Hi,

I am looking at starting a .25 cash game for around 9 people, just had a few questions -

* How many chips do I need?
* What would the chip breakdown be per player? (ie how many .25/1.00 chips etc)
* Should the chips have a value on them? What if we want to up stakes at some point?
* Are there any specific issues with just playing on a normal kitchen table? (as opposed to a poker table)
* Can we have the small and big blind both put in a full blind?

(The last one would be to eliminate the need for a .10 chip)

Thanks

You never have enough chips. But I know I am crazy that way. 300 chips would scratch by, especially if the players don't rebuy and/or buy-in shallow. 500 chips would be ample.

The number of chips per player is greatly influenced by the size of your set. I dish out 20 x $0.25 plus 15 x $1 plus however many $5 chips are needed to complete the buy-in. That results in 200 quarters, 150 ones and 60 fives before the first card is dealt. Rebuys are 10 x $1 with balance in fives.

Here is my set up which holds 1,200 chips. These chips are from the long closed Outpost Casino in California.



I like my chips to have the value on them. This is totally a personal preference. I host using vintage casino chips, so values are prominent. If you want to be able to support more than one level of game, buy an extra 100 chips and make them into $25 or $20 chips.

Kitchen table works for me, though nine people can find it crowded. You can get a table topper if you want to be a little more fancy, but a fitted sheet or even a table cloth could work. If you can't seat nine people for dinner, you likely will have trouble seating nine people for poker.

You can make the blinds $0.25/$0.25 or just have the small blind post a single $0.25 blind. You really don't want a dime chip in play.

Most important, have fun! -=- DrStrange

If you don't have values on your chips it's not the worst thing. Players will quickly learn chip values by color, but I would not have a lot of different colors. White for $1, Red for $5 and maybe Black for .25. Casinos use whites and reds like this a lot, Black chips are usually $100 but I doubt you will need many at that value and they would be fine for .25s.

I also prefer and use chips with value markings. Likely eventually , if your game prospers, you will go with that too. At first it is not required.

No problem with starting out on a K table and blanket and normal paper cards from the Grocery store. Again as your game prospers and matures , a more sophisticated set up with Chips, Table Tops, and plastic cards will likely be part of your groups growth.

Home Games don't always work out for many reasons, so initial investment should not be that much. Unless of course you have a bundle of extra cash and want to go first class from the start.

I have about 400 chips, and then 100 or so of denoms that are not usually in use but can be used if someone has a massive stack (to represent a buy in, for instance). That works for 9 people but less is no good imo.

I have denoms but they're not exactly the cash value they represent (playing with James Bond Casino Royale Chips so yeah, I wish). But I think working with some denom still is handy especially for casuals who have trouble remembering values (usually in my experience without denoms casuals assume values are like 10, 20, 50, 100 etc which is hopeless).

I usually have 15/13/6/2 of 5/25/100/500 for 2000 points total. Something around that is fine. More small chips is good at the start, and then later on people can exchange chips with other players.

My game has in the past used SB and BB the same, no problems there.

I'd get a table top first. I have a pretty tiny kitchen table that seats 4, but with an octagon on it, we can play poker w 8, 9 in a pinch. IDK about options down under, but used sites often have poker stuff bought by optimistic people.

Chips with denominations will come later imo: They are much more fun, but a decent 500 chip set will cost a lot more than the table top. I went with tourney chips instead of cash chips: 25, 100, 500, 1000. Even the slowest in my circle can figure out 25 plays as .25 and 100=$1. Then when we have tourneys, the denominations work perfectly.

Thanks for all the responses guys much appreciated!

One thing I have noticed looking at different posts is some people recommend giving players more middle denomination than bottom denomination chips, ie 12 .25 chips and 17 1.00 chips per buy in.

Just curious as to why? Does that aid in standardising bets and lead to smoother play?

Thanks

The idea is that most of the betting in the end will be done with the 1 dollar chips (cause who bets 1 bb? Looking at you there micro stakes min-donk betters.)

I think either is fine honestly, but more small chips gives more versatility and less necessity to exchange chips between players. If you plan on playing tournaments as well with the same set you may wanna get more 1s though because after some time you wanna chip up and then the .25s are useless.

In an all-purpose set for 6-9 players, I'd go with something like:

.25 - 200 (can get less if you are expecting to play with 6 more often than 9)
1 - 175
5 - 100
25 - 25

This site also has some decent info:
http://www.homepokertourney.com/chips_needed.htm

Well one thing it does is put less chips on the table. Space is an issue if you don't have a tabletop with built in racks.

In general people can figure out pretty quick to make change with each other, or use a $1 to limp and get change when the betting round is over. Just train your pups to not put $1 in and try to immediately take their change, they have to wait for the betting to be done. Ditto if it's a bet of 2.25 and someone calls using a 5.) We either have someone else give them the change (in theory it should only be the dealer, but in self-dealt games, it's faster if whoever is closest and on the ball does it), or if I or someone is making change for myself, I get the change and then spread it on the table so a neighbor can see I took 3 chips, for example.

For the most part, anything to do with money, we get a 2nd player to verify it. Like at the end of the night, everyone counts their stack, and has another player verify their count. I'd say we've had a cash-out error just once in the past year, not bad for a beers and BS game.

I wrote about the ideal mix of denomination here but just to clarify, $1 chips are among the bottom denomination chips in a $.25/.25 game.

That is, you will be making change with the $.25 and $1 chips most often, so front-load your game with those. Introduce the higher denominations as stacks grow and players buy their subsequent buy-ins directly from those larger stacks.

Initial stacks of 20 x $.25 plus 20 x $1 gets you 100BB, a lot of room on the table, and plenty of change for the rest of the night. You will understand the first time you play

I have a set of 500 chips with a breakdown of 100x .25c chips, 200x $1 chips, 175x $5 chips, and 25x $25 chips (mostly just for novelty).

Works reasonably well for a 9-handed .25/.25 game; at the end of the day if anything I would add an additional 50x .25c chips to the set, at the expense of the $5 chips. I wanted a little more versatility to increase the limits of my game, but thus far haven't done so.

Usually the initial buy-in is for $20 and if the table is 9-handed I give $2 in .25c chips and $18 in $1 chips. I think it'd make for a little less change-making at the table if each player could start with $3 in .25c chips, which is why I'd go with 150x .25c if I was constructing my set over again.

All rebuys are given entirely in $5 chips and players are fine with making change amongst each other. At the end of the night I've found that the stacks are reasonably clean and the denom distributions work really well. Haven't ended the night with any 25$ chips on the table yet, though.

Don't forget guys, just cuz you don't have enough to give everyone $3 in quarters, you can give some $3 with 17 singles and others $2 in quarters and 18 singles. Put all your quarters in play so there will be less change making.

And if some of your players are having a hard time sorting this out...make sure to reserve them a seat every week.

Nice set

Hey Yall.

I have played house games for years and just planning on starting to host my own game. It seems we always run out of low denom chips as people continue to rebuy over the course of the night. My friends are life nits so we have been playing 10 NL for years and I am planning on upping the stakes to 20 NL for my game (what wow!). I am not a great math person especially after a few drinks so I planned for the following starting stacks. Interested to hear feedback.

$5 - 2
$1 - 3
$0.20 - 25
$.10 - 20

Blind will be 0.10/0.20. My plan was to eliminate the 0.25 chip so there is never need to make change from the pot for a 0.75 bet. Also historically our game has had a 0.05 chip which is a pain in the ass to count at the end of the night when you are half cut.

The set I purchased is as follows:

$5 - 50
$1 - 75
$0.20 - 350
$.10 - 300

Interested to hear peoples feedback on if these chip quantites will work well. Did I do good?

I am getting the Apache Clay Dunes chips.
https://www.apachepokerchips.com/pro...y-poker-chips/

For a .10/.20 game I would use

.10 x 20
.50 x 36

Or

.10 x 20
.50 x 21
2.50 x 3

No need to have .10 and .20 chips. They are too close together in value. Also like to keep cash games down to two colors if I can. Sometimes l use three if I need to.

damn. great input. wish I asked this before I bought my set lolz.