Texas Holdem Starting Chips
The first big blind should be 1/50 of the starting chip amount. (or the starting chip amount should be 50 times the starting big blind). So if everyone starts with 1000 in chips the first big blind should be 10/20. Blind period is the time each blind lasts: Typical tournament blind periods are 10, 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes. The special 50th Annual High Roller event features a starting stack of 300,000 chips with blinds starting at 1,000/1,000 and a big blind ante of 1,000, giving players a stack worth 300 big blinds. The event has one-hour level durations while the Big 50 has 50-minute level.
I'm sure you're capable of buying beer and nuts. If your friends want coke and sweets, fine, that's what you get them. Mussels and red wine? Do it.
I won't touch on that part of your poker night. You should know your friends. However, there are a few small things that may ruin the fun.
If you don't set up a good blind structure and sensible chip values, people will be confused and annoyed. Do it well and your home tournament will run smoothly.
Blind periods
In a home game, I would go with 20 minute periods at least, seeing how slowly most people deal.
If you think the tournament will drag on too long, it's probably better to adjust the starting stacks than the blind periods.
Ending time
There's no way of knowing for sure when a tournament will end, but here's a rule of thumb that will help you avoid disasters.
The tournament will end in the blind period where the big blind is more than 5% of the total chips.
Example: If 10 players start out with 10,000 in chips each, the total chips are 100,000. Hence, the tournament will end in the period where the big blind reaches 5,000.
Again, this is a very crude rule, but you will avoid having to stay up the whole night - unless you want to.
Blind structure
Usually you want to increase the blinds by 50% from level to level, so that the big blind doubles every two levels. If you double it every level, it's a fast structure.
Texas Holdem Chips Distribution
Example: 100/200 - 200/300 - 200/400
On the other hand, you should probably use some 'natural' blind levels that people expect, rather than rigidly doubling every two levels.
Example: rather than 200/400 - 300/600 - 400/800 - 600/1200, you might want to go with 250/500 - 400/800 - 500/1000 - 750/1500.
On the third hand, you should avoid mixing in small chip nominations late in the structure. Blinds of 1250 or 3725 will give your friends a really bad headache.
Example: To avoid this, it's quite fine to do 300/500 instead of 250/500, or 800/1500 instead of 750/1500.
There are a lot of parameters, but you'll be fine if you avoid the worst mistakes.
Example blind structure
1. 25/50
2. 50/100
3. 75/150
4. 100/200
5. 150/300
6. 250/500
7. 400/800
8. 500/1000
9. 800/1500
10. 1000/2000
11. 2000/3000
12. 2500/5000
13. 4000/8000
14. 5000/10,000
Starting stack
The standard starting stack would be 100 to 200 times the big blind of the first blind level.
Example: If you start with blinds 25/50, you could use a starting stack of 5,000 or 10,000.
The starting stack affects both how deep stacked the players are and the length of the tournament. Regarding the ending time, see above.
If you want to start with deep stacks to get some real play early on but don't want to play all night, you could use a faster structure.
Example: To get a faster structure, remove level 1, 3, 5 etc. from the blind structure above.
Chip nominations
To make the betting easy, chip values should go up by a factor 4 or 5 between each step.
Example: Avoid using both 100 and 200 chips. It gets messy.
Example: Comfortable chip nominations for the above blind structure would be 25, 100, 500 and 2000. If your people find 2000 too weird, you can go with 1000 or 5000 instead.
Further reading on poker home games
Being a supplier of poker chips we are often asked what a good breakdown is for a poker game. Our immediate response is normally, “it depends”. Is it a cash game or tournament? How many chips do your players like to have in front of them? Do you ever see your stakes rising in the future? How deep do your players get by the end of the night?
Dia de los Muertos poker chips
There are many factors to consider when figuring out a breakdown of chips for your poker game. Make sure to consider them all. Take some time and work out your breakdown in writing so you can visualize the chips being used.
Let’s consider a poker game that is only a tournament. This is the most common type of game that is being played in home games.
Try to not think about just how many “chips” that a player starts with. You can have a player start with 100,000 chips but if the blinds are 1000/2000 in the first level they will have shorter stacks compared to a player that starts with 5000 chips with the first blinds being 25/50. In the first situation the player starts with 50 big blinds while in the second situation the player starts with 100 big blinds. That is a big difference!
So, try to think about how many big blinds (BB) you want each player to start with. A good rule of thumb is that most tournaments start with 50-100 BBs but some players prefer deep-stack tournaments that start with 100+ BBs.
Now, consider how many actual physical chips you want each player to start with. Most players like to have a HUGE stack in front of them, but you have to realize that players need to start with a smaller stack or else you will have to purchase a very large number of chips. In a normal home game tournament players will start with 20-30 chips.
Tournament
Finally, consider how many players you will have in your tournaments and how long the tournament will normally last. If there are a lot of players (20+ players) it will mean that there will be a lot of initial chips on the tables. There will be so many chips that you will have to “color up” the lower denomination chips at some point during the tournament. So, you will need to have higher denomination chips than the initial starting poker chips.
Let’s look at an example set up:
Total players: 20
Starting blinds: 25/50
Starting stack: 5000 (100 BB)
Number of poker chips to start with: 21
Initial chips that each player has in front of them:
- 4 – “25” chips = 100
- 9 – “100” chips = 900
- 8 – “500” chips = 4000
Starting stack of our Nevada Jack Skulls poker chips.
Total number of physical poker chips to start with: 21 X 20 = 420 poker chipsTexas Hold'em Starting Chips
At some point during the tournament the “25” chips will be useless since the blinds will be in even “100’s”. At that point you can “color up” the “25” chips. So, you will need more “100” and possibly more “500” chips. So, it is suggested that another 20 “100” chips be added.
Extra “100” chips for coloring up during the tournament:
- 20 – “100” chips
This brings the total chips needed for this game to 440 poker chips. At this point it is suggested that extra chips are added for a few reasons. Maybe you will have a game where 22 people show up. Some chips may get lost over time, etc.
Extra chips for special circumstances:
- 30 – “25” chips
- 20 – “100” chips
- 10 – “500” chips
This brings the total count of chips to:
- 110 – “25” chips
- 220 – “100” chips
- 170 – “500” chips
- 500 total poker chips
That is a general overview of how to figure out what poker chips to get for a tournament. Let’s discuss a cash game since this will be a bit different.
Cash Game
It is understood that cash games can vary drastically in stakes. Therefore, let’s not focus on the actual value of the chips but think in terms of big blinds (BB’s). I will discuss a $1/2 NL Holdemgame, but will mention BB’s.
The difference with a cash game is that players are often able to rebuy many times. Also, in many games the buy-in is not capped so a player can typically buy-in for 50 BB’s, 100 BB’s, 200 BB’s, or sometimes much higher. So, by the end of a game the value of chips can far exceed what you start with. However, home cash games generally do not involve more than 10 players.
Let’s consider an uncapped $1/2 NL Holdem game that has unlimited rebuys.
On average, the initial buy-in may be 100 BB’s per player ($200). So, let’s figure out the starting chips for each player:
- 15 - $1 chips = $15
- 17 - $5 chips = $85
- 4 - $25 chips = $100
- Total – 36 chips = $200
This brings the total number of chips starting out on the table to 360 poker chips (36 X 10 players).
As mentioned, players will often rebuy (sometimes many times) and players may be allowed to buy-in for more than 100 BB’s. This means we have to consider the extra poker chips needed for the game.
The starting value of the chips on the table is $2000 (10 players X $200).
During a typical game, the total value chips at the end of the game will be 2-3X the starting value. So, let’s figure out the extra chips needed if the value is up to 3X the starting value:
- 100 - $5 chips = $500
- 20 - $25 chips = $500
- 10 - $100 chips = $1000
This brings the total chips needed to (490 = 360 + 130).
As with the tournament, it is best to add extra chips for the situations where the game gets very deep. You also may want to prepare for if the game grows into a higher stakes game such as $2/5.
Here is a suggestion for extra chips that will cover deep games and slightly higher stakes:
- 80 - $25 chips = $2000
- 30 - $100 chips = $3000
Texas Holdem Tournament Starting Chips
Also, consider adding extra poker chips for the occasional lost chip:
- 50 - $1 chips
- 50 - $5 chips
Texas Hold'em Starting Chips
As you can see, with the cash game there are more poker chips to purchase. This is often the case, but you are also prepared for a deep game and for future games when the stakes move up. For this situation the total poker chips suggested is (490 + 120 + 100 = 700).