LOL. I'm sure he's more than welcome at your game any time.

We used to play $0.25/$0.25 and recently upped it to $0.25/$0.50 and he doesn't understand how that affected the amount you could lose. He doesn't understand that you need bigger buy-in to play the same way. He lost $60 real fast with 3- $20 buy-in within an hour or so and said, "we should up the blinds, maybe like $2/$4."

Seriously?

It seems like he's just there for the camaraderie and gambling. Those are the best guys to have around. He probably looks at it like a night out with the boys where he can chill away from the wife and kids. Probably lives every minute of it too.

Probably "loves" (not lives) every minute of it...

A guy at my last game did something like this. It was $1/$2 limit O8 with a kill, and we're three-handed, winding down for the night. He's stuck and has up or down of $20 on the table (the other guy and I had more like $100–$150), but he wants to double the stakes to $2/$4 with $4/$8 kill. Huh?

Worse yet, his biggest mistake is investing a lot of chips into pots and then being afraid of putting in that last dollar. This did not change with the increased stakes.

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. Much appreciated!

So the 100/300/100 (.25c/$1/$5) will work for a .25/.50 NLHE game too? A few of us play PLO too. Will that work for a .25/.50 PLO game too?

For a more actiony game like PLO, you might want to go a little heavier on the $5s just to have the possibility of a very big night covered. There's nothing wrong with more chips.

Good point, thanks!

Very true. Others have recommended a 100/200/200 breakdown, and I think that's fine too, especially if you have action players in your group and/or you play PLO and want a bigger bank.

Hi guys. Since last August when I set up my .25/.50 NLHE game it has been great. We do a monthly (sometimes bi-monthly game). I got a new table (a real one) plus new chip labels that say "Chalmers Poker Room." Here's my chip breakdown thanks to all your recommendations. I found this works the best for my game because of multiple rebuys:

100 Blue @ 25 cents
300 White @ $1.00
50 Red @ $5.00 (with 150 in reserve in case we need them)

Most people buy in for $40 (I do $50). The $40 stacks get 12x25 cents, 22x$1, and 3x$5. The $50 stacks get 12x25 cents, 27x$1 and 4x$5

What if the game goes to .50/1.00 NLHE? Will I need more of the 25 cent chips because the SB is 50 cents?


25 Cent Chip

$1.00 Chip

$5.00 Chip

Nice labels!

You should need fewer 50-cent chips for a .50/1.00 game, not more. The blinds will require two quarters instead of three, but more important, I think, is that betting will use mostly $1's and $5's.

What Abby said—fewer quarters for sure. In fact, they'll probably barely get used. The small blind is $0.50, but that's really the only use the quarters are likely to see at all.

If your players are game for the increased stakes, what you'll probably find you'll need are more $5 chips in play. I've seen $0.50/$1 games get more than the entire face value of your bank in play with the right crowd. For some reason, crossing that $1 threshold with the blinds alone seems to spur the action more than you might expect.

I'd be tempted to get rid of the quarter chips altogether. Consider instead playing 1/1, or for a smaller step up from .25/.50, have a single 1 blind.

Thanks, Abby. I think the labels are pretty cool too. And now that I'm thinking straight, it makes sense that the quarters would get that much use in a .50/1.00 game. Here's the poker table I got last August too. It fits 9 but 8 is a lot more comfortable.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7...EY4&authuser=0