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Tourney Making a higher denom tourney set (1 Viewer)

MaxB

MaxB

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Playing around with some extra chips and I was thinking about making a higher denom tourney set. This would be only for a single table, 10 player max. and probably no rebuys. I want to add a T5000 and a T25000 chip to the already T25 to T1000 set.... only adding two additional denominations to keep cost down (I am basically relabelling existing chips). What does everyone think would be the best starting stack a.k.a. the best setup for this scenario? I am assuming the T25's are completely out, but would T100's be worth playing or having the T500 be the lowest denom (T500, T1000, T5000, and T25000)?

Thanks for any input/suggestions in advance (y) :thumbsup: I don't really need to extend the set but thought it would be fun for quick single table games to have bigger denoms
 
T100 * 10
T500 * 6
T1000 *6
T5000 *8

50K Stack, use T25K to color up T500 & T1000

If you were to start on T500, you could do 4/8/8/6 for a T200K starting stack, but then you might find yourself wanting T100K for bigger color ups.
 
I'm not sure it makes sense to start with T500 with the T1000 in play. Would make more sense to start with T1000 if you were adding T5000, T25k and T100k (I realize you want to minimize new chips).

Grant
 
I love the T500, T1000, T5000, and T25000 breakdown. You only need a handful of the $500s but having them let you run more blind levels. The $1K and $5K's become workhorse chips so you can have lots of them in play if you want.
You can have stacks of T200K of either
6/12/12/5 or
4/13/17/4 or
6/17/16/4 or.....

The basic problem I see with most breakdowns is the inefficient/semi-redundant X2 jump from 500 to 1000. But with 500/1K/5K/25K the 500 is barely in play. And you have an 'efficient' progression of X5 -> X5 -> X4 (if you put a 100K chip in play) through the rest of the set.
 
Last edited:
I don't hate the 2x "inefficient" jump the same way because you compensate by using fewer chips of that denom.

The pros I see to starting at T500 are.
1) Using fewer chips because next is T1000
2) The first color up is the easiest, which is nice because it involves the most people.
3) The first color up removes the fewest chips from the table, so less "stack-shock" than 4x or 5x color ups.
 
In general, I think 4 denoms are the bare minimum for a tournment and should generally be fine for single table. A fifth denom is helpful for doing later color ups if there are enough players to push the structure into 3 color ups needed.

In fairness, I haven't played in a base T500 tournament myself, I've just been giving this a lot of thought for a future tournament setup.

I may be very wrong about everything I say here :).
 
Last edited:
I love the simplistic 400-chip T500-base tournament set. All you need is a single rack of each denomination per table (so 400 chips for 10 players, 800 chips for 20, etc.), and it gets lots of those (usually) gorgeous upper denomination chips in play:

10 x T500
10 x T1000
7 x T5000
10 x T25000
------------
37 chips = T300K stacks

The extra 30 x T5000 chips color-up the T500/T1000 chips with perfect efficiency.

You can also withhold 4x T25K chips (10/10/7/6) to create smaller T200K starting stacks, allowing up to five re-buys with the extra 40x T25Ks. With 500/1000 opening blinds, it's 300bb to start or 200bb with re-buys. A single-table 300K event has three million chips in play.

Of course, starting stacks can always be smaller if desired (10/10/7 is just T50K), or anything between 50K and 300K stacks. It's a very versatile set, and it's generally pretty easy to top off existing larger T25-base sets by adding a few extra T5000s and T25Ks to gain the high-denom tourney option.


Below is a great blind schedule for T500-base sets, with blind increases mostly ranging between 33%-50%, averaging 39% overall.

It can be used for anything from a ten-player 2.5-hour T50K turbo (15-min levels) to a four-table 10-hour T300K marathon (30-min levels) and everything in-between -- simply by custom-tailoring the starting stack sizes, number of players, and blind level times to generate the desired length and style of event:

lvl sb bb
L1 500 1000
L2 500 1500
L3 1000 2000
L4 1500 3000
remove T500 chips
L5 2000 4000
L6 3000 6000
(optional end re-buys, 50bb)
L7 4000 8000
L8 6000 12000
L9 8000 16000
remove T1000 chips
(optional end re-buys, 19bb)
L10 10000 20000
L11 15000 30000
L12 20000 40000
L13 25000 50000 ** EOT 10x100K
L14 35000 70000 ** EOT 10x150K
remove T5000 chips (optional - requires 5x T100K chips or 20x T25K chips)
L15 50000 100000 ** EOT 10x200K (or 20xT100K)
L16 75000 150000 ** EOT 10x300K
L17 100000 200000 ** EOT 20x200K
L18 150000 300000 ** EOT 20x300K
L19 200000 400000 ** EOT 40x200K
L20 250000 500000 ** EOT 40x300K
L21 350000 700000
remove T25000 chips (requires 25x T100k chips)
L22 500000 1000000
L23 750000 1500000
 
Perfect...thank you. The more I watch poker on TV, the more I wanted something different from the standard T25 to T1k tourney set, but without getting an entire new set.
 
BGinGA said:
I love the simplistic 400-chip T500-base tournament set. All you need is a single rack of each denomination per table (so 400 chips for 10 players, 800 chips for 20, etc.), and it gets lots of those (usually) gorgeous upper denomination chips in play:

10 x T500
10 x T1000
7 x T5000
10 x T25000
------------
37 chips = T300K stacks

The extra 30 x T5000 chips color-up the T500/T1000 chips with perfect efficiency.

You can also withhold 4x T25K chips (10/10/7/6) to create smaller T200K starting stacks, allowing up to five re-buys with the extra 40x T25Ks. With 500/1000 opening blinds, it's 300bb to start or 200bb with re-buys. A single-table 300K event has three million chips in play.

Of course, starting stacks can always be smaller if desired (10/10/7 is just T50K), or anything between 50K and 300K stacks. It's a very versatile set, and it's generally pretty easy to top off existing larger T25-base sets by adding a few extra T5000s and T25Ks to gain the high-denom tourney option.


Below is a great blind schedule for T500-base sets, with blind increases mostly ranging between 33%-50%, averaging 39% overall.

It can be used for anything from a ten-player 2.5-hour T50K turbo (15-min levels) to a four-table 10-hour T300K marathon (30-min levels) and everything in-between -- simply by custom-tailoring the starting stack sizes, number of players, and blind level times to generate the desired length and style of event:

lvl sb bb
L1 500 1000
L2 500 1500
L3 1000 2000
L4 1500 3000
remove T500 chips
L5 2000 4000
L6 3000 6000
(optional end re-buys, 50bb)
L7 4000 8000
L8 6000 12000
L9 8000 16000
remove T1000 chips
(optional end re-buys, 19bb)
L10 10000 20000
L11 15000 30000
L12 20000 40000
L13 25000 50000 ** EOT 10x100K
L14 35000 70000 ** EOT 10x150K
remove T5000 chips (optional - requires 5x T100K chips or 20x T25K chips)
L15 50000 100000 ** EOT 10x200K (or 20xT100K)
L16 75000 150000 ** EOT 10x300K
L17 100000 200000 ** EOT 20x200K
L18 150000 300000 ** EOT 20x300K
L19 200000 400000 ** EOT 40x200K
L20 250000 500000 ** EOT 40x300K
L21 350000 700000
remove T25000 chips (requires 25x T100k chips)
L22 500000 1000000
L23 750000 1500000
Click to expand...

@BGinGA what do all these mean (** EOT 10x300K)
 
It reflects the expected maximum End of Tournament level, for each combination of players x starting stack size.

Regardless of blind level times, ten players with T100K stacks should finish no later than Level 13, while forty players with T300K will typically finish no later than Level 20. Multiply the number of expected levels times the blind level length to determine how long tournament play will take (plus add the total time spent on breaks).
 
Last edited:
BGinGA said:
It reflects the expected maximum End of Tournament level, for each combination of players x starting stack size.

Ten players with T100K stacks should finish no later than Level 13, while forty players with T300K will typically finish no later than Level 20.
Click to expand...

Is there even a point in playing tourney style with 6 to 8 people? If yes will this same chip set work I assume? Could I just add 60 t25k chips to make sure we have rebuys available even with 300k starting stacks or should I do a mix of denoms so there are not too many 25ks on the table?
 
saleen121212 said:
Is there even a point in playing tourney style with 6 to 8 people? If yes will this same chip set work I assume? Could I just add 60 t25k chips to make sure we have rebuys available even with 300k starting stacks or should I do a mix of denoms so there are not too many 25ks on the table?
Click to expand...
Six-player tournaments work just fine. The 10-player chip set provides plenty of extras if only being used for 6 players -- you'd have enough unused chips for 4 re-buys (which is twice as many as is average for that field size).
 
FWIW, I run a deepstacked tournament with 25K starting chips, with blinds starting at 100/200.

To minimize making change, and also because amateur players seem to like having a larger stack to start, I begin the tourney with this unusual breakdown:

15 White (100)
15 Red (500)
11 Green (1000)
1 Black (5000)
1 Yellow (Bounty)

This means I need a lot of Whites and Reds, but I have ’em, so whatever.

Whites get colored up at the first break, which happens after four levels. We are at 500/1000 after the break. I try not to introduce any more Reds when coloring up, so if say someone has 1,200 in Whites, they add in a Red (for a total of 1,700) and get two Greens (2,000) back.

I color up Reds after the next four levels.

I have plenty of Blacks (5K) to color up as necessary later, and also a rack of Pinks (10K) and Lilacs (20K) if necessary. There’s usually a chop during the 5K/10K level, or occasionally it gets to 10K/20K.

We also allow a small, optional add-on at the first break.

So effectively, there are five main colors in play (White, Red, Green, Black, and later Pink), plus small quantities of Yellows for bounties and Lilacs for the rare occasion an even higher denom chip is needed.

The reasons for this inflated structure are multiple:

* I inherited a game from someone else, and didn’t want to change the old starting blinds of 100/200;

* Dicking around with 25/50 or 50/100 isn't worth the trouble to me, as the numbers are harder for people to remember, and anyway values don't really matter, only the # of big blinds people get;

* Playing deepstacked, with an add-on, means people stick around longer, which increases the number of people available for a cash game after. If players bust too early, it makes it less of a fun night, and some of them don’t want to wait around for 1-2 hours waiting for cash to start. So the tourney structure enables the later cash game.
 
I have one big money T500,000 tournament set. It utilizes T500s as the smallest chip. Because of it's close association with the T1000, I use far fewer of them than I normally would. This is because the T500s are usually only used for paying the small blind, and are frequently pulled back to complete/call. If one player starts amassing the T500s, they will complete/call with an extra T500.

I can provide more info if you'd like, but I think you were basically asking "is this ok, or is it dumb" and the consensus is (y) :thumbsup:(y) :thumbsup:(y) :thumbsup:
 
BGinGA said:
I love the simplistic 400-chip T500-base tournament set. All you need is a single rack of each denomination per table (so 400 chips for 10 players, 800 chips for 20, etc.), and it gets lots of those (usually) gorgeous upper denomination chips in play:

10 x T500
10 x T1000
7 x T5000
10 x T25000
------------
37 chips = T300K stacks

The extra 30 x T5000 chips color-up the T500/T1000 chips with perfect efficiency.

You can also withhold 4x T25K chips (10/10/7/6) to create smaller T200K starting stacks, allowing up to five re-buys with the extra 40x T25Ks. With 500/1000 opening blinds, it's 300bb to start or 200bb with re-buys. A single-table 300K event has three million chips in play.

Of course, starting stacks can always be smaller if desired (10/10/7 is just T50K), or anything between 50K and 300K stacks. It's a very versatile set, and it's generally pretty easy to top off existing larger T25-base sets by adding a few extra T5000s and T25Ks to gain the high-denom tourney option.


Below is a great blind schedule for T500-base sets, with blind increases mostly ranging between 33%-50%, averaging 39% overall.

It can be used for anything from a ten-player 2.5-hour T50K turbo (15-min levels) to a four-table 10-hour T300K marathon (30-min levels) and everything in-between -- simply by custom-tailoring the starting stack sizes, number of players, and blind level times to generate the desired length and style of event:

lvl sb bb
L1 500 1000
L2 500 1500
L3 1000 2000
L4 1500 3000
remove T500 chips
L5 2000 4000
L6 3000 6000
(optional end re-buys, 50bb)
L7 4000 8000
L8 6000 12000
L9 8000 16000
remove T1000 chips
(optional end re-buys, 19bb)
L10 10000 20000
L11 15000 30000
L12 20000 40000
L13 25000 50000 ** EOT 10x100K
L14 35000 70000 ** EOT 10x150K
remove T5000 chips (optional - requires 5x T100K chips or 20x T25K chips)
L15 50000 100000 ** EOT 10x200K (or 20xT100K)
L16 75000 150000 ** EOT 10x300K
L17 100000 200000 ** EOT 20x200K
L18 150000 300000 ** EOT 20x300K
L19 200000 400000 ** EOT 40x200K
L20 250000 500000 ** EOT 40x300K
L21 350000 700000
remove T25000 chips (requires 25x T100k chips)
L22 500000 1000000
L23 750000 1500000
Click to expand...

Someone needs to scrape your posts and create an enhanced tournament set buying calculator with all the parameters that you account for with suggested structures. Or just start a mega-sticky with all your posts breakdown/structure.

Since the Royal pictures came out, I started to look for a T500-base set with an opportunity to sneak in some T100ks and here it is. Thanks!
 
BGinGA said:
I love the simplistic 400-chip T500-base tournament set. All you need is a single rack of each denomination per table (so 400 chips for 10 players, 800 chips for 20, etc.), and it gets lots of those (usually) gorgeous upper denomination chips in play:

10 x T500
10 x T1000
7 x T5000
10 x T25000
------------
37 chips = T300K stacks

The extra 30 x T5000 chips color-up the T500/T1000 chips with perfect efficiency.

You can also withhold 4x T25K chips (10/10/7/6) to create smaller T200K starting stacks, allowing up to five re-buys with the extra 40x T25Ks. With 500/1000 opening blinds, it's 300bb to start or 200bb with re-buys. A single-table 300K event has three million chips in play.

Of course, starting stacks can always be smaller if desired (10/10/7 is just T50K), or anything between 50K and 300K stacks. It's a very versatile set, and it's generally pretty easy to top off existing larger T25-base sets by adding a few extra T5000s and T25Ks to gain the high-denom tourney option.


Below is a great blind schedule for T500-base sets, with blind increases mostly ranging between 33%-50%, averaging 39% overall.

It can be used for anything from a ten-player 2.5-hour T50K turbo (15-min levels) to a four-table 10-hour T300K marathon (30-min levels) and everything in-between -- simply by custom-tailoring the starting stack sizes, number of players, and blind level times to generate the desired length and style of event:

lvl sb bb
L1 500 1000
L2 500 1500
L3 1000 2000
L4 1500 3000
remove T500 chips
L5 2000 4000
L6 3000 6000
(optional end re-buys, 50bb)
L7 4000 8000
L8 6000 12000
L9 8000 16000
remove T1000 chips
(optional end re-buys, 19bb)
L10 10000 20000
L11 15000 30000
L12 20000 40000
L13 25000 50000 ** EOT 10x100K
L14 35000 70000 ** EOT 10x150K
remove T5000 chips (optional - requires 5x T100K chips or 20x T25K chips)
L15 50000 100000 ** EOT 10x200K (or 20xT100K)
L16 75000 150000 ** EOT 10x300K
L17 100000 200000 ** EOT 20x200K
L18 150000 300000 ** EOT 20x300K
L19 200000 400000 ** EOT 40x200K
L20 250000 500000 ** EOT 40x300K
L21 350000 700000
remove T25000 chips (requires 25x T100k chips)
L22 500000 1000000
L23 750000 1500000
Click to expand...
I didn't think about a T500 base tourney untill i saw your post. That would be more convenient than a T25 base or T100 base tourney I'd say.

If I would buy a 500 chipset where I could pick and mix the denominations, should I go for 125 each? So 125x T500, 125x T1.000, 125x T5.000 and 125x T25.000 for max 10 people, 200k starting stack (10/10/7/6), max 1 rebuy and 1 add-on?

Great breakdown sir! Going through the forum I noticed you are a very knowledgable member.
 
P0k3rch1p said:
If I would buy a 500 chipset where I could pick and mix the denominations, should I go for 125 each? So 125x T500, 125x T1.000, 125x T5.000 and 125x T25.000 for max 10 people, 200k starting stack (10/10/7/6), max 1 rebuy and 1 add-on?
Click to expand...
For how many players? For a T500 base tourney, a minimum of 6 T500 chips per person are needed.
 
P0k3rch1p said:
As I mentioned in my post, max is 10 players. Usually we play with 6-8 players cash game, but we want to switch it up to tournaments also.
Click to expand...
Ah... I missed that.

In that case, you only need 60 - 80 T500 chips for a tournament. I would not argue against 100, just to make it a full rack.

I cannot advise on a cash/tournament set, as I am 100% in the camp that says chips should be either tournament, or cash - but never interchangeable.
 
I have a base T500 setup. I do 6/12/12/x starting stacks of T500/1000/5000/25000

x being the number of 25k chips needed to make your stack. For T200k it would be 5.

For ten played you would buy 60/120/120/80/20 of T500/1k/5k/25k/100k for a 400 piece set. The extra T25k and T100k are for color ups and re-entries.

The things I like about the base T500
1) First color up is easier even if you use race or rounding, players will never have more than one odd chip.

2) First color up only removes half of the chips of the chips compared to base T25.

It's become my preferred base.
 
JustinInMN said:
T100 * 10
T500 * 6
T1000 *6
T5000 *8

50K Stack, use T25K to color up T500 & T1000

If you were to start on T500, you could do 4/8/8/6 for a T200K starting stack, but then you might find yourself wanting T100K for bigger color ups.
Click to expand...
I use this exact breakdown for my Protege deepstack breakdown (1 table)...

For 2 tables I alter to:

T100 * 10
T500 * 6
T1000 *6
T5000 *3
T25000*1

Breakdown set
240 T25
260 T100
200 T500
200 T1000
100 T5000
60 T25K
40 T100K
 
I'm considering putting together a T500 base set -- has anyone had any experience running the 4/8/8/2/1 or 4/8/8/6 starting stack? (500/1k/5k/25k/100k)
 
slimshady4239 said:
I'm considering putting together a T500 base set -- has anyone had any experience running the 4/8/8/2/1 or 4/8/8/6 starting stack? (500/1k/5k/25k/100k)
Click to expand...
Base T500 is now my go to setup. I usually run 6/12/12/3 for a 150K and that works well. I have 100/200/200/100 of 500/1k/5k/25k plus 15 100k plaques. (I am yet to use more than 5 plaques) in a tournament.

So I can set up 16 stacks of 6/12/12/3 which is usually fine, and have a couple "spare parts" stacks of 2/4/4/5. If I had to 3-table ever, I would be able to stretch my set to 25 stacks of 4/8/8/4. (Or more likely I would reduce the starting stack to and start blinds at 500-500 instead of 500-1000, to keep spare t25ks available for re-entries.)

Since you look like you want to do 200K I would say 4/8/8/6 is a much better idea, and 4/8/8/2/1 should not be considered. There is a huge flaw with the 4/8/8/2/1 breakdown. There won't be enough t25k chips in play to make change for the t100k chips when needed. If you get in a situation where two players need a chip broken in the same hand, it will get quite hairy.

On the other hand if all players start with 4/8/8/6 and you only introduce t100ks for re-entries and color ups, then at least there are 6 t25ks in the tournament per player, so breaking t100k chips would be much easier.
 
Just admiring the progression of my opinion on T500 base in the 5.5 year life of this thread.

Nov 6, 2018

JustinInMN said:
In fairness, I haven't played in a base T500 tournament myself, I've just been giving this a lot of thought for a future tournament setup.
Click to expand...

Mar 23, 2021

JustinInMN said:
I have a base T500 setup. I do 6/12/12/x starting stacks of T500/1000/5000/25000

x being the number of 25k chips needed to make your stack. For T200k it would be 5.

For ten played you would buy 60/120/120/80/20 of T500/1k/5k/25k/100k for a 400 piece set. The extra T25k and T100k are for color ups and re-entries.

The things I like about the base T500
1) First color up is easier even if you use race or rounding, players will never have more than one odd chip.

2) First color up only removes half of the chips of the chips compared to base T25.

It's become my preferred base.
Click to expand...

Today

JustinInMN said:
Base T500 is now my go to setup. I usually run 6/12/12/3 for a 150K and that works well. I have 100/200/200/100 of 500/1k/5k/25k plus 15 100k plaques. (I am yet to use more than 5 plaques) in a tournament.

So I can set up 16 stacks of 6/12/12/3 which is usually fine, and have a couple "spare parts" stacks of 2/4/4/5. If I had to 3-table ever, I would be able to stretch my set to 25 stacks of 4/8/8/4. (Or more likely I would reduce the starting stack to and start blinds at 500-500 instead of 500-1000, to keep spare t25ks available for re-entries.)
Click to expand...

Honestly I love base T500 so much now I can't imagine running anything else. T25 and T5 will always have a place in my heart as that is how I ran my early tournaments, and I get T100 is the common base now. But T500 is way better in so many ways, I think it will become the next mainstream choice.
 
JustinInMN said:
Just admiring the progression of my opinion on T500 base in the 5.5 year life of this thread.

Nov 6, 2018



Mar 23, 2021



Today



Honestly I love base T500 so much now I can't imagine running anything else. T25 and T5 will always have a place in my heart as that is how I ran my early tournaments, and I get T100 is the common base now. But T500 is way better in so many ways, I think it will become the next mainstream choice.
Click to expand...
Hugely helpful @JustinInMN thank you so much! Was considering going T100 on the next set but for all the reasons you have listed, T500 is making so much more sense. Also just love the idea of bringing out T100K chips
 
Thanks @slimshady4239

I hate to admit it, but I failed the PCF community by not posting the pron of my latest tournament set, but I did get semi customs from @BR Pro Poker in August 2022.

Here you go.

IMG_20220825_121117721.jpgIMG_20220825_121451627.jpgIMG_20220826_114713423_HDR.jpg
 

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