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Tourney Plaques and Chips? (1 Viewer)

Polochris

Polochris

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Hello All,

Few questions for you all. Would it be weird to give some starting stacks plaques, and other stacks with no plaques? For example, T20K starting stacks. 12/12/5/6/2. Some get 2 5K plaques, and others would get 2 5K chips. I am running low on 5K plaques but have plenty of 5K chips. I do random seating so people won’t fight over the plaques.

What do you think? Do you think the mix of 5K plaques and 5K chips would tilt people? Same color, blue.

Thanks for the advice guys!
 
I do not advise mixing plaques and chips of the same denomination in the same tournament (unless it is just a very few plaques involved -- and even then, it is not optimal).

Players get accustomed to seeing plaques around the table representing the large denominations, and the high-denom chips get overlooked -- causing playerr confusion, including counting errors and stack misrepresentations.
 
Blaster said:
Do you have enough chips to eliminate plaques? If so, save the plaques for the baccarat games where they belong, and give the players the 5K poker chips :)
Click to expand...

I have 40 5K chips, and 6 5K plaques. So lets say 10 players, I could give 3 players 2 plaques, and the other 7 players 2 chips.
 
This appears to be solved, but I'll chime in that every starting stack should look identical. Mixing T5000 plaques and T5000 chips just adds potential confusion, as the player with a plaque may think (forget) that there are T5000 chips in play as well. This could lead to the player calling an all-in bet thinking he had the opponent easily covered when he didn't.

Similarly, once you go to plaques you cannot go back to chips with the next higher denom. For example, using T5000 plaques but then using a T25000 chip. OCD aside, it could lead to the same miscalculation-scenario.
 
Poker Zombie said:
This appears to be solved, but I'll chime in that every starting stack should look identical. Mixing T5000 plaques and T5000 chips just adds potential confusion, as the player with a plaque may think (forget) that there are T5000 chips in play as well. This could lead to the player calling an all-in bet thinking he had the opponent easily covered when he didn't.

Similarly, once you go to plaques you cannot go back to chips with the next higher denom. For example, using T5000 plaques but then using a T25000 chip. OCD aside, it could lead to the same miscalculation-scenario.
Click to expand...

No No I wouldn't be doing that. I have some 25K plaques as well.

But does having my 5K plaques make my 5K chips pretty much useless?
 
Polochris said:
No No I wouldn't be doing that. I have some 25K plaques as well.

But does having my 5K plaques make my 5K chips pretty much useless?
Click to expand...

Useless, no. If you project getting T25,000 on the table, you can use the chips for T5000s. When the T5000 is the largest denom expected, use the plaques. At the same time though... useless..

Polochris said:
No No I wouldn't be doing that. I have some 25K plaques as well.
Click to expand...
I wouldnt think you would. I only mentioned it because it helps to demonstrate the point of the psychological effect of plaques. I love plaques, because they infer a "big bet".

We had a game one time, and a player went to re-raise. It was the first time the plaque hit the table. He held it high over the table, let it hover for a couple seconds, then dropped it with a whistle (like a falling bomb). In retrospect, it was an undeclared single-chip wager, which by every rule interpretation would be a call. It was an obvious raise, because it was a plaque. If it were a chip, there may have been some ambivalence.

Now imagine that with some T5000 chips and some T5000 plaques on the table at the same time.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Useless, no. If you project getting T25,000 on the table, you can use the chips for T5000s. When the T5000 is the largest denom expected, use the plaques. At the same time though... useless..


I wouldnt think you would. I only mentioned it because it helps to demonstrate the point of the psychological effect of plaques. I love plaques, because they infer a "big bet".

We had a game one time, and a player went to re-raise. It was the first time the plaque hit the table. He held it high over the table, let it hover for a couple seconds, then dropped it with a whistle (like a falling bomb). In retrospect, it was an undeclared single-chip wager, which by every rule interpretation would be a call. It was an obvious raise, because it was a plaque. If it were a chip, there may have been some ambivalence.

Now imagine that with some T5000 chips and some T5000 plaques on the table at the same time.
Click to expand...

Good Advice. Thank you. That does indeed make sense.
 
Poker Zombie said:
but I'll chime in that every starting stack should look identical. Mixing T5000 plaques and T5000 chips just adds potential confusion, as the player with a plaque may think (forget) that there are T5000 chips in play as well.
Click to expand...

I have been converted on this way of thinking as well, but if you really want to get the plaques in play, maybe this bend in principle would be acceptable:

1) Give everyone an identical 10k stack.
2) Add either 1 t5k plaque or 5 T1000 chips so everyone has a 15k stack.

This way plaques are the only 5k unit in play. And the stacks are identical except the last 5k, which is still pretty easy to verify visually.

Good luck in your search, I see it's going to be a tough deal to find.
 
JustinInMN said:
I have been converted on this way of thinking as well, but if you really want to get the plaques in play, maybe this bend in principle would be acceptable:

1) Give everyone an identical 10k stack.
2) Add either 1 t5k plaque or 5 T1000 chips so everyone has a 15k stack.

This way plaques are the only 5k unit in play. And the stacks are identical except the last 5k, which is still pretty easy to verify visually.

Good luck in your search, I see it's going to be a tough deal to find.
Click to expand...

I dislike this scenario as well, because players with more chips tend to play looser, regardless of the value of the total chip-stack. I've done studies on this.

My research involved differences with more/less of the smaller chips, so differing amounts of large denom chips may be different - but I have witnessed players with a single chip worth 25BB play like they they were in a fold or shove scenario.

Poker is a game of math and psychology. Starting players with different stacks can have a very real effect on play.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Poker is a game of math and psychology. Starting players with different stacks can have a very real effect on play.
Click to expand...


I appreciate that view, I was just trying to come up with a way to get the plaques in play with the least imbalance possible with what @Polochris has available.
 
Last edited:
JustinInMN said:
You should've said "that's a call" just to see the look on that guy's face for being so obsessed with making a show out of a plaque. :p
Click to expand...

Like I said, "in retrospect" I realized that would have been the appropriate call. At the time, I was at the table and I took it to be a raise. According to TDA rule #3: It is the responsibility of players to make their intentions clear: using non-standard terms or gestures is at player's risk and may result in a ruling other than what the player intended.

His plaque drop was risky, but the intention was clear.

...but the look would have been priceless :wideeyed:
 
Does it help that both the 5K chips and the 5K Plaques are going to be blue? lol........but really?


I am getting Gear to make me a $5000 label to cover up the Pharaoh NCV label.

3AD5D79F-96B0-4768-A63B-C020F6918395.jpeg
 
Sorry, it does not help. But it will avoid confusion if some days you use the plaque and other days you use the chip. Since I have various sets, there is always a little pause when the big denom chips come out on color-ups. Depending on the set, T5000s can be Brown, Salmon, Hot Pink, or Blue. I always hear someone ask "what is that chip?"

C'mon people, you know it's the next larger denom!
 
Poker Zombie said:
Sorry, it does not help. But it will avoid confusion if some days you use the plaque and other days you use the chip. Since I have various sets, there is always a little pause when the big denom chips come out on color-ups. Depending on the set, T5000s can be Brown, Salmon, Hot Pink, or Blue. I always hear someone ask "what is that chip?"

C'mon people, you know it's the next larger denom!
Click to expand...

Got it. Man these plaques are going to be hard to find! Cant wait till 2020 so the legal rights disappear essentially, and we can have someone make these plaques again!
 
I'm pretty sure Gear can make you some plaque size labels that look identical to the CDI. Find some suitable sheet plastic and make your own!
 
Darson said:
I'm pretty sure Gear can make you some plaque size labels that look identical to the CDI. Find some suitable sheet plastic and make your own!
Click to expand...

This is true. I think someone asked ABC gifts and they wouldn’t touch the design with a 9 foot pole.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Poker is a game of math and psychology. Starting players with different stacks can have a very real effect on play.

because players with more chips tend to play looser, regardless of the value of the total chip-stack. I've done studies on this.
Click to expand...
This is absolutely true. Also one of the reasons (besides ease of re-buys /color-ups and excessive/difficult change-making) that tournament starting stacks should not have a single chip worth 50% of the stack's total value. It will significantly affect player actions. In theory, it shouldn't.... but in reality, it certainly does.
 
I much prefer keeping plaques completely out of my home games. I find that they're generally pretty expensive and, quite frankly, harder to count up how much people have. Also, they're not particularly common in the US.
 

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