Chip Races

Hey folks, first time poster, I've been lurking around for the past couple of weeks.

Well, my friends and I are planning to run our first large multi-table tournament. Now mostly when we colour chips out of our tournaments, we simply round up. However, a couple people say this is unfair and lets the shorter stacks build up a bit of a come back. It's a pretty weak argument because it barely does.

Anyways, that's besides the point. We've been looking for an alternative method to colour out the chips, and I stumbled across the idea of a "chip Race" somewhere. Now the definition/instructions were pretty confusing.

I was just wondering if anyone could clarify how useful this technique is for tournaments, and how exactly to do it.

All help is Greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

http://www.homepokertourney.com/colorup.htm

[sations]

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http://www.homepokertourney.com/colorup.htm

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This is good for those finicky players I ahve found that it seems to take to long though and everyone at my games have agreeed to just round up I dont think it gives anyone a huge advantage although you do see some people just to get to where they have one odd chip just before color up i think it's funny

[Zetack]

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Hey folks, first time poster, I've been lurking around for the past couple of weeks.

Well, my friends and I are planning to run our first large multi-table tournament. Now mostly when we colour chips out of our tournaments, we simply round up. However, a couple people say this is unfair and lets the shorter stacks build up a bit of a come back. It's a pretty weak argument because it barely does.

Anyways, that's besides the point. We've been looking for an alternative method to colour out the chips, and I stumbled across the idea of a "chip Race" somewhere. Now the definition/instructions were pretty confusing.

I was just wondering if anyone could clarify how useful this technique is for tournaments, and how exactly to do it.

All help is Greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

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As you say its a weak arguement. For a home game chip racing is slow and annoying and people tend not to know how to do it right. And the short stack can still get extra chips.

Tell the arguers to suck it up and go with the rounding up. I can't imagine it makes any difference at all unless a short stack gets like 75 extra chips and gets all in against 9 other players who all have him covered and he wins. Yeah now he gets 675 more chips out of that pot than he would have otherwise, but even there, I don't imagine that that's going to be that big a deal considering the size of the pot he probably took down.

On the other hand, nothing inherently wrong with chip racing if you actually enjoy it.

--Zetack

[JimGil]

Instead of racing using cards, we have everyone put their extra chips into the middle, color them out - and then roll dice for the stack (usually about 3 chips). Highest roll wins.

But we play $10 buy ins - don' think this would fly with higher buyins, but people seem to like it.

[varoadstter]

People complain at my game, too, but I do have the chip race. It takes less than 30 seconds to race the chips off so I think the arguments are just stupid. Rounding up would only save a few seconds. Is it that important?

Seriously, how much time does it take to have everyone put all their odd chips in front of them, deal them a card for each odd chip, stack the odd chips in the center, swap the odd chips for the next higher denomination, and examine the cards to see which player(s) get a chip? 30 seconds is probably a very conservative estimate.

[ky70]

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People complain at my game, too, but I do have the chip race. It takes less than 30 seconds to race the chips off so I think the arguments are just stupid. Rounding up would only save a few seconds. Is it that important?

Seriously, how much time does it take to have everyone put all their odd chips in front of them, deal them a card for each odd chip, stack the odd chips in the center, swap the odd chips for the next higher denomination, and examine the cards to see which player(s) get a chip? 30 seconds is probably a very conservative estimate.

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I used the chip race for the first time this past weekend but only because I had exactly enough chips to color up the 25s and 100s. Usually I round up and forget about it and if given the choice I'll round up every time. It's enough of a pain (to me) to color up anyway, but the chip race is an added piece I'd rather not do.

By the time I'm coloring up, the round up isn't significant to the blinds. I use 25s, 100s, 500s, and a single 1000 denom chip for my T5000 tourney. I take off the 25s when the blinds are going to 200/400 (75 would be the max round up) and I take off the 100s when the blinds are going to 1000/2000 (400 would be the max round up)...so at worst the person isn't even getting half of the small blind. It's an immaterial round up but I'd rather go up a small amount than down as I never want to take chips away from a player...it would leave some with a bad taste (even with the amount being so small).

[Lottery Larry]

One thing you have to be aware of is that a chip race can knock someone OUT of a tourney, unless you add a rule. Then you're racing chips and coloring up one person, which doesn't seem fair.

Another potential problem- if you've moved players to other tables, you may not have the full amount of the smaller chips (that color up to whole chips of higher value). Do you always round up to add the extra bigger chip, or sometimes take it away?

Rounding up is faster, more democratic and keeps you from worrying about special rules. If you don't have enough chips to cover the roundup, then I'd race off (and figure some way to get around the 1-chip-stack loser)

ALso, here's a coloring-up hint: Intermediate color-ups (greens, blacks, etc) should also color up some of the higher chips, to save you work later on in the tourney.

[ky70]

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...Rounding up is faster, more democratic and keeps you from worrying about special rules. If you don't have enough chips to cover the roundup, then I'd race off (and figure some way to get around the 1-chip-stack loser)

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I agree with you here but if I'm using my 500 chip set and have a full 10 man tourney, I literally do not have a single chip to spare and in this case I will do the chip race.

Here are the lower denoms I have in play for a 10 man T5000 tourney:
$25 x 20 (per player) = $500 x 10 (players) = $5,000
$100 x 15 (per player) = $1500 x 10 (players) = $15,000
Total to color up for full 10 person game = $20,000

Remaining higher denoms for color ups = 10 x $500 for $5,000 and 15 x $1000 for $15,000 for a total of $20,000

I'm not really opposed to chip races but I'll only do them when necessary.

[hachkc]

If they don't like giving chips to people because its an advantage, a chip race is simply going to take chips from people which could give the small stack(s) an even bigger advantage if they win the race.

Gotta wonder why a fraction of an ante or SB is just a big deal.