with and largely still do. I can't recall the original author or where I read this, though it was definitely here, CT, or 2+2 Home Poker forum.

People like multiples of ten. They are easier for us to deal with. We have ten fingers, and that's how and why our counting system is base ten.

In a typical tournament chipset (25-100-500-1000-5000), the first base/workhorse chip is the 100. So most players, consciously or not, think of it this way:

T25 is a quarter
T100 is one
T500 is five
Everything else is "big"

With most structures, there's a short period where the workload is shared somewhat evenly between T100 and T500, then less T100 and more T500 and T1000. As time to color up the T100s approaches, players do a mental reset and now look at the chips as:

T500 is a half
T1000 is one
T5000 is five
Everything else (if you've got bigger chips) is "big"

The reason many players find T2000 to be an awkward denomination is that it doesn't map easily to "one" for most of us. Sure, we're smart enough to do the math, but it's not automatic anymore when your "one" chip isn't a multiple of ten. So players have to think about it a bit more, and they're more prone to mistakes.
 
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I WANT to love the T2000 chip but I can't.

Why?

Because it's only purpose is to make the 500 chip relevant for longer. Which means when you could've got rid of the bastards playing 25-100-500-1000-5000, you'll still be playing with those same 500's for longer playing 25-100-500-2000, except now instead of tossing in three 1K chips for a bet of 3000, you're tossing in four (2 1K's and 2 500's).

The problem isn't the 1K chip, it's the 500.
 
Wils said:
instead of tossing in three 1K chips for a bet of 3000, you're tossing in four (2 1K's and 2 500's).
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Yada, yada, yada. Look closer at a larger sample size. And that's not even true for a 3,000 bet, because it takes either 3x T1000 or one T2000 plus two T500s, three chips either way.

Compare what happens on other bets of neighboring sizes when using T500-T2000 vs T500-T1000 chips (and no fair introducing new chips):

1,000 - two chips vs one, advantage T1000
1,500 - three chips vs two, advantage T1000
2,000 - one chip vs two, advantage T2000
2,500 - two chips vs three, advantage T2000
3,000 - three chips vs three, tie
3,500 - four chips vs four, tie
4,000 - two chips vs four, 2x advantage T2000
4,500 - three chips vs five, advantage T2000
5,000 - four chips vs five, advantage T2000
5,500 - five chips vs six, advantage T2000
6,000 - three chips vs six, 3x advantage T2000

Eleven bet sizes -- advantage T1000 only two times, with advantage T2000 seven times plus two ties. And sometimes it's half or a third as many chips required.

Wils said:
you'll still be playing with those same 500's for longer
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True, because there is no need to waste time coloring them up and introducing yet another denomination chip into play.


Using a T2000 chip simply allows all four denominations in play -- T25, T100, T500, and T2000 -- to exist on equal footing, and all are important (workhorse chips) at one point or another. And there is no need to 'short' one particular denomination chip because of it's lack of importance, nor remove and replace it with a fifth denomination chip.
 
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Schmendr1ck said:
This isn't my original idea, but it's one I agreed with and largely still do. I can't recall the original author or where I read this, though it was definitely here, CT, or 2+2 Home Poker forum.

People like multiples of ten. They are easier for us to deal with. We have ten fingers, and that's how and why our counting system is base ten.

In a typical tournament chipset (25-100-500-1000-5000), the first base/workhorse chip is the 100. So most players, consciously or not, think of it this way:

T25 is a quarter
T100 is one
T500 is five
Everything else is "big"

With most structures, there's a short period where the workload is shared somewhat evenly between T100 and T500, then less T100 and more T500 and T1000. As time to color up the T100s approaches, players do a mental reset and now look at the chips as:

T500 is a half
T1000 is one
T5000 is five
Everything else (if you've got bigger chips) is "big"

The reason many players find T2000 to be an awkward denomination is that it doesn't map easily to "one" for most of us. Sure, we're smart enough to do the math, but it's not automatic anymore when your "one" chip isn't a multiple of ten. So players have to think about it a bit more, and they're more prone to mistakes.
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Although I agree with this in theory, it's been my experience that the players who have the biggest problems with T2000 chips are those whose past tournament experience has been solely using a T500-T1000 chip progression. Players that have never experienced that progression seem to do just fine.

Players that are totally new to tournaments or those who migrate from T1- or T5-base tournaments (where the T500 is often the largest chip) don't seem to have the same confusion/mistaken identity issues as those players with a lot of T25-base tourney experience using T1000 chips. Because the T25-base players are mentally 'expecting' a T1000 chip to be in play, it can cause errors, especially when the T2000 chip is similar in color to most standard T1000 chips.

Ensuring that the T2000 chips are as different as possible from what is normal for a T1000 chip definitely helps, because it breaks that 'expectation' mental zone and fewer errors result. But the newbies to T25-base tournaments don't seem to get it mixed up at all.
 
BG is very right - there is a mental expectation, aad that can lead to problems. The same way if someone took a "standard colors" set, but made the T100 Blue and the T5000 Black.

2017-06-21 12.57.47.jpg


Yep, that's the Golden Nugget, Las Vegas. They had players and dealers making errors left and right. Because you get comfortable, and then they throw you a curveball. The "wrong colors" won't bug anyone that is familiar with the set's progression, and it might not bug anyone that is quick to adapt.

My best advice I can give on PCF is "Get Samples", but "don't do different unless it's noticeably better" isn't far behind.
 
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BGinGA said:
Yada, yada, yada. Look closer at a larger sample size. And that's not even true for a 3,000 bet, because it takes either 3x T1000 or one T2000 plus two T500s, three chips either way.
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Not aware of what "yada yada yada" means but assume it's something along the lines of, "good point well made."

And yes my maths there was slightly off :P (my internal "love/hate the 2K chip" situation is interfering with my brain).
 
Disclaimer: I've never played in a tourney that uses a T2000 chip, so keep in mind that I'm largely talking out of my ass.

I agree with the ideas that 500-2000 is more efficient than 500-1000, and that players can learn either system reasonably fast enough. The one thing you said that I'm not sure about is:

BGinGA said:
Because the T25-base players are mentally 'expecting' a T1000 chip to be in play, it can cause errors, especially when the T2000 chip is similar in color to most standard T1000 chips.
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It would be an interesting experiment to measure speed and accuracy in assembling a list of various bet sizes using two different sets of chips (one with T1000 and the other with T2000). You could do it with three groups: a set of poker players from each camp, and a control group of non-poker players.

Ship me some funding and a couple sets of nice chips (which of course I'll keep...for science), and I'll have a report on your desk in a couple weeks.
 
All I can tell ya is that I see a lot more errors -- and players taking extra time counting bets or stacks (both their own and others) -- when using an orange or yellow T2000 vs a chip that is red or white. :)

Except for the newbies or players used to playing T5-base tournaments -- they never miscount the T2000 as T1000, regardless of color. (y) :thumbsup:
 
Question about "efficient"...

If 4:1 chip sizing is dramatically more efficient than 2:1, then wouldn't 5:1 be at least somewhat more efficient than 4:1? How about 10:1? Where is this "break-point" in efficiency?

Please, the anti-2000 camp has demonstrated reasons why it's bad (with case studies proving errors possible if not probable depending on colors), but the pro 2000 camp simply decries "efficient", without any data to support their hypothesis.
 
I experimented with several structures. My original intent was to answer two questions.
  1. What is the best overall lowest chip value?
  2. Which is the most efficient, the 1000 or the 2000 chip?
The results will surprise some people. They aren't likely to change any opinions though.

Method
I created a spreadsheet using the following values:
.25 - 1 - 5 - 25 - 100 - 500 - 1000 - 5000 - 25000 - 100000 - 500000
.25 - 1 - 5 - 25 - 100 - 500 - 2000 - 10000 - 50000 - 250000 - 1000000

I compared starting values of 100BB, 200BB, 300BB, 400BB, and 500BB.

I started the lowest chip at those xBB from .25 - 1 - 5 - 25 - 100.

I used 100 players as the standard as that would be enough to see significant differences in the number of chips needed.

I used either 10 or 12 of the lowest 2 values, until the second lowest value was 500.

There were a total of 25 comparisons between the 2 values. Results were measured by chips per player.

You could define chip efficiency in several ways.
  1. Which configuration requires the fewest chips to get the job done?
  2. Which configuration would require the least amount of time coloring up?
  3. Which configuration is the most efficient for players to work with (meaning fewer mistakes)?
  4. Which configuration requires on average the fewest number of chips to make a bet?
  5. And there are probably other definitions.
To me, the true measure of chip efficiency is how many chips would it take to color up each prior chip with one exception -- 500 only needed half as many color up chips because if you need 2 500s, you could use 1 1000. You also need fewer 500s to start since the next chip is so close.

The bottom line is this is mostly opinion. Some configurations favor one over the other, but there is no overall best.

After the 25 comparisons, here's what I found:

Best lowest chip value
Regarding the issue of the lowest chip from .25 - 1 - 5 - 25 - 100, the most efficient using 1000 chip:
100BB - 100 very slightly over 1
200BB - 25 very slightly over 1
300BB - 5 very slightly over 100
400BB - .25
500BB - 100 very slightly over 25

Overall efficiency from most to least efficient is:
100 - 17,060 chips
25 - 17,390 chips
1 - 17,551 chips
.25 - 18,619 chips
5 - 18,778 chips

I don't think that is quite as definitive as it appears because not using 10-12 500 chips probably skewed the results in favor of the 100 chip being the most efficient. If you alter that rule, the 25 is the overall most efficient.

The reality for most home sets is there likely isn't enough real difference between these to really matter. It really boils down to opinion. Further, you could tweak almost any of the numbers and alter the results.

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it here. Casinos are very good at math! I suspect the reason most of them start tournaments with the T25 is because they have bean counters that did far more experimenting than I did, and considered the time it takes to make change and a lot of other things, and the T25 they found is the overall most efficient. They could buy fewer chips to accomplish the most effective tournament starting with the T25. But for the home game host, go with what YOU like! You aren't wrong because the differences are slight over time. The very biggest difference for 100 players is 1.718 chips, or about 17 chips per player. To get what you really like, that's not a lot.

Is a 1000 or 2000 more efficient?
I found a slight advantage for using 1000 vs. 2000, but it's very slight. In specific configurations though, one is better by a noticeable difference. Here were the results by BB by chips per player:
100BB favored 1000 by .94 to .13
200BB favored 2000 by .25 to .18
300BB favored 1000 by 1.58 to 0
400BB favored 2000 by 4.21 to .38
500BB favored 1000 by 2.73 to .88
Overall favored 1000 by 5.81 to 5.47
Note that in some cases there was no decision either because of actual ties or a slight change altered the results. In those cases, I called it a tie.

There is no definitive answer as to which is the most efficient between the 1000 and 2000 as far as taking the fewest chips to get the job done. That surprised me because I was pretty sure the higher top values and the further spread between 500 and 2000 would swing this in favor of the 2000, but that was not the case. If anything, just the opposite was true, but not by much.

Here are four conclusions I drew from the experiment.
  1. The T1/4 and T2000 values are separate arguments, and sometimes contradict each other. If the T1/4 is the lowest chip value, the T2000 makes less sense. In cases where the T2000 makes the most sense, the T1/4 would not be used. That was true at all levels of BB.
  2. The T1/4 is not really be more efficient that the T25. It depends on the starting stack size and the number of starting chips. One factor that favors the T25 is that people are more used to it. The T25 is the most efficient overall when comparing to T values of between T1/4 and T100, but possibly loses to the T100 if you alter the rules for the T500/1000 chips.
  3. Whether the T1000 or T2000 is the most efficient just depends on how you structure it. There is almost always a way to structure a playable set where either is more efficient than the other. This comparison is only between stacks of 100BB, 200BB, 300BB, 400BB, and 500BB. The results are not the same at every level. But the overall differences are so slight, it's even less relevant that the lowest starting chips, about .34 chips per player. Again, get what YOU want!
  4. The relationship between the starting T-value and chip efficiency can be artificially altered by changing the rules about how many of the next higher T-value chip there are. That means that several factors go into what makes the most efficient chip set, and varying even a small thing can alter the outcome.
 
I have both a T1000 and a T2000 tournament set. I prefer the flow of tournaments using the T2000 set. No one has ever complained or made a mistake using the T2000 set and we frequently switch between the two sets.
 
You know what? F*ck it. My next tourney is gonna use 2K chips.

I'll use the following blinds, average 41% increase, where the latter levels are in multiples of 2000 (It's a single table, not likely to get more than 7 players) - apologies if this doesn't come out right. I don't have the patience to format it :p


1 25 50
2 25 75
3 50 100
4 75 150
5 100 200
6 150 300
7 200 400
8 300 600
9 400 800
10 500 1,000
11 700 1,400
12 1,000 2,000
13 1,500 3,000
14 2,000 4,000
15 3,000 6,000
16 4,000 8,000
17 6,000 12,000

etcetc

I dunno.

This'll be with stacks thus:
25 - 8
100 - 8
500 - 5
2000 - 2
(Total 7,500 - 150 bb's)
 
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BGinGA said:
All I can tell ya is that I see a lot more errors -- and players taking extra time counting bets or stacks (both their own and others) -- when using an orange or yellow T2000 vs a chip that is red or white. :)

Except for the newbies or players used to playing T5-base tournaments -- they never miscount the T2000 as T1000, regardless of color. (y) :thumbsup:
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This is akin to metric vs imperial with, for example, the temperature scale. Many Americans complain that metric is bad because 20C is meaningless to them. They understand 68F, though. The rest of the world knows exactly how hot/cold 20C is.
 
I made a 2500 chip for my tourney, but I think I now prefer the 2000 chip instead.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Question about "efficient"...

If 4:1 chip sizing is dramatically more efficient than 2:1, then wouldn't 5:1 be at least somewhat more efficient than 4:1? How about 10:1? Where is this "break-point" in efficiency?
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In this case I'd say a chipset is more efficient if, on average, it allows the same bet size to be made with a smaller number of chips.

So a set of 1-10-100-1000 (10:1) is significantly less efficient than a set of 1-5-25-100-500 (4:1/5:1), since for many bets like 19, 187, etc., you're going to need a huge number of chips with the 10:1 set.
 
Schmendr1ck said:
In this case I'd say a chipset is more efficient if, on average, it allows the same bet size to be made with a smaller number of chips.
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Yeah, I'd generally agree with this. And as an extension, the more efficient set would also support the same game with a smaller number of chips needed.

And before y'all start groaning about moar chipes, also consider that a smaller required set means that nicer chips can be purchased for the same cash outlay. :)
 
Schmendr1ck said:
In this case I'd say a chipset is more efficient if, on average, it allows the same bet size to be made with a smaller number of chips.

So a set of 1-10-100-1000 (10:1) is significantly less efficient than a set of 1-5-25-100-500 (4:1/5:1), since for many bets like 19, 187, etc., you're going to need a huge number of chips with the 10:1 set.
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In this case, I'd like to see empirical data that indicates that bets like 19, 187, etc. ever even occur. I may be a simple tournament player, but in my observation (no data collected) 19 would rarely be used in a T1 tournament - the bettor would just bet 20. 187 - I guess this would also be a T1, and would rarely be anything less than a shove.

The claim a T2000 is more "efficient" because a bet can be made with a single chip is practically ridiculous. The effort used to toss 2 10g chips is the unmeasurably different from the effort to toss a single 10g chip. If you were using 20 lb weight plates for chips, would agree that efficiency matters. For 10g chips, it does not.
 

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