Chip Decision and Question on Quantity

[gabuk]

Hi all,

Well, I am finally ready to order my first set of home poker chips. I have ordered samples from each company and they should arrive early next week.

After reading posts here and on a few other poker chip review sites, I have narrowed it down to three types/brands. I really like the feel/sound of chips from a casino. My friend has the Ebay 11.5 grams generic chips and that are not to my liking.

1) Nevada Jack Desert Sun
2) Nevada Jack Clay Poker Chips
3) Modern Clay – Buypokerchips.com
and a distant 4) Rounders Casino – Apache Poker

I am wondering what your thoughts are on each chip. I have a little OCD when it comes to color/denominations so these three types will allow me to have properly color coded chips from .50 to $1000. I love the look of the Rounders Casino but they do not offer a .50 cent piece. I know this shouldn't reflect my purchase decision too much but the group of guys that I will play with want to play .50/1.00 ring games so I need .50 cent chips.

Here are my purchasing options and quantity. Please let me know if these is sufficient for .50/1.00 ring and T1000 no-limit/limit tournaments.

Nevada Jack Desert Sun or Modern Clay
$600 for 500 chips
200 – $5
200 – $25
100 – $100

This amount I believe is okay for T1000 tourney play but how do I break it down so I can have .50/1.00 ring games and tourney play with only 500 chips. Do I order a separate roll of .50 and 1.00 chips at a later date? Or, lower the quantities of the other chips?

Nevada Jack Desert Sun
$700 for 1000 chips
200 – .50 cents
200 – $1
250 – $5
200 – $25
100 – $100
50 – $500

Are there any poker chips that I should also consider reviewing? I looked into pokerchips.com but I heard the wait was over 12-16 weeks.

Also, what is the average buy in for .50/1.00 games? $25 or $50? And what breakdown do you recommend between .50 and 1.00 chips?

Thanks for your help.
Gabuk

[MSPatton]

I play a lot of .50c/$1 ring games with my group of 8-10 people.
You really do not need a lot of .50c (small blind) chips in
this format. The only time a .50c chip really needs to change hands
is when the small blind folds pre flop. If they are going to call
(or raise) it is simple to "call" with a dollar chips and
keep the .50c chip. Most raises in the game are even $1 increments
so if someone raises $3 in early position all they ahve to do is call
$3 (3x$1 chip) and retain the .50c. We start the game with 10 .50c chips
each and seldom add more. They are easy to change at the table on the fly.
We require a minimum 50x big blind buy in and a maximum 100x big blind buyin.
I NEVER play a ring game at a buyin less than 100x as if I have a hand
I want the best chance to put pressure on the player and it's hard to
do if I have $50 risking 100% and he/she has $100 risking 50%
Here is our chip breakdown for a .50c/$1 ring at $100 buyin:

.50c x 10
$1 x 35
$5 x 12

I actually prefer to have more than 35 $1's if you have the chips for it.

[gabuk]

Hey MSPatton,

Thanks for the great advice.

Well, the Modern Clays came in yesterday and man they feel good. I really like them.

The Nevada Jacks (clay and composite) arrive today and I hear the NJ Clays are even better than the BPC chips =).

Now, my new problem is if I want clay chips I can only afford 550 from NJ or 600 from BPC.com.

Now if the NJ Desert Sun are nice and I like them I could go for 1000 chips with the following breakdown.

100 - .50
350 - 1.00
200 - 5.00
200 - 25.00
100 - 100.00
50 - 500.00

As you have stated, this will allow for both T1000 tourney and .50/1.00 cash limit/no-limit games.

Would you recommend that if I only go with 550 or 600 chips, the following breakdown could be used for T1000?

200 - 5.00
200 - 25.00
100 - 100.00 or 150 if part of 600 set
50 - 500 if part of 550 or 600 set

Thanks again for your help!
Gabuk

[derick]

Why not play T100 rather than T1000? That way you can use the same chips for both ring games or tournements?

Start the tournement blinds at 1/2 rather than 10/20?
It's exactly the same playwise.
You just don't get to pretend you're playing with big bucks.

[pokerchipreviews]

The NJ and BPC clays are made of exactly the same material by the same company. The molds, however, are very different, which effects the way the chip feels and handles.

Did you order samples of NJ's Martini's? You should if you didn't.

Cheers,
John
www.pokerchipreviews.com (http://www.pokerchipreviews.com)

[Yawkey]

If you are going to spend that amount of money on a set of chips, pay the extra $100 for 500 more chips. It's much better to have extra chips that you rarely use rather than not having enough chips when you need them. This should be a no brainer, I really think you will be disappointed with 500 chips for $600 when you could have easily gone for 1000 chips at $700 (I'm assuming both sets are of the same quality).

[gabuk]

John,

I did order the NJ Martinis so I will test the differences.
BTW, great site. Between your site and a few others, I became quickly educated on the differences of poker chips.
So thank you for all your hard work.

Yawkey,

The 1000 chips are the NJ Desert Sun which are clay composite and not the same as the 500 clays (made by NJ or BPC). I hope the NJ Desert Sun feel and sound about 90% of the clays because if that's the case, I will go for that deal. As you pointed out, it's worth it to spend the extra 100 bucks for 500 more chips.

Thanks again for everyone's help.
Gabuk

[Duck]

gabuck,

I have chipco chips, and like the new ceramic feel a whole lot better than the traditional clay chips.... but that's not what i wanted to tell you...

Anyway, you might want to consider getting your chips w/out denominations. I know for some people it's sacrilege for me to even suggest it... but if your group ever decides to "move up" in stakes, you won't feel the need to buy more chips. Secondly, you will be able to run tourneys w/ different starting chips amounts...

Another suggestion is that you should tier your colors. For example I feel the most efficient set of 500 chips consists of four colors w/ a breakdown like this:
Color A: 200
Color B: 150
Color C: 100
Color D: 50

This will allow you to run all types of ring games and tourneys very comfortably.

just my 2 cents.