I’ve played most of my time in a home game but have recently been playing at the casino more often. I wanted to ask if when raising there is kind of a standard way to present your chips. Sometimes the dealer with count or restack my chips but I don’t see that as much with other players. I see a lot of bets going in and stacked as two side by side stacks I’m guessing to make it easier to count the number in a stack?

Thanks

Well you've told us how other players bet but not how you bet. Do you announce your total bet amount? Are you betting one stack of chips regardless of the bet size? Do you use a mix of denominations?

Stacks of 5 for red or white chips. Stacks of 4 for green chips.

I’ve tried to emulate them but not sure if I’m missing something. Usually I will do two stacks as well and if an odd number of chips then the extra across the top of the stacks. So from what I’ve seen and tried to emulate a $35
Bet would be two side by side stacks of 3 $5 chips with another chip across both stacks.

I don’t generally use more than one stack and I generally do announce my bet but I’m sure I’ve not said anything at times.

If I’m not sure then I’ve sometimes defaulted to stacks of 5 or stacks of 10 $5 chips with whatever remaining on its own.

Personally, I think that looks silly.

If I want to bet $35 without announcing anything, I use a stack of 7 reds. Dealer will then usually remove the top two chips and announce the bet.
If I'm announcing $35, I'll do a stack of 5 reds and toss two extra reds.

If I'm betting $100 in reds, I'll leave it in the 20 stack and let the dealer break it down. He's doing that significantly faster than me. Same for larger bets. The $100 stacks stay intact, everything else goes in stacks of 5 or 10 and I'll let the dealer handle the rest.

Stacks of 5 chips or less is easy to count from a distance. More than that and I have to break it down.

Standard stacks are 20 high. When you have less than 20, put them 4 high for $25 chips, 5 high for anything else. Less than that, fan them out on the felt so each chip is visible.

Honestly, though, unless you're really fast or think that presenting your chips neatly will illicit the action you want from your opponent, I would just let the dealer do it. Nothing brings the game to a grinding halt like a player clumsily trying to count out a bet they just made. That, or when they throw their chips all over the place and make the dealer hunt them all down to restack. Just push the stacks forward and focus on the hand.

The way you bet 35 is perfect. When betting 40, two stacks of 4 reds, and if you bet 55, two stacks of 5 red with one on the top middle (like you did with 35). 65 would be 2 stacks of 5 reds with 3 on the top and 70 would be two stacks of 5 reds with 4 reds spread out right next to it (like a stair case).

These are the best ways to bet so everyone at the table can look at the chips and see how much it is, and it's better than just throwing them out in one stack or in a pile since we then have to wait for the dealer to do what you could have done in the first place (saves time and keeps the game moving).

Good Lord! The only thing that matters is that the amount is as clear a possible, while not wasting time.

When raising, I tend to make a stack that matches the bet, then make a second stack for the raise.

Just pile them in as a mess like the Pros do it. I really just don't understand why 'a lot' of the Pros (like on PokerGo) just toss there chips out in a mess and thus slow the game down by forcing the Dealer to clean up their mess.

1) Just announce your action .. then the next Player can start thinking and it's less important how you get your chips into the middle.

2) Just try to be consistent .. don't teeter between stacks of 4 or 5 unless you are actually going to 'verify' your bet the way a Dealer would for you.

3) When betting a large portion of chips, then I would default to stacks of 10 or 20 and leave any extras off to the side or on top of them as you describe.

I once had a Player think they had a tell on me. If I just splayed my chips out there I was bluffing, but if I neatly put them out there then I had a better hand. Thus if you make your bet look 'bigger' by spreading out your chips, you 'must' be fluffing. I don't want to get into a 'tell' discussion here, but I do break my own 'be consistent' rule in some cases .. and yes, there is typically a reason for it. GL

Some dealers just break things down even if they saw you do it because they have a bad habit. Of course, it doesn’t hurt at all to verify, so it’s not a big problem. Just make sure you know how much you put out there and it won’t be any problem at all.

Sometimes players count out a stack then add or remove a chip or two before pushing it forward and it can be difficult to see it happen if their palm is covering the top of the stack. Usually it's because they decide at the last minute to change their bet to 95 or 105, but on rare occasions it's because they're purposely palming a chip to short the pot. I had it happen against me in a game once and have been vigilant about it as a dealer. If I can't look at a stack and know how much is there, I'm breaking it down before pulling it in.

Of course, but some dealers will literally see two stacks of 5 dollar chips stacked 5 high and still have to grab it and break it down again themselves. Maybe “bad” habit is a little strong, but it’s certainly redundant.

Yeah, I have seen some dealers who need to touch every bet for some reason. It can be annoying.

There are a lot of Dealers who make a lot more movements than they need to .. Save your body! GL

Some years back the dealers in a small room insisted that once a player put chips over the line, they were no longer allowed to touch them and the dealer had to arrange ALL bets. So, if you called $3 and someone raised to $10, you couldn't take the $3 back and put in 2 $5's.

I have heard of casinos like that before but thought it was one of those urban legends. The way I heard it, it was an indian gaming casino

This place all but folded their poker games about 2-3 years ago. Don't annoy your player pool.

Count out your bet and then stack it up into one stack containing all the denominations of chips.

Then slowly carry the stack across the line suspended about 1 inch over the felt.

Then drop the stack giving it a slight fick so that the stack lands and disperses across the table.

Now slowly pull your hand back and rest it softly beside you.

You should generally break down any stack of 6 or more chips for the camera plus any stack of chips that a player touches.

That way you also restrict your pool of potential employees to dealers with arms long enough to comfortably reach the betting line in front of every seat.

If you very very slowly move you chips in and slowly drop them means you're a really really deep intellectual thinker of the game... And it's not annoying at all, and doesn't slow the game down

As a dealer I preferred for bets less than 100 that the player just put out a single stack wo tipping it over. I can quickly break it down in stacks of 5 as our procedures called for. It just wastes time when a player slowly breaks down his chips in stacks of say 3 chips just bc the first bet was 15, a guy raised to 30, and now he's raising to 75.

If the bet is 5 chips or less, you can fan them out if you want. But over that, its faster for me just to get a single stack. An odd thing I'll see players do is when they bet say 65, put out two stacks side by side, and then tip over the stack with with the extra chip. They dont realize that you do that when the stacks are identical, and are showing the camera what is in it. But doing it with unequal stacks doesnt really help anything.

And since I'm listing betting pet peeves, one thing that always amazes me is that a player will have 3 stacks of red, a stack of green, and some odd black chips, and when they bet 250 they will use all red chips. Of course I have to verify the stacks by breaking one down and then break down the 50. Once in a 10/10 plo game with a 25 rock, which plays as a green chip game (bets must be multiples of 25), I had a bet of 375, with 2 callers, and every bets was all red chips, even with stacks of green and black on the table. Then they wonder why hands take so long. So use those higher denomination chips! Or if you want to get rid of the red, ask for a color up! /rant

It takes a while for their brain to cool down from navigating such a massive decision tree.