Nex
Flush
For tournament, I can recommend the "Ultimate Poker Chip" sluggos. The base chip is ubiquitous (you tend to find their unlabeled version with "8 stripe poker chip") and they slap a large variety of different stock labels on those.
They're definitely not "nice" - the edges have a lot of flashing and aren't flat, the material and label is and looks cheap, and they are very heavy. But, they do the job, the colors are more vivid than most injection molded "faux clay" chips so they are easier to distinguish, and most importantly - they stack pretty well.
The recess for the labels on these is deep enough to counter any slight convex shaping, apparently. Also they take a lot of beating without chipping, and they are extremely cheap. I have one vendor in my country who appears to import them directly from China, and they're selling a pack of 50 for just 5 euros. Hard to find vendors selling these as singles, most sell in packs of 25 or 50, so you'll end up with some extras for the specific breakdown you need, but it's still very cheap.
+1 to the idea of kickstarting him with a cheap tournament set, and then helping him buy a nice set for a cash game with the remainder of the budget.
Edit: Unless he already does have some, I'd throw in a double setup of good plastic cards, and perhaps a dedicated blind timer if he usually uses his phone for it.
They're definitely not "nice" - the edges have a lot of flashing and aren't flat, the material and label is and looks cheap, and they are very heavy. But, they do the job, the colors are more vivid than most injection molded "faux clay" chips so they are easier to distinguish, and most importantly - they stack pretty well.
The recess for the labels on these is deep enough to counter any slight convex shaping, apparently. Also they take a lot of beating without chipping, and they are extremely cheap. I have one vendor in my country who appears to import them directly from China, and they're selling a pack of 50 for just 5 euros. Hard to find vendors selling these as singles, most sell in packs of 25 or 50, so you'll end up with some extras for the specific breakdown you need, but it's still very cheap.
+1 to the idea of kickstarting him with a cheap tournament set, and then helping him buy a nice set for a cash game with the remainder of the budget.
Edit: Unless he already does have some, I'd throw in a double setup of good plastic cards, and perhaps a dedicated blind timer if he usually uses his phone for it.
