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Poker Set Security (1 Viewer)

if you use clays, it's a good practice to play with a lot of 5s, because in most cases, the 5s are worth nearly face value
try to mill & relabel some unique spot spatterns and use them as 25s and 100s

I guess my hundos are pretty safe
1567080754149.png
 
@JustinInMN I disagree that catching it the first time is too late. Ideally, you wouldn’t want it to happen at all, but if it does, you want to catch it ASAP. To my point regarding the 1’s, the amount you’re going to lose should be minimal because i’d expect the host to catch anything more than a barrel being put on the table of your game (or at least I’d think you would) so our conversation is over $15/$20 at most. I’d pay $15/$20 to another person to come in and scan my table and tell me if I have a thief at my table so to me the money is well worth it.

Where this hurts the most in my opinion, is your honest players will likely be turned off by this, and you could potentially lose players from it.
 
shorticus said:
Where this hurts the most in my opinion, is your honest players will likely be turned off by this, and you could potentially lose players from it.
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This is a very important insight and it's as good a reason as any to go down the road of avoiding stock chips. One of my insights from my hosting experience is "impropriety is bad, the appearance of impropriety is almost as bad."

Also, while I want to appreciate that sentiment of only inviting trustworthy people to games, even people you know well can change over years. And not catching issues when they happen causes you to suspect those that you otherwise wouldn't.

I just think customs over stock is a classic "ounce of prevention" versus a "pound of cure" to preempt all the unpleasantness..
 
To your first comment @JustinInMN about appearance of impropriety being just as bad. Let's suppose you're faced with this situation where you were to find the extra chips. Do you 1.) make a big deal about it and risk making known that there are cheaters involved, or 2.) say nothing, take the hit, and take necessary precautions (ala custom chips only).
 
shorticus said:
To your first comment @JustinInMN about appearance of impropriety being just as bad. Let's suppose you're faced with this situation where you were to find the extra chips. Do you 1.) make a big deal about it and risk making known that there are cheaters involved, or 2.) say nothing, take the hit, and take necessary precautions (ala custom chips only).
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I think you take it silently and get customs. In the meantime, if you have someone absolutely trust worthy at the table, like a wife, then you can have them be alert for it until you get them.

If I went to a game and the cashout was fucked up due to cheating, I’d likely not return. If it were fucked up due to miscounting, I may return.
 
A lot of talk here about chips used in cash games. Truth is, you will know at the end of the night if you've been had. Sure, the horses are out of the barn, and you can only speculate who slipped in a counterfeit, but knowing is half the battle.

Tournaments however pose a greater risk. A player can slip in a higher value chip early/mid game and it would go unnoticed. Later they slip it back out when it is worth fewer BB - perhaps even after they have won, if they are that cocky. At the end of the night, your sets come up exactly to the chip. You are oblivious.

There are just a few horror stories about longtime friends being caught cheating, but they exist - when the cheat is caught. How many "friends" have taken the extra edge without anyone ever noticing? I seriously doubt 100% of cheats have been caught. In the end, cheaters aren't mustachioed villains. They are people like you and me, and have friends. Friends that invite them to poker games.

I've worked in the medical field for a very long time. Long before "bloodborne pathogens" were a thought. You could be elbow-deep in blood and not think about it. Then we started wearing gloves - selectively. Crack-whore, glove-up. Executive secretary, don't worry (early gloves were really cumbersome, and messy). People started getting offended if we wore gloves, so we did the next best thing, and called them "universal precautions".

Maintain game security. It doesn't matter if they are friends, family, or complete strangers. Always use universal precautions.
 
2jzMk3 said:
If I went to a game and the cashout was fucked up due to cheating, I’d likely not return. If it were fucked up due to miscounting, I may return.
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100% agree with this. Any form of cheating makes me nervous about being there so I'd probably back off.
 
shorticus said:
1.) make a big deal about it and risk making known that there are cheaters involved, or 2.) say nothing, take the hit, and take necessary precautions (ala custom chips only).
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#2 easily. But I have custom labeled chips, albeit by the cheapest means possible.
 
@Poker Zombie the tournament aspect is interesting to me because if you are adding chips to your stack, I'd think most players would be aware of approximately how many chips you have in front of you. You'd have to do this early, or be playing with a significant amount of chips in front of you. That's a really bold move. I guess you could do it after pulling in a decent sized pot.

However, I do agree with universal precautions being the best route. You have to assume that anyone will steal and act accordingly.
 
shorticus said:
@Poker Zombie the tournament aspect is interesting to me because if you are adding chips to your stack, I'd think most players would be aware of approximately how many chips you have in front of you. You'd have to do this early, or be playing with a significant amount of chips in front of you. That's a really bold move. I guess you could do it after pulling in a decent sized pot.

However, I do agree with universal precautions being the best route. You have to assume that anyone will steal and act accordingly.
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How many chips do I have in front of me while changing tables in a MTT?

If I'm sitting with T55,400 and get called all-in while holding the nuts, would anyone notice an extra 500? an extra 1000? an extra 3000? The counterfeit chip(s) are only on the table for the count then back off the table. All it would take is misdirection and palming. Much tougher if you have very few chips on the table and are constantly making change (like a casino), but home games tend to be more chip-heavy.
 
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One of the hosts in our group had a barrel of T1000 chips go missing during a tournament. The extra rebuy and color up chips were just sitting on a table where anyone could easily snag them. It wasn’t discovered until after the tournament was over and he was putting the chips away. So after that game the chips were all secured much better and the TD would race off during color ups instead of just rounding to be able to keep track of exactly how many chips were in play. He even went so far as to do chip counts at breaks and table breaks. The missing chips were never found. Most likely the person that took them got too scared to try to sneak them into play.

Locks keep men honest. Many times crimes are of opportunity than for any other reason.

My chips are always locked during the entire game, cash or tournament.
 
Rhodeman77 said:
Locks keep men honest. Many times crimes are of opportunity than for any other reason.
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^^^ This.

Back in the 80s, my wife parked in a high-crime parking lot. Literally weekly, a car was stolen from the lot. Even with a police cruiser in the lot, thieves are just too smooth. So we invested in one of those steering wheel locks.

We never locked it. I'm not even sure who had the key.

Truthfully, those can be thwarted in a few seconds with a bolt cutter through the steering wheel. It didn't matter though, because the purpose was to make our car less of a target.

Custom labels, multiple sets, difficult to obtain chips are all thwartable, but by taking away the opportunity you make your game safer. A crooked "friend" may screw you if you give him the chance, but he is less likely if the crime requires an effort.
 
Poker Zombie said:
Back in the 80s, my wife parked in a high-crime parking lot. Literally weekly, a car was stolen from the lot. Even with a police cruiser in the lot, thieves are just too smooth. So we invested in one of those steering wheel locks.
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To protect my vehicles from theft, I only get manual cars. Millennial thieves neutralized!
 
Poker Zombie said:
How many chips do I have in front of me while changing tables in a MTT?

If I'm sitting with T55,400 and get called all-in while holding the nuts, would anyone notice an extra 500? an extra 1000? an extra 3000? The counterfeit chip(s) are only on the table for the count then back off the table. All it would take is misdirection and palming. Much tougher if you have very few chips on the table and are constantly making change (like a casino), but home games tend to be more chip-heavy.
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Wow!!! I was just going through this thread again, and it's ironic that I came across this post. I was recently considering doing a deep stack tourney to get a ton of chips on the table for a small group of people, and now I feel like I can still do a deep stack tourney, but I'd rather have minimal chips on the table.
 
shorticus said:
Wow!!! I was just going through this thread again, and it's ironic that I came across this post. I was recently considering doing a deep stack tourney to get a ton of chips on the table for a small group of people, and now I feel like I can still do a deep stack tourney, but I'd rather have minimal chips on the table.
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You can still use a ton of chips, if you are the one and only source of those chips. They can't smuggle in a counterfeit if they can't realistically have one.

Mind you, while a lot of chips are fun, they can start getting in the way if there are too many, particularly if the game is self dealt. They also slow the game down during chip counts. The game can also slow down if you have too few chips and need to constantly make change (change making also provides opportunity for errors).

My ideal chip-stacks are 30-40 chips per player at the start, but personal preference will play a factor.
 
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Poker Zombie said:
You can still use a ton of chips, if you are the one and only source of those chips. They can't smuggle in a counterfeit if that can't realistically have one.

Mind you, while a lot of chips are fun, they can start getting in the way if there are too many, particularly if the game is self dealt. They also slow the game down during chip counts. The game can also slow down if you have too few chips and need to constantly make change (change making also provides opportunity for errors).

My ideal chip-stacks are 30-40 chips per player at the start, but personal preference will play a factor.
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I’m going for starting stacks that look something like this:
1578949513872.jpeg
 
Starting Stacks $20,000,000
1 hour levels are starting at 5/10 :ROFL: :ROFLMAO: :ROFL: :ROFLMAO: :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
 
No issues to date on cashouts and not a single chip added/lost thus far. I'm hoping I can keep it this way. A good majority of my players, 70% give or take are friends and family I have known a long time. Not to say it's impossible they would steal, the risk is definitely much lower with them. The other 30% are players I have rotated in and vetted. I now require new players I meet to add me on social media and I typically have a few conversations with them before inviting people to my home. Last thing I want is some sort of scary incident taking place. The only "easy" chips I have to duplicate are my DDLM's. I have three semi custom sets that would require inlay removal and relabeling with a gear laminated label so I feel very good about my game security in the poker chip sense.
 
sheikh617 said:
No issues to date on cashouts and not a single chip added/lost thus far. I'm hoping I can keep it this way. A good majority of my players, 70% give or take are friends and family I have known a long time. Not to say it's impossible they would steal, the risk is definitely much lower with them. The other 30% are players I have rotated in and vetted. I now require new players I meet to add me on social media and I typically have a few conversations with them before inviting people to my home. Last thing I want is some sort of scary incident taking place. The only "easy" chips I have to duplicate are my DDLM's. I have three semi custom sets that would require inlay removal and relabeling with a gear laminated label so I feel very good about my game security in the poker chip sense.
Click to expand...

Very nice!

Since this thread was posted, I keep a distinct amount of money in $1's, $5's, $10's, and $20's in my cash drawer. I tell my players that it's for me to always have change available upon cash out, but it's also useful to be able to cash everyone out while knowing if I'm short for a given game, and if I am, I don't have to have that conversation at that point in time. This way as far as my players are concerned, everything ran smoothly. Thankfully, no issues as of yet.
 
shorticus said:
Very nice!

Since this thread was posted, I keep a distinct amount of money in $1's, $5's, $10's, and $20's in my cash drawer. I tell my players that it's for me to always have change available upon cash out, but it's also useful to be able to cash everyone out while knowing if I'm short for a given game, and if I am, I don't have to have that conversation at that point in time. This way as far as my players are concerned, everything ran smoothly. Thankfully, no issues as of yet.
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Nice that's a good way to handle it. I try and log each buy in so that I know how much I should have in the bank and that helps me make sure I'm not short. Using the nicer chips definitely helps as pretty much all my players minus maybe three know effectively nothing about chips. I have a few chippers that attend off the forum.
 
Go to your local casino and buy some chips. You can play with them and later exchange...
 
I’ve never had any issues but then again I’ve got 3 sets that I rotate so any thieves would have to buy 3 different types of chip... and by the time they figure it out I’ll probably have a 4th set in play ha ha!!
 
shorticus said:
Very nice!

Since this thread was posted, I keep a distinct amount of money in $1's, $5's, $10's, and $20's in my cash drawer. I tell my players that it's for me to always have change available upon cash out, but it's also useful to be able to cash everyone out while knowing if I'm short for a given game, and if I am, I don't have to have that conversation at that point in time. This way as far as my players are concerned, everything ran smoothly. Thankfully, no issues as of yet.
Click to expand...

We exclusively play cash and I bring a bank of $200 for making change in one of those bright red deposit zippered envelopes. I rack the chips as I cash players out and at the end of the night I count the bank so I would know if there was an issue. Today we are playing with Majestics that are in racks and the $20 is a relabeled $10 so a blue color; kind of custom. I trust all my players as we have known each others through kids sports for years. I am building a PCA cash set; I think it would be hard to economically find $5 or $25 to slip into the game and at $.25/$.50 it would be impossible to slip in a $25 as those almost will never see the felt! I am thinking about gear label for the Majestics though ...
 

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