Poker Chips Question (math puzzle?)

[Haytil]

I've recently acquired 200 nice clay Poker chips and would like to have a small poker game amongst friends. Since I don't have a lot of experience playing (or running) poker games, I thought I'd ask for some advice here:

The chips are split into 4 colors of equal number - that's four groups of 50. What is the optimal value I should assign to each color? Naturally, the two goals are as follows (which are at odds with one another, unfortunately!):

-Create the largest range of possible values
-Reduce to a minimum the need to trade chips between players to get the value needed at any given moment (i.e., reduce the need to "make change" with others during the game).

Naturally, the solution to this problem is dependent on the number of players, so let's assume that anywhere from 4 to 6 players are playing. If the optimal assigned values are different for 4 players than they are 5 or 6, then I'm happy to entertain multiple solutions.

I also assume that the nature of the game is not really relevant - if it is, then consider 5-card draw, 5-card stud, and Texas Hold-'Em as possibilities.

I've looked on-line for answers, but found few - no doubt, my inexperience with this sort of problem leaves my jargon lacking, making searches difficult.

I think this is an interesting problem, not only because it's relevant to my current situation, but also because it's partially a math problem and partially one that can be assisted by intuition and experience on the part of experienced poker players. I don't have a feel for these things, but if any of you do, I'm sure your advice would also be helpful (even if not backed by any math skills).

Also, please note: I CANNOT, for various reasons, buy more chips or use more than four colors - the problem is limited to four groups of 50 chips.

So, any advice?

 

[Haytil]

Also, as an addendum, an optimal "initial distribution" for the players would be helpful and interesting as well.

 

[Holdfast]

You're going to need a lot of low denomination chips and not so many high denomination chips. I doubt there's a strict formula but 200 chips sounds OK for a 4 player game. Ideally you don't really want the 4 x 50 you have, but rather you'd want more of the low value chips but never mind.

Assigning values does depend on the game a bit, but for a friendly, low-cost game with limits I'd assign one colour to $1 to cover blinds, then another colour to $2 and another for $3 (or even use two colours both to represent one value, say $3) and use the last colour for say, $6.

 

[TheBrew]

Going to need to know the stakes, unless it is a tournament.

 

[The Borg Queen]

How about $1, $2, $4 & $8 values. Or points. Whichever system you're using.

That would seem to be the easiest and most useful combination for making other values.

 

[Roger Wilco]

The problem here is, that 200 chips isn't much, and 4 colours is unnecessary, even counterproductive because it's somewhat confusing - also, you need more low-value chips than high-value. Which means that the set you bought there probably isn't optimal (not criticising you, I made the same mistake when I started a home-game with some friends). The problem with having an equal amount of chips in each denomination and not having enough chips to begin with is, that you have to exchange chips at the table a lot, which is a little annoying.

I can't give you a cut-out formula, but this site was helpful to me. Otherwise, just play a game with your friends one evening and make the necessary adjustments the way you feel is practical. I'd recommend that you just play tournaments, but structure is totally up to you, whether you want to make it fast or slow. You just have to think it through once.

But the game-selection is relevant! I'm not sure 200 chips will be sufficient to play cash games with a full table, because you won't have many chips left for people to rebuy, for a single table tournament you're ok though (barely). But I would advise to just use three denomantions, possible even just two.

You use all the chip colours of course, but for example in a NLHE tournament with 6 players:
- You start the tournament with T1500 chips for each player
-- green and blue chips (or whatever else the colours are) are worth T25, black and red are worth T100
--- every player gets 16xT25 chips and 11xT100 chips,
---- you'd start playing with 25/25 blinds, then 25/50 and blinds double every level after that (or whatever structure you want, that's highly variable to your taste)
With more players you might have to lower the starting chips stack, or distribute more high-denomation and fewer low-denomination chips, or make the T100 chips T200 chips for example.
You can add a third denomination if you really want, but I think in your case it's more practical to double the number of effective chips by cutting the number of colours down to two.

If you're playing a NLHE cash game, the values are completely different, but you probably also need just two denomations if you aren't a high roller.
For example in a NLHE or LHE game with $100 buy-in $1 and $5 (or $10) chips - but again, you need more of the "cheap" chips.

Stud is probably more tricky, because you need extra low chips for the bring-in/ante which cuts down on the number of chips you can play with, as 200 chips total really is the bare minimum for a decent game imo.

eta:

Assigning values does depend on the game a bit, but for a friendly, low-cost game with limits I'd assign one colour to $1 to cover blinds, then another colour to $2 and another for $3 (or even use two colours both to represent one value, say $3) and use the last colour for say, $6.

Yes, that may be an even better suggestion than what I said for a cash game. Usually you'd want the jump between chip values to be x4 or x5, so it doesn't get too confusing, but in your case that could work well.

 

[Franklin]

Since I don't have a lot of experience playing (or running) poker games, I thought I'd ask for some advice here:

Umm. Can I play? I don't have a lot of experience, either.

 

[Holdfast]

Since I don't have a lot of experience playing (or running) poker games, I thought I'd ask for some advice here:

Umm. Can I play? I don't have a lot of experience, either.

I think I've heard this somewhere before......

 

[Starbreaker]

I would go with 1, 2, 5, & 10... with limits.

 

[Jadzia]

I suggest modeling it on traditional British currency. The system served these British Isles perfectly well for hundreds of years, and saw us through two world wars, and before all this decimal nonsense...

red chips = tanners
blue chips =florins
yellow chips = half crowns
green chips = guineas