CHIPS- Are more than 4 colors needed?

[PuckJunkieNY]

CHIPS- Are more than 4 colors needed?
OK, that's the first question. Here are some details and additional questions...

I'm purchasing a set of 1000 Nexgen LV (got a nice deal - more on that after the transaction) as a starter set, and will custom label to spice'em up. I mainly play in other people games, online or casino, but I'd like to start hosting occasional tourneys for friends (8-12 people). I would like to have the flexibility to use these for cash games, but far less frequently than Tourneys.

I know all about homepokertourney.com and appreciate that resource. I'm just looking for your advice/opinions, as I value greatly what many of you contribute to this forum. :D

Colors -
A) Should I stick with the standard 4 color set or add a 5th? I'd like to go to 5 w/o compromising usefulness for tourney play.
My choice for 4 colors would be: Red, Green, Black, Purple
My choice for 5 colors would be: Red, Green, Black, Purple, Yellow

I like the Blue over the Green, but not sure how to use'em w/o assigning Blue the typical value of a Green (25)...I may commit this faux pax just cuz I like'um better...undecided though....we'll see.

Chip Amount Breakdown -
I my final choice of 4 or 5 colors would alter specific the breakdown. I have ideas on the amounts, but welcome sugggestions from those who have run gamess for a while.

Labeling - (Pers. Pref.)
Do you like chips that use:
A) 1 standard design on 1 side for all chips and a separate design for each color?

B) 1 standard design for all chips.

C) Individual design (same on both sides) for each color.

I'm just having fun w/the last question/opinion...
I'm leaning toward doing choice "A"

Looking forward to ordering & getting them, but not the actual labeling part... I'm soooo anal about perfection it's gonna take forever...
"Wait, wait, this label is 1 micron off center and these edge spots aren't quite at 2, 6 and 10 o'clock"...

Edit: 1 Error correction & 1 Clarification

[TenPercenter]

I would normally recommend only getting four, Red, Green, Black, Purple, or Green, Black, Purple, Yellow. But if you ever have side games it'd be nice to have a fifth.

Since you like blue, get Red, Green, Black, Purple, Blue, and use the blue as the floater. It can be a big chip for bigger toruneys, or a small chip for cash games. For cash games you can pull the reds and blues while a tourney plays with green-purple.

[stevo]

Yeah, I currently have about 1600 chips and recently held a 27 man tourney. We really didn't even have to go into the 4th color but did for the final heads-up round. I use 25, 100, 500, and 1000 for the tourneys and 27 started with 3500 in chips, so really, 4 is more than adequate.

But...

If you want cash games, 5 is ok too.

[Mr. Meaner]

Personally I would get standard colors but do what you like. I suggest Get 6 Colors and when you make you labels do no use a denomination. The way you have ultimate flexibility for tourneys or cash games.

You can use these for your cash games
White = $1-- 200
Red = $5 --- 200

You can use these for you tourneys
Green = $25 -- 200
Blue = $50 ---- 200
Black = $100 --150
Purple = $500--50

For Tourneys use
8 Green
8 Blue
9 Black = T1500 chips and you have plenty of chips left over for rebuy/addons if you need/

You will have plenty of Black and Purple ships to color up the greens once a few people get knocked out of tourney.

Then once you have colored up your greens you can use them for side game use the Green = .25, White = $1 and Red = $5 chips

[lwestatbus]

First, PuckJunkie, I've seen a number of your posts around the forum and they are always considerate and helpful. You're a great member.

Second, I'm wrestling with the exact same issue you are. I'm currently on my second set of chips and going for the third. My experience is very limited so I'm mostly sharing some of my pre-spousal-approval analysis.

I think that most people would prefer to have more physical chips than fewer as the stack looks cooler. That is, 100 white chips looks much more imposing than 20 whites, 6 reds, and two greens. Unfortunately, the old chip purchaser pays the same for each chip regardless of the denomination.

The most common format I've seen on televised tournaments is a two-color mix, next most common is three, and rarely four. And I've never seen them color up a stack at the final table.

I'm only going to be playing Holdem and what I think I'm going to do is the following for each player:

50 chips representing the initial small blind amount (e.g. $1)
10 chips representing five times the first chip (e.g. $5)
(The above totals to a buy-in of 100 times the small blind amount)
This is 60 chips per player and I think I'm going to get enough for two tables of eight players = 960 chips plus some spares.

One option is to make the "base" chip equal to the initial small bet amount and have a limited number of chips = to the initial small blind amount. This could actually use up the rest of the 40 chips in a 1,000 chip set.

A variation would be to add two more colors for each player as follows:
12 chips at 25 times the initial small blind
7 chips at 100 times the initial small blind
This then supports a buy in of 200 times the initial small blind amount and can support one table of 10 for under 1,000 chips.

I think that the most likely scenario I will host (because of Florida law) will be a $10 buy in with chip values of 0.10 and 0.50. I'm going to need to experiment to see if we will want the small bet to be 0.10 or 0.20 to see if I'll need a specific small blind denomination.

On colors, there is no substitute for having samples on hand and physically stacked next to each other to determine what looks good. Fortunately, IMHO, the colors on the LV Nexgens look pretty good. Again, IMHO, I think you have waaay more flexibility to let any color mean anything you want if you have only two (or three) colors. I think, strictly my gut feeling, that if I go to four colors I'll want to stick to traditional values. I think, though, that one poster's idea is really good as far as letting the blue chip be the floater. In my case it could be the initial small blind amount.

One final color selection factor: We play with my father in law a lot (biggest fish at the table) but I need colors that are distinctly different from each other as his vision is poor. I need a distinctly light color and a distinctly dark color. Your photo seems to indicate that you're not old enough to need this yet (you're the one in the pink and white cap, right?) but if you have geezers in the game you might want to think about this.

BTW, my reason for moving on is to get chips that support labels. I don't live in LV, don't like the color mix on the RPT NexGens so I think I'm going to get the relatively new 13g Nexgen "Casino" chips. Their colors look pretty good and they have the inset area for a label. Their big problem is that there is a left over little teat at the site of the plastic injection port inside the label area and on 2/3 of the chips it is large enough to poke the label. I've experimented and found that a flat-bladed Xacto knife will be needed to slice this away. Just one more step in the process.

Anyway, this is almost all opinion but I at least tried to label the opinions as such. Good luck,

Larry

[sfbennett1]

I just bought 1000 faux clays ... 350 red, 300 green, 200 black, 100 purple, 50 yellow ... we play 8-12 person tournies where everyone gets 25 red, 22 green, 8 black, 1 purple = $2000 ... we use the purple/yellow to color up near the end, but have found that we really could get by without the yellow ... of the 50 we end up using around 10-15 of them (they DO look cool though haha). And since the faux clays cost $0.06, the 50 yellows cost me all of $3. It is kinda nice to have them though incase we want to do cash games on the side ... the red/green can be for cash while the black/purple/yellow play in the tournament.

[PuckJunkieNY]

Thanks to all of you for responding. You have each given me something to unique to consider. As always, I value your what you have to say.

After thinking over everything I decided to go with 5 colors and stick with traditional poker chip colors after all.

400 - Red
300 - Green
150 - black
100 - Purple
50 - yellow

With 10 people as the average that will allow us to start with 1500-2500TC and a decent starting stack in front of us. Re-buys can be issues larger denoms and make change from big stack easy enough. Color-ups will allow for removed chips to be used for side games. The chips are not expensive, so additional buys can tweak the set to my needs. Now off to order them and start on the label design.

Thanks again!
:D

[Idaho]

After 6 games we have settled on a nice chip balance and blinds structure.

Everyone starts with 1000:

10 x Red '5'
10 x Green '25'
7 x Black '100'

If you rebuy you get 2 x Orange '500' which you change up at the table.

I think it's the best balance between having a reasonable starting stack and not pushing hundreds of chips round the table.

Blinds are:

10 20
15 30
20 40
25 50*
50 100
75 150
100 200 **
250 500
500 1000*
1000 2000
2000 4000

and go up every 20 mins

* change up
** rebuys end

There are usually 7 of us. The game lasts about 3 hours and by the freezeout usually everyone is in reasonable shape. Half the players are out by the 250/500 point and it has always been heads up by 500/1000.