This--make sure you get the china clay/compression version of the Desert Palm chips. You might also want to apply some mineral oil to the chips before you decide. The oil brings out the colors, but some claim that is causes the chips to get gunky easily---I haven't found this to be the case.

Milanos might be another choice but they don't have a nickel.

If you need the nickel the pharaohs and DP's are your best choices for that price range. You can go lower and get blank chips of equivalent quality (progens come to mind) if you don't mind not having them with labels. You can also design and print your own labels on blanks.

I use a 500-chip, 4-denomination set which works well when I am hosting the game. Denominations I use for the cash game are 5¢, 25¢, $1, and $5. Before switching to tourney mode, I have everyone cash in their chips, and then use the same chipset for the tournament, denominations of 5, 25, 100, and 500. Blind stricture I typically use for the tourney (single-table) is: 5-10, 10-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, 200-500, 500-1000, 1000-2000, and start with 2000 in chips, freezeout format. With each level being 15 minutes, this will complete the tournament generally in about two hours or less by increasing the blinds to reduce the chips in play to less than ten big blinds by the time Level 8 is reached, while starting everyone out with 200 BB's each. I simply use a steeply increasing structure rather than antes to keep things moving.

If I'm eliminated, I will just go ahead and start dealing all the hands myself - I can deal pretty quickly and keep the game moving that way, too.

Why dont you get the cash set that you want now, and continue using the dice chips for your tourney? This would open up your options a bit, and you can really get the set you want. A couple things to think about:

-your cash set being nicer than your tourney set makes the cash game feel like the main event, and your tourney as the opening act...maybe keep an extra person or two hanging around afterwards.

-You will never regret paying for quality long term. The old expression, "pay for quality cry once" applies in chips for sure.

-Down the road, you can always get another nice set just for tourneys...then you will have two seperate nice sets for each of your games.

I have a 1000 chip set of Desert Heat (same as Bluff Canyon by Claysmith ) for tourney play. They are not bad for the money. Looking at 600 Pharaoh China Clay's for a .25-.50 or 50-$1 cash game set, Have samples of Pharaoh's , Dunes Com., Venerati's, Milano, Monte Carlo,and a couple of others. At .25-50 the Milano .25 and $5 chip are way too close in color. I like the colors and different edge spots on the Pharaoh's and am shopping for the best price. Looks like .39 each or so.

For a 1,000 chips you can probably find a price lower then 39c/chip. At apache poker chips you can get 1,000 for 35.5c/chip. The chiproom during the last black friday sale on chiptalk sold them for 32c/chip.

Good chips, I like them alot (bought 500 myself).

For the stakes you're talking about, I don't see any problem using the same set for both tourney and cash, even on the same night. If your biggest cash chip would be $5, and your smallest tournament chip would be $25, no one could sneak tournament chips into the cash game.

Comes down to personal preference of course, but I have a Pharaoh's set that I use just for cash games and I'd highly recommend them. They look really good and have held up well. I only have the middle denoms ($1 through $1K) but they all look nice and are easily distinguishable.