Poker Chip Buying Guide

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The Poker Chip Buying Guide - Breakdown:

How many chip colors or denominations should you order? This is called the Breakdown. Again, we seem to open a can of worms with this discussion. Generally, you want more lower denominations than high. After that it all just depends. These can be represented with ratios. Also, be sure your max starting stack times the number of people playing fit in your set.

So if your tournament set needs 360 chips I would just get 500 chips. This allows you to store them in 100 chip racks, carry them in 500 chip cases and it does not hurt you to have extra. Same with a cash game set, round up the total to the nearest hundred or so.

I know my friends and their betting style so I prefer a simple 3:4:2:1 breakdown or a slightly more complex, which is not always available depending on the vender, 8:11:5:1. Here are some more examples but ultimately you have to decide what you want. Remember, many vendors smallest unit is 25 chips. Large tournaments where low denomination chips are replaced with larger denominations add yet another layer of complexity which is beyond the scope of this article.

Here are some examples of basic beginner's breakdowns. You will notice I like value steps of 4 to 5 times the chip value.

You know your situation best please modify these as appropriate.

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Poker Chip Buying Guide CONTENTS

Page 01 - Intro
Page 02 - Budget
Page 03 - Direction
Page 04 - Chip Materials
Page 05 - Chip Types
Page 06 - Quantity
Page 07 - Breakdown (You Are Here)
Page 08 - My Experience
Page 09 - Recommendations
Page 10 - Useful Links

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Last Update: 26 Mar 2017