[Zetack]

The easiest way to do this is to think about the total value you want each player to start with and then think of a chip distribution for one player that makes sense to you. Then you can simply multiply that out by the number of players and see if you have the right number of chips.

For instance I like to start with 1800 to 2000 in chips. I don't think you need the total breakdown, but just for example, in the game I've been playing in, we start with T150 in ten dollar chips. So that's fifteen 10 dollar chips a person or 150 chips needed for a ten person tourney. If you do it that way its pretty easy to figure out.

Also 10 people with 2000 in chips puts 20,000 dollars worth of chips in play in the tourney, so you can obviously figure you need very few 500 dollar chips, if any, and probably don't need any thousands.

With only three colors of chips its a little tricky, though. If you start off with 10/20 dollar blinds, I'd go with 10 dollar, 50 dollar and 100 dollar chips. If you like a 2000 starting stack you could go:
5 - 100's
24 - 50's
30 - 10's.

On a ten man tourney that puts 50 blacks, 240 50's, and 300 10's. If you don't want to have all your blacks in play (in case any get lost or whatever) knock off a hundred chip and add 2 fifty's. It'll be a bit awkward for a bit, and somebody is going to end up with massive stacks of tens so you'll want to take the tens off as soon as the blinds allow and probably redenominate the tens as either fifies or hundreds. I'd really be thinking about buying some more chips to get a fourth or fifth color in there. Simplifies things and makes stacks much more manageable if you can start folks off with a five hundred chip and I like having a 20 or 25 dollar chip in there too.

But of course you may like a different starting stack structure than I do, but the idea of figuring out how much in total value in chips you want to start with and back engineering it from there makes it pretty easy to figure out.

--Zetack