• This site contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking a link, Poker Chip Forum may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Cash Game Why so many $5s? (2 Viewers)

Z

zzz

Sitting Out
Joined
Dec 9, 2023
Messages
21
Reaction score
61
Location
Omaha, NE
On forum advice, I have ended up with this 800-chip breakdown to cover all of .25/.25, .25/.50, 1/1 and 1/2:

100 x 25c
200 x $1
400 x $5
80 x $25
20 x $100

I have seen many breakdowns with this kind of shape.

My question is: why do we want so many $5 chips?

I understand the desire to have plenty of workhorse chips. But the desire to have racks and racks of them seems to be uniquely common with the $5 chip--way more than, say, the $1, which is arguably the workhorse at .25/.25 and .25/.50. I have looked through the forum and found no clear answer to why this is. 200 of them seems to be enough for a well-functioning game, no?

And yet, clearly I myself have succumbed to "more 5s". In my case I attribute it to wanting to bring the positive aspects of the "casino experience" to my game, and this apparently includes having generous stacks of red chips. But then why do casinos do it that way? Is it just that the $5 is the most versatile denomination? (It seems so to me.)

Is it just that red chips look good?
 
Mostly because people loves stacks of chips. No one at 5c/10c is betting $1 with a barrel of nickels, no one at .25/.25 is betting $5 with a barrel of quarters, if you're playing $1/2 there's no reason you can't use $25 in your bets.

200 is enough (single table assumed), the question is for your game, is it fun to bet big stacks of $5s? Or do you need bank to cover wider stakes without an enormous chip set?

I think fat stacks are fun, but I try to encourage players on a budget to not fall for the excess. If you aren't budget constrained, go crazy.

$5 also has a certain valuation to it. Even at micro stakes people will say $1 is just $1. $5 feels more substantial, and stacks of it feel more consequential than any smaller chip. In 50 years when we've inflated 500% I would expect $25 to occupy the same position.
 
joeyshin said:
In 25c/25c game $5s are still the workhorse chip.
Click to expand...

But that's a 20bb chip! I wonder how typical this is. In my 25c/25c games (which are probably unusually tame, with a ton of limping) the workhorse is definitely the $1.

So it seems it depends more on the buy-ins and how the particular group plays, than the blinds.
 
I run a 50c/50c game and initially got 100 x 50c, 200 x $1, 300 x $5 and 100 x $25. This was for a one table setup but my game blew up and now I host 16 players on two tables on a regular basis.

The breakdown I use for each $50 stack is 4 x 50c, 8 x $1 and 8 x $5. I can hear the chip denomination police coming for me but that works perfectly fine for my game. We have a typical mix of super splashy players, a few nits, a few sharks and the rest in-between.

There’s a little bit of change making for the blinds early on but as the stacks get deeper and straddles more frequent (we usually get about $3500-$4000 in by the end), the breakdown works perfectly fine.

Chips are expensive so while its nice to have nice full racks and extra chips, they just become expensive paper weights if you don’t actually use them.
 
IMG_5779.jpeg
 
RagingAZN said:
I run a 50c/50c game and initially got 100 x 50c, 200 x $1, 300 x $5 and 100 x $25. This was for a one table setup but my game blew up and now I host 16 players on two tables on a regular bI can hear the chip denomination police coming for me but that works perfectly fine for my game. We have a typical mix of super splashy players, a few nits, a few sharks and the rest in-between.

There’s a little bit of change making for the blinds early on but as the stacks get deeper and straddles more frequent (we usually get about $3500-$4000 in by the end), the breakdown works perfectly fine.

Chips are expensive so while its nice to have nice full racks and extra chips, they just become expensive paper weights if you don’t actually use them.
Click to expand...

Not to be a hater, but at 100x50c and 200x$1 why not start with more on the table?

I would go
6x50c
12x$16
7x$5

If you're not going to exhaust the 50c and $1, why bother including the extras in the set at all? With 16 buy ins you have 36 50c and 72 $1 leftover.
 
springbox said:
Not to be a hater, but at 100x50c and 200x$1 why not start with more on the table?

I would go
6x50c
12x$16
7x$5

If you're not going to exhaust the 50c and $1, why bother including the extras in the set at all? With 16 buy ins you have 36 50c and 72 $1 leftover.
Click to expand...

Yes your breakdown is the most efficient but with mine, the 20 chip starting stacks are easy to organise into the racks. The breakdown gives me 25 starting stacks so if someone buys in more than $50 to start, I just give them another starting stack until they’re all finished.

Your one also means that 4 x 50c and 8 x $1s will be lonely always! ;)
 
Last edited:
I have players in my game who love to build pyramids or towers of chips. I’m sure this is not unique to my game.

Some of these (kind of annoyingly) resist coloring up or making change for a neighbor, because they don’t want to shrink the appearance of their Smaug-like hoard.

Meanwhile, as a host I am happy for players to feel richer, for pots to look bigger, for people to play looser, and for everyone not to have to make change constantly.

So, fine. My cash sets are both overlarge. They could each be streamlined down 30-50% and still be functional. But I am cool with there being lots of clay disks on the table if that makes the regs happier and more gambly.
 
springbox said:
Mostly because people loves stacks of chips. No one at 5c/10c is betting $1 with a barrel of nickels, no one at .25/.25 is betting $5 with a barrel of quarters, if you're playing $1/2 there's no reason you can't use $25 in your bets.

200 is enough (single table assumed), the question is for your game, is it fun to bet big stacks of $5s? Or do you need bank to cover wider stakes without an enormous chip set?

I think fat stacks are fun, but I try to encourage players on a budget to not fall for the excess. If you aren't budget constrained, go crazy.

$5 also has a certain valuation to it. Even at micro stakes people will say $1 is just $1. $5 feels more substantial, and stacks of it feel more consequential than any smaller chip. In 50 years when we've inflated 500% I would expect $25 to occupy the same position.
Click to expand...
Says you.
 
joeyshin said:
In 25c/25c game $5s are still the workhorse chip. Anything from 25c/25c to 1/3. Even 2/5 uses a lot of $5s. Plus they always look nice. Whether yellow or red, they always stand out in a set.
Click to expand...
If this is true I think my understanding what a workhorse chip is must be wrong.
I take workhorse chip to be the most used. In 25c/25c you would rarely use $5 preflop, realistically raise would be 4BB (at first) so $1 in the mix straight away with all raises being multiples of that.

Myself playing mostly 1/1 have gone with 800pc set with 300x$1 and 200x$5 which I must say is plenty, even bordering on too much on both.
After distributing starting stacks (20x1$ , 11x$5, 1x$25) all rebuys are done with $25 and/or $100 chips and if anything, I'd get more $100s next time with less $25s.

I'm looking to get a new 400pc set (200x$1, 100x$5, 60x$25, 40x$100), which should cover 9-handed 1/1 game.
 
joeyshin said:
In 25c/25c game $5s are still the workhorse chip. Anything from 25c/25c to 1/3. Even 2/5 uses a lot of $5s. Plus they always look nice. Whether yellow or red, they always stand out in a set.
Click to expand...

zzz said:
But that's a 20bb chip! I wonder how typical this is. In my 25c/25c games (which are probably unusually tame, with a ton of limping) the workhorse is definitely the $1.

So it seems it depends more on the buy-ins and how the particular group plays, than the blinds.
Click to expand...

slowplay said:
If this is true I think my understanding what a workhorse chip is must be wrong.
I take workhorse chip to be the most used. In 25c/25c you would rarely use $5 preflop, realistically raise would be 4BB (at first) so $1 in the mix straight away with all raises being multiples of that.

Myself playing mostly 1/1 have gone with 800pc set with 300x$1 and 200x$5 which I must say is plenty, even bordering on too much on both.
After distributing starting stacks (20x1$ , 11x$5, 1x$25) all rebuys are done with $25 and/or $100 chips and if anything, I'd get more $100s next time with less $25s.

I'm looking to get a new 400pc set (200x$1, 100x$5, 60x$25, 40x$100), which should cover 9-handed 1/1 game.
Click to expand...

For what it’s worth, in another thread on the topic, there were plenty of folks that felt the $1 was the workhorse for .25/.25: https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/in-25-25-game-which-chip-is-workhorse.113013/

It’s ultimately going to come down to the texture of your game and players. At ours, we don’t see enough rebuys to get enough $5s on the table for them to be anything close to workhorse. But for other games that inflate as the night goes on, I can certainly see them playing a bigger role.
 
zzz said:
On forum advice, I have ended up with this 800-chip breakdown to cover all of .25/.25, .25/.50, 1/1 and 1/2:

100 x 25c
200 x $1
400 x $5
80 x $25
20 x $100

I have seen many breakdowns with this kind of shape.

My question is: why do we want so many $5 chips?
Click to expand...

Is four racks overkill? Not really, when you put it in the context of hosting a ten player game. Two barrels a player. Could you get by with less? Sure. Three racks is sufficient. Even two will do. But seriously, every set needs a workhorse chip. Some sets, it is the $1 chip, for others it is the $5 chip, and for a few it is the $25 chip.

I really don't understand the recent bashing on having more than a couple of racks of fives in a set. Four seems fine, unless you have a problem filling seats or like to play in smaller games.
 
Last edited:
slowplay said:
Myself playing mostly 1/1 have gone with 800pc set with 300x$1 and 200x$5 which I must say is plenty, even bordering on too much on both.
Click to expand...
I like the idea of having 500 chips between these two denominations for most average games. It allows a little room for game growth.

For some player’s game, they need the 5-6 racks of $5s. Maybe you should consider splitting it like $1x260 and $5x240.

I think different response by everyone on what works for them really exemplifies the fact that it is dependent on the texture of your group and the game(s) you are playing. If you are not sure what works for the games you are hosting, then hold off buying the chips and host enough games so you can get a good baseline for your group’s betting tendencies.
 
zzz said:
But that's a 20bb chip! I wonder how typical this is. In my 25c/25c games (which are probably unusually tame, with a ton of limping) the workhorse is definitely the $1.

So it seems it depends more on the buy-ins and how the particular group plays, than the blinds.
Click to expand...
It depends completely on how your games play. Or how you think they will play in the future. I play with a group at 50c/50c stakes and a $40 initial buy-in. But don't let that fool you. Someone will be all-in by the third hand at the latest. This week it was the first hand, and then the same guy again, I think, in the second hand. Rebuys and top-offs can be made all night up to half the big stack, and some of these guys do their best to insure those stacks get pretty big. I'd say that more often than not we get 4 racks of $5s in play before the end of the night. Could we start using $25s earlier? Sure, but multiple 20 chip stacks of $5s are a lot of fun and replicate what you tend to see at the casinos and card rooms.

Do you ever plan to have over $1000 on the table? If not, then two racks of $5s are plenty. But if so, three is a minimum and four is better.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Register

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Similar threads

D
Tourney How many chips needed for color-ups?
Replies
17
Views
706
drdr
D
Chinaski
Cash Game Thoughts on Chip Denoms for .25/.50 up to 1/2?
Replies
27
Views
2K
FearlessFred
FearlessFred
Z
Cash Game 400 chip set distribution for 6-8 ppl?
Replies
26
Views
1K
znslp
Z
C
Cash Game Optimizing a 500 Chip Order
Replies
27
Views
1K
BillyBluff
BillyBluff
T
Advice for broad denomination breakdown
Replies
7
Views
443
Santa123
Santa123
Back
Top Bottom