Your Complete Guide to Poker Chips & Creating the Perfect Stacks

[Spaceman]

Isnt that an old article? I feel like I have read it before.:hmmmm2:

Anyway, nice article, to make some calculations when you are into serious home poker games. I haven't any poker home game yet, but I am trying to learn poker to my friends in hopes of someday play together. Chips is a thing, especially if you want to play a tourney. But I was thinking for cash games that using cash instead of chips would work just fine.

If I ever buy chips I guess would be the expensive ones, similar to casinos, just to get the feeling and get familiar if I play live. Also to handle chips and play with them like pros. Them doing it all the time, I feel like there is surely some anti-anxiety effects in playing with chips

 

[Poker Orifice]

Bryan Devonshire has built some awesome chip structures & has created some near perfect stacks!

 

[nml]

I have to agree with the general consensus of

1) this makes my home game look bad and
2) chip quality has never been an issue for me

Then again our games are always small and cheap. We rotate who hosts between the 8 or so of us, with four games of $10 buy in plus $10 to the host, who provides all the food and drinks. Games typically last about an hour and a half and we break between two and three for dinner (which is always a great spread).

I think the four games has been nice since we always have multiple winners. Keeps people interested since they can win their money back even on just the last round. We technically play “winner take all” but normally once it gets down to two players, they split based on chips (50/30 most commonly).

 

[wilpinsi]

I play poker at my house with friends, the same way many times we go to their house too, I have friends who like to put money in the game, but I also have friends who do not put any money in game, so I separated it like this:

1) friends who play only for fun
2) friends who like to put money into play
3) friends who like higher limits

separated this way, I also separated days of the week for these games

Monday: We get friends who do not spend money on gambling, one good wine and have a lot of fun.

Wednesday: On this day we receive our friends, or go to their house, we throw limits up to the limit of 1 dollar
we spend the night around the table, in the end who wins, does not win much, and who loses, also does not lose much, after all we are all friends.

3) Saturday: On this day I reserve to go out with friends who like higher limits, buyns up to 250 in tournament, and 10 dollars in cash game.
This day all care is little, not to lose much money, and not end up losing friends too.

We use in all our games, chips ceramic tiles, so before starting the games everyone will buy their chips, become more professional clean the table, with no money everywhere.

 

[Trillian]

Very nice article and lots of stuff to consider. I haven't played home games yet, but this is worth bookmarking. There is something wrong in https://www.cardschat.com/pkimg/poker-chips/poker-blinds-schedule-1.pdf The right column adds up to 105%. Maybe the 5th is supposed to get only 5%?

 

[Helloween]

Carlos's Crazy Chips - beautifully built. You have to play well to collect the right amount of chips for such a tower. I'll take a note on myself.
In a home game, we usually choose 1000-1500 chips. To play up to 8 people this is enough. Also, by arrangement, we can make 1-2 rebuys. The blinds grow from 10 to 15 minutes. In a live game there are fewer hands than online, so sometimes the growth of the blinds may be slower.

 

[jerlasvegas]

I am confused about the chip calculator sheet. It is a PDF and there is no formulas or editable fields. It would be helpful to offer some more explanation on how to use the sheet if it is to be filled out manually.

Other than that, the article does a good job explaining about the differences between the types of chips. If price ranges for chips were included (not just the expensive ones) with some links to different vendors or even just some of the different manufacturers, it would be helpful.

 

[Zorba]

chips do not have to be expensive, just purchase what you like and can afford, Like it has been said in the thread anything can be used, whether it be matches or pretzels, as long as everyone knows the denomination of each different item used as chips.

I got given a poker set as a present a few years ago and it is all I need.

:top:

 

[kratos]

I prefer home games with at least 5.000 starting chips.And turbo style.I don't like blinds too longs.Turbo tourneys don't delay too nuch.

 

[JBGoode]

Personally I prefer the mid range 11-15 grams over clay. I really dont know why, maybe from my experience they don't seem to get as dirty. I really don't know. Regaurdless I like how you added the section about run offs. your typical rec player would be thrown off by this process. Very good addition.

 

[Vilgeoforc]

This is very useful information. Thanks. All the difficulties are in the chips in the home games.

 

[jfofla]

when I started playing poker, we played in my house and had no chips, it was on the basis of real money, we only limited the bet so that we could play all night and nobody lose their soul in the game. rsrsrsrsrsr

 

[Alexandr Svinarshyk]

Great tips for home gambling. It is a pity that at the moment no one from my friends is playing poker. About 5 years ago my friends and I played only cache.

 

[akmost]

Wow that was instantly bookmarked for some future use but the 2 bad things is that I haven't play a home game since I was in university and the second and most important nobody shares the shame passion as me about poker This is and one of the main reasons I joined CC in order to discuss about my hobby

I really don't like the light ones because I can't make the shuffle thing which I think makes every live poker player to distress and thing better when he has to take a decision!

The next time I try to persuade some of my friends to host a home game I will try to be a deep - slow - structured tournament

 

[ammje]

Thank you for this guide, my family once a month we meet to play some poker.
We like to play texas holdem, play sits and go, and we begin with 1000 or 1500 chips.

 

[jfmcd86]

I, Myself host home games. I do 2 games a month with the same people....They look forward to my tourneys every 2 weeks.
I do not have that much poker chips though but we manage to play every time. its always been 2 tables every time i hosted. i only got about 250 Composite poker chips with a carry case. with 4 colours.
When it comes to blinding up we don't got that much colours, so we switch the the least worthy chip with the next rank and so on .

but i wish i owned that 7.5M chip set!!

 

[Chemist]

I've used candies and pretzel sticks and things like that for poker chips. You're right, as long as you're having fun, who cares?

When I started playing For Fun in the pub, we just used coins (1p,2p,5p,10p,20p,50p,£1).

Of course by using actual money as chips we were technically gambling in an establishment without a license, though legally there were small stakes tolerances from precedents established by a long history of dominoes and cribbage,
(though by the letter of the law the 1968 gaming act didn't cover poker until the 2005 gambling act set specific limits for small stakes fun poker).

To us though the coins were just a useful form of chips, we kept them really just as game counters and usually it was the same coins going round in circles from day to day.

This was such a long time ago, we used a pub ashtray to hold the pot.

The game at the time was also old fashioned, Seven Card Stud with deuces wild.

 

[Bev]

My husband was given a poker set years ago , and it has only been used maybe two times . However having said that , when we did use it - it was great that it had the instructions with it and we were able to start with a choice of chips per player. This was great and easy to use when were not using cash buyins as we only used the set for a family get together .
I can see where setting up an actual cash home live game would need a lot of planning and this article was very good for beginners to plan a game. It is something I may use someday ! I don't have a lot of poker friends that live close by so the prospects of hosting a home game seem very unlikely for meand my husband.
I did love the article and it will be very helpful if we get a game planned where everyone will be wanting a friendly cash game.

 

[Bev]

Week 1 Task 3. The Perfect Home Poker Game - Players, Stakes, Starting Chip Counts & More
I think this is a great list for anyone beginning to set up their own home game , or for anyone wanting to set up a game/games.
If you don't have the best poker set - cards and chips then use what you have and everyone will understand.
The main thing is everyone knows what is the price range , and what chips are valued at and how much they start with.
All the basics are covered here for anyone just beginning. It is good to have the chips tracked , and keep them recorded well so no one feels that they are not losing.
Well writen article and good tips on setting up a home game , and even an online game .

 

[guicor30]

very good article. Now if I am going to be the host in a poker game at home and be able to choose the chips according to the profile of the game.
What is interesting to give to the players of the professional players hahaha

 

[Rijckenborg]

Thank you very much for this awesome guide.
I fear, than buying cheaper chips set is not a good idea.
Because anyone can go to a store,
buy some cheap chips and bring it to an home game.

For that and other reasons, I don't trust home games.

It is a mistake if the 2 chip set has the same description?

 

[No1eJoker]

And I started to play poker in home games with my friends..I could play until early morning and never get bored nor lose concentration .. it's a big difference compared to online poker playing,more enjoyment..we did not need even a chips and a poker table(we had ordinary table and coins ) , but still I enjoyed more than playing online poker...

 

[XYZ2123]

Believe it or not, I've never played live poker (neither at a casino nor in a home game) and so have never used actual chips. An extremely informative article. I never imagined there were so many factors and options to consider when choosing what chips to use for a game.

 

[CRStals]

I used to host bi-weekly poker games, whether it was tournaments or cash games depending on the number of people that were available on a given day. So I did research and figured out the following:

- I bought two cases of 15 gram coloured chips with 5 colours
- Determined denominations of the chips - 5, 25, 100, 500, 2500
- Figured out a 100BB stack for 5/10 blinds
- Built starting stacks to get to 1000 using three colours - 20 reds (5), 12 whites (25), 6 blues (100)
- That way I could colour up using the greens (500) and the blacks (2500) quite easily
- I bought a small poker tournament manager that loaded the number of players, starting stacks, and suggested blinds that you could modify, and then used a computer monitor to show the room the status

Worked beautifully! Never ran out of chips, tournaments ran quite smoothly, and everyone enjoyed themselves!

 

[zam220]

Great tips for home games.Playing home games, we assume that there will be only friends or acquaintances.Home games-it is an opportunity to have fun with friends,it is better to stock up on beer and snacks to be more fun, the main thing is not to overdo it.When there is no set of chips,we use coins.