Need recommendation - chips for a home cash game (1 Viewer)

[atomiktoaster]

They don't, but here's how the Majestic plaques looks next to the Milano chips. Note: Majestics don't come in cash denom plaques, just tournament (unless you're somehow James Bond in which case you should be in Monte Carlo playing with the OG plaques of the world), but you can pick up their jetons in $20 and $50 denoms to bump your cash bank if you need to.

Edit: forgot the link.

www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/majestic-plaque-set.11213/

You could get some custom ceramic plaques from OWPS or others too. Couldn't use the "Milano" text, unfortunately.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Use Tournament starting stacks of 8/8/4/7 and you can save yourself another 50 T500 chips you don't really need to buy

 

[CdnBeerLover]

If you are only planning to get 25 x $10, remove them and get 125 x $5. Same overall bank. That will give you 375 cash chips and 625 tourney with no overlap. 1000 chips total.

If you see the cash game growing, you can then look into getting something to colour up the $5.

 

[atomiktoaster]

If you are only planning to get 25 x $10, remove them and get 125 x $5. Same overall bank. That will give you 375 cash chips and 625 tourney with no overlap. 1000 chips total.

If you see the cash game growing, you can then look into getting something to colour up the $5.

Use Tournament starting stacks of 8/8/4/7 and you can save yourself another 50 T500 chips you don't really need to buy

Combine both these ideas and just bump up the $5s and maybe another 25 $1s (since they're the workhorse denom here).

 

[mummel]

But but, guys, the $10 chip, its so nice and shiny & blue. It would look great on my cash game table hahahaha!

1) Yes adding 50 X $5 to my cash game and getting rid of 25 X $10 seems smart, but I would love to add the blue $10 for color! Is this a bad idea? Will I regret it?
2) What do most people use in tournaments? Is 8/8/4/7 the most common, or would 8/8/6/6 be better? What would one provide over the other? What does the WSOP starting stack look like?

 

[MillyS]

But but, guys, the $10 chip, its so nice and shiny & blue. It would look great on my cash game table hahahaha!

1) Yes adding 50 X $5 to my cash game and getting rid of 25 X $10 seems smart, but I would love to add the blue $10 for color! Is this a bad idea? Will I regret it?
2) What do most people use in tournaments? Is 8/8/4/7 the most common, or would 8/8/6/6 be better? What would one provide over the other? What does the WSOP starting stack look like?

I have a sample set of the Milano's, I wasn't too impressed with the $10 blue. I would go for more $5's tbh

 

[links_slayer]

starting stacks for tourneys are mostly about personal preference and number of chips available. if you are going for efficiency and/or are on a chip budget 8-8-4-7 would be the way to go in my opinion.

wsop main event (T30k) uses 12-12-3-7-4 stacks.

 

[TheOctagon]

But but, guys, the $10 chip, its so nice and shiny & blue. It would look great on my cash game table hahahaha!

Amen to that. Really, though, at the end of the day, your chips are your chips and your game is your game. If you feel you'd have more fun or enjoy a few blue $10 chips floating around the felt, don't worry about it. I would just prepare to have a backup in case your players complain about having to change out the 10s too often (So, get a rack of $10s and make sure you have another rack of $5s and/or $1s to cover most of that or start with the 10s and then see how your games go and pick up that extra sleeve later on if there's a need for it).

Edit: Sleeves, not racks. You don't need 100x $10s. 25x $10 to start and then supplement with an extra sleeve of $5s and $1s if you need to.

 

[mummel]

I have a sample set of the Milano's, I wasn't too impressed with the $10 blue. I would go for more $5's tbh

I will have to see the $10s in person but dont look too bad, especially vs the $50:

 

[Trihonda]

-if we get rid of the 25c chip at some point, this will be switched into a $5 chip (and take 2 X $1 chips off the table)

2) If I color up the 25c chip in cash games, I need to take 2 X $1 chips off the table to get the $5s on the table. Is this limiting the number of $1 chips on the table (for $1/$2 blinds which will probably be the blind cap for the evening). This is essentially 10 X $1 chips per person. Is this ok?

.

Herein lies some of my confusion. You're discussing principles that apply to tournaments in the context of cash games. Whether these sets are the same chip type, they need to be 100% thought of differently.

You are talking about coloring up the quarters in a cash game, but are not starting out with a huge amount of them. I have over 300 quarters in my cash set, and can only recall one freakish time when I colored some quarters off the table.. Two tables combined, and to make moving numerous barrels of quarters easier, I bought back a few barrels from players. Otherwise, coloring up chips is something primarily done in tournaments, and you're not planning to play quarters in your tournaments, correct?

 

[MillyS]

I will have to see the $10s in person but dont look too bad, especially vs the $50:

The $10 blue of defo better than the $50 in my opinion. At the end of the day, you have to be happy with what you are playing with. If you like the $10's, get them, you wont be disappointed. I would recommend ordering samples first though.

 

[mummel]

starting stacks for tourneys are mostly about personal preference and number of chips available. if you are going for efficiency and/or are on a chip budget 8-8-4-7 would be the way to go in my opinion.

wsop main event (T30k) uses 12-12-3-7-4 stacks.

Yeah it seems like 12-12 for the lowest denoms is the right starting stack vs 8-8. Thats sort of what I came to on my own for my cash games and I see thats what the WSOP uses. It seems like 8-8 will require a quicker change of T500 chips maybe 3-4 rounds in, which could be annoying. But like you said, if you need 12 chips X 18 players of T25 from start = 216 chips, that gets excessive.

So while 12-12 might be more convenient, 8-8 is more economical and I dont think this is much of a choice for me given my budget and hard cap of 1000 chips total.

 

[TheOctagon]

Herein lies some of my confusion. You're discussing principles that apply to tournaments in the context of cash games. Whether these sets are the same chip type, they need to be 100% thought of differently.

You are talking about coloring up the quarters in a cash game, but are not starting out with a huge amount of them. I have over 300 quarters in my cash set, and can only recall one freakish time when I colored some quarters off the table.. Two tables combined, and to make moving numerous barrels of quarters easier, I bought back a few barrels from players. Otherwise, coloring up chips is something primarily done in tournaments, and you're not planning to play quarters in your tournaments, correct?

Suppose that's a good point. Cash games don't require change a whole lot until you get either too many people at the table or people buying back in a ridiculous amount of times. If you're playing a 0.25/0.50 single table cash game, you buy in for 100xBB or $50 max and if you're at ~8 people you need to cover $400 in chips bare minimum and that's zero rebuys. If you went with:

100x $0.25 - $25
200x $1 - $200
100x $5 - $500

That's $725 bank with the bulk of your chips in the $1 workhorse range. Room to breathe if people start getting excited and want to play on. Add in another full rack of chips maybe something like 25x $1, 50x $5, 25x $10 and you're up to $1250 total. That's a healthy bank plus a lot of big stacks to play with and you're at a max 500 chips. You can mix and match to get it down to around 300 chips if you want to throw in some $25s. It really depends on how many people you expect to play in a cash game at a time and how crazy they are with their bankrolls at that limit.

 

[mummel]

Herein lies some of my confusion. You're discussing principles that apply to tournaments in the context of cash games. Whether these sets are the same chip type, they need to be 100% thought of differently.

You are talking about coloring up the quarters in a cash game, but are not starting out with a huge amount of them. I have over 300 quarters in my cash set, and can only recall one freakish time when I colored some quarters off the table.. Two tables combined, and to make moving numerous barrels of quarters easier, I bought back a few barrels from players. Otherwise, coloring up chips is something primarily done in tournaments, and you're not planning to play quarters in your tournaments, correct?

I need to clarify. Let's split this into a "regulation cash game", and the "hybrid cash game" that my buddies and I play.

1) From what I'm reading, for a regulation/standard cash game where no blinds are upped (and hence no need for a color up), I should rather get an additional 50 X $5s for my cash set to handle the 5 X $50 rebuys. This makes the most sense.

2) During our hybrid cash games, the reason we up the blinds is because once 1-2 people have busted out for the evening, it sucks that they just sit there and wait. So we normally up the blinds to speed the game along, and we usually cash out when there are 3 players left. That way the poker is done for the evening and the real partying can begin . In this instance, I can see the $10s coming in handy because we would probably cap out at $1/$2 blinds, and there will be no need for 25c chips. I'm thinking the $10 chip may be a better choice in this case, but it's hard to tell for sure.

So personal color preference aside, it seems like a difficult choice. To go $10, or not to go $10. That is the question. What would you guys do in the case of the hybrid game?

 

[TheOctagon]

I need to clarify. Let's split this into a "regulation cash game", and the "hybrid cash game" that my buddies and I play.

1) From what I'm reading, for a regulation/standard cash game where no blinds are upped (and hence no need for a color up), I should rather get an additional 50 X $5s for my cash set to handle the 5 X $50 rebuys. This makes the most sense.

2) During our hybrid cash games, the reason we up the blinds is because once 1-2 people have busted out for the evening, it sucks that they just sit there and wait. So we normally up the blinds to speed the game along, and we usually cash out when there are 3 players left. That way the poker is done for the evening and the real partying can begin . In this instance, I can see the $10s coming in handy because we would probably cap out at $1/$2 blinds, and there will be no need for 25c chips. I'm thinking the $10 chip may be a better choice in this case, but it's hard to tell for sure.

So personal color preference aside, it seems like a difficult choice. To go $10, or not to go $10. That is the question. What would you guys do in the case of the hybrid game?

At first glance, I was thinking "Wow, you guys just go cutthroat until someone's on top of the heap and everybody's rolls are gone at a cash game. That's pretty hardcore." So, when you raise the blinds, do your bets rise proportionally with those blinds or are people just content to make minimum bets and raises (which would look a little more like a limit hold em game than anything)? In other words, does your crew anchor on a certain bet range ($1-$5 for the sake of argument) and stick to it regardless of the blinds?

 

[mummel]

At first glance, I was thinking "Wow, you guys just go cutthroat until someone's on top of the heap and everybody's rolls are gone at a cash game. That's pretty hardcore." So, when you raise the blinds, do your bets rise proportionally with those blinds or are people just content to make minimum bets and raises (which would look a little more like a limit hold em game than anything)? In other words, does your crew anchor on a certain bet range ($1-$5 for the sake of argument) and stick to it regardless of the blinds?

Yeah I would say once the blinds are raised, people are just calling to get to the flop. They're "content making minimum bets".

 

[Trihonda]

2) During our hybrid cash games, the reason we up the blinds is because once 1-2 people have busted out for the evening, it sucks that they just sit there and wait. So we normally up the blinds to speed the game along, and we usually cash out when there are 3 players left. That way the poker is done for the evening and the real partying can begin

What would you guys do in the case of the hybrid game?

I think this is an interesting debate... And I think a better question is, "should we do a hybrid game at all?"

Most normal cash games, if a player busts, they hang out and drink beers, or go home. OR someone lends them some money to keep playing. The idea of increasing blinds to generate action, so you force other people to bust out, so you can do some other activity, just seems odd (to me). If your group wants to accommodate the few folks who bust out, just stop playing the game when they bust, so you can start the real party.

It's a cash game, and unlike a tourney, where there are places, and prize money awarded to the top finishers, the cash game can end wherever, whenever. There's no need to speed things up, to force others to bust out, so you can end the game. It'd be more reasonable to say, "once two players have busted, we will set a timer and play another 30 mins, then cash everyone out".

But ultimately, is your game to play how you like.

 

[mummel]

Actually guys, if I use the 8-8-4-7 tourney starting stack, I only need 575 chips, which frees up 425 chips for my cash set!!!!

I could do both. I could get the 50 X $5 stack CDN recommend for "regulation cash games", and I could still get 25 X $10 for our hybrid games.

Here, check this out!

Cash game, 9 players, $50 buy-in, 5 re-buys:

Tourney, 18 players, T10,000 starting stack:

I think this is an interesting debate... And I think a better question is, "should we do a hybrid game at all?"

Most normal cash games, if a player busts, they hang out and drink beers, or go home. OR someone lends them some money to keep playing. The idea of increasing blinds to generate action, so you force other people to bust out, so you can do some other activity, just seems odd (to me). If your group wants to accommodate the few folks who bust out, just stop playing the game when they bust, so you can start the real party.

It's a cash game, and unlike a tourney, where there are places, and prize money awarded to the top finishers, the cash game can end wherever, whenever. There's no need to speed things up, to force others to bust out, so you can end the game. It'd be more reasonable to say, "once two players have busted, we will set a timer and play another 30 mins, then cash everyone out".

But ultimately, is your game to play how you like.

Good point. I think the diffs is that the hybrid games are so small potatoes and because everyone has just thrown in $20 for the evening, no one cares if the blinds are raised and if they win or lose (some nights guys have left without collecting their winnings).

However, I could see how if people are buying in for $100 each, that things will become way more serious (for me too), and upping the blinds in a cash game just to force bust outs would suck. I think thats the diffs.

But check my tables above. I hope I'm close! Would this work?

 

[TheOctagon]

I think this is an interesting debate... And I think a better question is, "should we do a hybrid game at all?"

Most normal cash games, if a player busts, they hang out and drink beers, or go home. OR someone lends them some money to keep playing. The idea of increasing blinds to generate action, so you force other people to bust out, so you can do some other activity, just seems odd (to me). If your group wants to accommodate the few folks who bust out, just stop playing the game when they bust, so you can start the real party.

It's a cash game, and unlike a tourney, where there are places, and prize money awarded to the top finishers, the cash game can end wherever, whenever. There's no need to speed things up, to force others to bust out, so you can end the game. It'd be more reasonable to say, "once two players have busted, we will set a timer and play another 30 mins, then cash everyone out".

But ultimately, is your game to play how you like.

@mummel I concur with @Trihonda here about the time limit. Especially if you notice people just pushing the same amount of money to get to the flop when you raise the blinds. That means the higher blinds are having no effect on the action.

A timer is a great way to get people to make moves knowing they have a set limit to generate some action and some cash. If they want to just sit around and fold the blinds and drink beer, that's cool, too! But, you mention that poker is a smaller part of a bigger social gathering, so maybe try out just a ~3hr session next time at steady blinds, and see where it takes you. This way, everybody stays in as long as the please and they can try to bump their roll or just shoot the breeze and tie one on. Then you wrap it up and start doing other stuff.

 

[NicholasAK]

I think this is an interesting debate... And I think a better question is, "should we do a hybrid game at all?"
[9400109699937460736507/QUOTE]

Id wonder what added value a "tournament" provides as well. Most tourneys i see get chopped top 3ish too.

 

[TheOctagon]

Come to think of it, it's pretty hilarious when the guy who has been folding every hand and is visibly hammered looks up and goes, "All in."

 

[mummel]

Come to think of it, it's pretty hilarious when the guy who has been folding every hand and is visibly hammered looks up and goes, "All in."

Even better when the guy he goes all in against is 8 whiskey shots deep and has a 9 high card.

 

[Trihonda]

Good point. I think the diffs is that the hybrid games are so small potatoes and because everyone has just thrown in $20 for the evening, no one cares if the blinds are raised and if they win or lose (some nights guys have left without collecting their winnings).

However, I could see how if people are buying in for $100 each, that things will become way more serious (for me too), and upping the blinds in a cash game just to force bust outs would suck. I think thats the diffs.

But check my tables above. I hope I'm close! Would this work?

There's just no valid point, given your stated situation, to raising the blinds... Just keep playing at the same stakes, and end when you want... The idea of coloring up cash chips, raising blinds, trying to force action to bust/generate action (when no one cares about the low buyins anyway), all just seems pointless and is creating a lot of confusion/unecessary work in calculating what chips to buy, and what starting stacks to use, rebuys, etc...

I place odds you will look back on this thread a few years from now, and laugh at the premise of a hybrid cash game like this. "What were we thinking?" WILL come out of your mouth. However, I say this from experience, and without passing judgement, since I've read many old threads of mine and said the exact same thing. .

Your game will evolve, you will evolve, poker will evolve, and your chip collection will grow. <---- 99.654% of coming true.

 

[mummel]

Hey I can even stretch my cash set to a 10 player regulation game:

There's just no valid point, given your stated situation, to raising the blinds... Just keep playing at the same stakes, and end when you want... The idea of coloring up cash chips, raising blinds, trying to force action to bust/generate action (when no one cares about the low buyins anyway), all just seems pointless and is creating a lot of confusion/unecessary work in calculating what chips to buy, and what starting stacks to use, rebuys, etc...

I place odds you will look back on this thread a few years from now, and laugh at the premise of a hybrid cash game like this. "What were we thinking?" WILL come out of your mouth. However, I say this from experience, and without passing judgement, since I've read many old threads of mine and said the exact same thing. .

Your game will evolve, you will evolve, poker will evolve, and your chip collection will grow. <---- 99.654% of coming true.

I kind of know you are right

I think I'm 99% set at this point.

1) Go 8-8-4-7 for my 18 player tourney set = 575 chips
2) Go 12-12-7 for my 10 player cash set = 375 chips

That leaves 50 chips spare

Shall I get 50 X $10 chips to put on my pillow at night? But on a serious note, where would you deploy these 50 chips if we're doing everything by the book?

 

[links_slayer]

to throw another wrench in your plans, i would only order 100 x 25¢, hand out 20 quarters to the first 5 buy-ins, and have the rest of the players buy them as needed. this saves you 20 more chips (for 70 extra total - assuming your tourney set breakdown is sufficient...i didn't check).

i'd put the extras toward $1s and $5s.

 

[mummel]

to throw another wrench in your plans, i would only order 100 x 25¢, hand out 20 quarters to the first 5 buy-ins, and have the rest of the players buy them as needed. this saves you 20 more chips (for 70 extra total - assuming your tourney set breakdown is sufficient...i didn't check).

i'd put the extras toward $1s and $5s.

Good idea if I need to save chips but seeing as though I have already 50 chips spare, I will just go with 12-12 vs 8-12 to make game play easier (in case it takes someone a long time to bust out).

If I spend my remaining 50 chips on 25 X $1s and 25 X $5s, what would I get? Why would I do this?

 

[CdnBeerLover]

Adding additional $1 and $5 provides more depth for a larger than expected cash game.

 

[mummel]

Adding additional $1 and $5 provides more depth for a larger than expected cash game.

Man it's really hard to visualize an $800+ pot given how low stakes our previous games have been. But maybe you are right. Maybe in 5 years I will look back and laugh.

So yeah, adding 25 X $25 to my cash game increases my potential buy-ins from 5 to 6. But why the need for more $1s? What would I do with these?

 

[Trihonda]

Man it's really hard to visualize an $800+ pot given how low stakes our previous games have been. But maybe you are right. Maybe in 5 years I will look back and laugh.

So yeah, adding 25 X $25 to my cash game increases my potential buy-ins from 5 to 6. But why the need for more $1s? What would I do with these?

Few years back, When my buds and I would get together to play, we'd all throw in $20, and play dealers choice games. Maybe 6-7 guys, so $140 max on the table. Now, my main cash set has a bank of $8,000, and Ive done my best to get all the chips in play.

As I said, your game will evolve

 

[abby99]

Man it's really hard to visualize an $800+ pot given how low stakes our previous games have been. But maybe you are right. Maybe in 5 years I will look back and laugh.

So yeah, adding 25 X $25 to my cash game increases my potential buy-ins from 5 to 6. But why the need for more $1s? What would I do with these?

Few years back, When my buds and I would get together to play, we'd all throw in $20, and play dealers choice games. Maybe 6-7 guys, so $140 max on the table. Now, my main cash set has a bank of $8,000, and Ive done my best to get all the chips in play.

As I said, your game will evolve

Trihonda is correct. In addition, if/when your game starts to play a little bigger, you might have a difficult time finding chips to match your initial set. If they're still being offered for sale by a retailer, they might be from a different batch and won't necessarily match. On the other hand, if you hang around here you'll probably want to upgrade your set anyway, and the unavailability of matching chips would be a great excuse to buy another, larger set. Either way, you'll be planning for the future.