Tournament Denoms are Weird (1 Viewer)

[hankiedoodle]

Bear with me here.

Standard cash set denominations are great! You can start down at microstakes 1c chips, and step up all the way to $500 chips using only the common denominations, and each denom is consistently worth either 4 or 5 times the previous one. 1c -> 5c -> 25c -> $1 -> $5 -> $25 (or $20) -> $100 -> $500.

But with common tournament denoms (and high stakes cash denoms), you've got the weird 500 -> 1000 gap, which feels inefficient and awkward. The 500-value chips and the 1000-value chips basically serve the same purpose. For any bet you want to make with 1000-value chips, it's not meaningfully more annoying to make that same bet with 500-value chips.

If I got to redesign the system, we'd just keep the same pattern all the way up: 25 -> 100 -> 500 -> 2500 -> 10k -> 50k -> 250k -> 1M -> etc. If you don't like saying "seventy-five hundred" or writing "2.5k", you could also change that one to a 2k chip, and it would function exactly the same.

Is anyone else bothered by this, or is it just me? Does anyone happen to know some cool history about how this system became the standard? Is this a scheme cooked up by chip manufacturers to sell more tournament chips?

 

[Eriks]

Some have gone the route that you suggest with either a 2k or a 2,5k chip. I am not a fan going by pure aesthetics alone, but another, more real problem, is that most homegames are filled with, otherwise intelligent, people who stack their chips in stacks of ten (or worse, just randomly) and count out their all-in bets two chips at a time (and still mess up).

Adding a weird denom is just adding fuel to the fire. Yes, the 500 -> 1k gap is ineffiecient, but it has become standard for a reason.

 

[Gunnar]

Try living with a currency where all cash sets are 100-500-1000-5000-10000

I tried creating a cash set that was 50-250-1000 and it was riots all around the table

 

[MeridianFC]

It’s often struck me that most efficient tourney set would be 1->5->25->100->500 though that might give you some funky betting levels

 

[elliot129]

You’re absolutely right that the tournament denomination system is a bit odd. The jump from 500 to 1000 is indeed not very smooth. I think your suggestion to introduce denominations like 2500 or 10k makes sense. It would streamline the game and reduce confusion.

As for the history, I think chip manufacturers might have their interests at play here. Higher denominations sell better because players want more options. I agree it’s frustrating, but maybe it’s also part of a marketing strategy.

Elliot

 

[ovo]

Yeah, when I did my custom set, I created a 2500 chip and a lot of other weird denoms. It works, but 18 years later, I have a better understanding of tourney setups. The thing is, you have to keep the 500 chip in play longer than if you have a 500 - 1000 combo. A 1k chip is more versatile than a 2k or 2.5k chip. Once you get up into the higher denoms, a 5k chip is more versatile than a 10k chip, but the structure of the blinds is key to whatever combo you are running. These days I tend to go with standard setups and not think so much about it. It's fun either way, as long as you have a good group of players.

 

[upNdown]

It’s normally just that one 500 to 1,000 gap that’s weird. Although some places will use a 5,000 chip and a 10,000 chip, and it actually makes sense for the starting stacks.
I think it’s a lot more intuitive to deal with a 500 and a 1,000 than a 2,000 chip, so I’m fine with it.
And fwiw, it exists in cash games to - a lot of sets use a 50 cent chip and a $1 chip.

 

[allforcharity]

I created a T2k chip exactly for this reason for a CDI98 tourney set, because it was much more economical. Not only in play but also in cost, since $1000 can be both wickedly expensive and rare.

 

[BGinGA]

A 1k chip is more versatile than a 2k or 2.5k chip. Once you get up into the higher denoms, a 5k chip is more versatile than a 10k chip

And it is precisely because of ^those^ two points that casinos use $100, $500, $1000, and $5000 cash checks. It 'resets' at $1000, because of US currency familiarity and ease-of-use. The familar $1 through $500 sequence is repeated, starting with $1000 through $500,000. At first it's dollars, then it's thousands of dollars. When viewed this way, it makes perfect sense.

When tournament play was introduced in US casinos, they typically used the cash denominations they already had in circulation. And when dedicated ncv tournament chip sets replaced cash value checks, nobody bothered to reinvent the wheel and create different denominations just for tournament play..... because it simply wasn't necessary.


On a related note, one might wonder why casinos didn't follow the US currency sequence when creating the first casino currency: i.e., $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, and $500. Clearly the elimination of $10 and $50 chips were done for efficiency and less confusion, but the decision to use a $25 casino denomination instead of the US $20 currency value seems odd.

I suspect it was a clever ruse to get patrons to pony up an extra 25% when buying larger chips or placing larger bets. Or maybe they were just following the more familiar denomination sequence for US coins: 1c, 5c, and 25c.