Chip color breakdowns for cash games?

[tizim]

I'm planning on purchasing 500 of the 10g faux dice chips that 5stardeal carries, since they go for as cheap as $10+$25 shipping on ebay and are very highly praised on www.pokerchipreview.com (http://www.pokerchipreview.com) . However, I'm not sure of what the ideal chip color breakdown should be.

My friends and I usually play 10-handed $10 NL cash games with blinds at $.10/$.20. My current plan for the color breakdown is as follows:

150 - White ($.10)
200 - Blue ($.20)
100 - Black ($.50)
50 - Green (whatever denom. needed... maybe $5?)

My main problem with this breakdown is that in our games, I've found that the .10 chips (white) are used rarely, only for posting small blinds and rarely for betting. Thus, I think it may be a waste to be buying so many .10 chips, and I think it may be smarter to buy more .20 chips instead. On the other hand, most tourney breakdown recommendations I've seen recommend buying the most of the low value chips.

Is there anything wrong with this breakdown, and could people possibly post some breakdowns that have been successful for them? I would also be interested in knowing what colors people prefer to use for certain denominations (i.e. red over blue, etc.).

Thanks

[TheMetetron]

I would stick to 2 denominations, .10 and .50 (or 1.00) or something to that effect. Getting too many denoms out there might be a bit much and most casino NL games I play in you really only get 2 denoms out there. Usually 1s and 5s for the 1/3 NL I play in.

[Lottery Larry]

"My friends and I usually play 10-handed $10 NL cash games with blinds at $.10/$.20. "

What else might you play? Would your denominations ever be higher (say, tournaments)?
For your current cash game, what's the most anyone ever buys in for?

"My current plan for the color breakdown is as follows:
150 - White ($.10)
200 - Blue ($.20)
100 - Black ($.50)
50 - Green (whatever denom. needed... maybe $5?)"

WAY too many small denomination chips and you don't need 2 colors for the blinds.

The 20 cent chips are a waste. With those blinds, you only need 10-12 chips per person for the blinds. Given calls and such, 15 chips is good. I didn't look to see if the denominations are on the chips- hopefully not.

For your 10 players, assuming $40 buy-ins at most, I think all you need is

150- chips for 10 cent-ers ($1.50 per person)
130- chips for 50 cents ($6.50 per person)
170- chips for $1 ($17 per person)
50- chips for $5 (use some for buy-ins, some in reserve for rebuys)

change the numbers if you want more chips to play with, or if you have to buy in groups of 50 chips.

" I would also be interested in knowing what colors people prefer to use for certain denominations (i.e. red over blue, etc.). "

Traditional denominations almost everywhere I've been
red- $5
blue or brown- $10 (with blue sometimes $0.50)
green- $25
black- $100

After that, $1 is often white, $500 is often purple

[tizim]

Thanks for the replies; they were very helpful.

[ QUOTE ]
What else might you play? Would your denominations ever be higher (say, tournaments)?
For your current cash game, what's the most anyone ever buys in for?

[/ QUOTE ]
I should mention that we pretty much only play cash games. We may play a tournament, say, once every two months, but having enough chips for tournaments isn't really a concern for me since we mainly play cash games. Also, sometimes, the majority of people don't want to invest $10 as a buy-in, so we end up playing $5 buy-in NL with the same $.10/.20 blinds instead (I don't know what the point of that is).

[ QUOTE ]
The 20 cent chips are a waste.

[/ QUOTE ]
Really? I've found them to be the most useful chips in the games we play because people love making small .30-.40 cent bets, but now that I think about it, the white chips would be just as useful for these bets. I'll probably buy the same number breakdown as you suggest and then experiment between using the blues for $.20 and $.50.

[Lottery Larry]

Let us know how it works out for you

[phixxx]

Depending on what people come to my place to play, and what stakes were playing, the chips usually follow these guidelines:

Blinds .25/.50 NL

White .25
Blue .50
Red 1.00
Green 5.00

Blinds .50/1 NL

White 1.00
Blue .50
Red 5.00

These are just the dominations for home games with close friends. For the .25/.50, after a few people bust out and rebuy, theres more money on the table so the greens and reds need to be brought out more often.

[edge]

I play $0.05/0.10 NL most of the time, and I found that the best denominations are 5-cent (white), 25-cent (red), and 1-dollar chips (green). We used to play with 5-cent and 10-cent chips, but it seemed kind of redundant.

Anyway, it's fun to have big piles of small chips.

[Lottery Larry]

"Depending on what people come to my place to play, and what stakes were playing, the chips usually follow these guidelines:

Blinds .25/.50 NL

White .25
Blue .50
Red 1.00
Green 5.00"

Why not just 0.25/1/$5? seems silly to have a chip represent two chips- you're only cutting the low value stack by 1/3 at best.

"Blinds .50/1 NL

White 1.00
Blue .50
Red 5.00"

Same thing- make whites 2.5 and red 10?

[TN_POKER_MAN]

You can always "flip" your colors. Meaning: the 50 green chips could be used as small blinds. This would free up the 150 green chips for larger values. This allows your chipset to accomodate larger buy-ins.



# Value Total
Green 4 $0.10 $0.40
Blue 18 $0.20 $3.60
Black 6 $1.00 $6.00
White 0 $5.00 $0.00
28
Total $10.00