- Poker Chip Trays. Poker chip trays are extremely useful for handling and storing poker chips. At the beginning of the tournament they can be use to hold each players chips. This makes it easy to hand out the chips and assures that they are getting the right amount of chips. Chip trays also are helpful for carrying chips when a player has to.
- If it should occur that Player C loses the chip race and is left with $0 in total tournament chips, he will be given an extra $500 chip. Final Thoughts: The best way to learn how to properly run a No Limit Hold’em tournament is to play in one at a casino. There is no substitute for this.
If you are setting up a poker home game and want to know what each chip is worth and how many to give to each person, you have come to the right place. I have been a poker tournament player for over 10 years and can give you
If you plan on using your chip set for a variety of games, including games like blackjack or craps, you may want some additional colors as well to handle the diversity. T1000 Tournament – 41 chips per player. 20 – Red; 16 – Green; 5 – Black; Plus, have some purple chips around for re-buys and color-ups. T10000 Tournament – 46 chips. The best Poker hand then takes the pot. If a player makes a bet or a raise that no other player calls, they win the pot without showing their hand. Thus, in Poker, there is a bluffing element, and the best combination of cards does not always win the pot! Bluffing is one of the key reasons why Poker is so popular. There just aren't enough chips to maneuver and play real poker. If all other variables are held constant, starting a tournament with larger chip stacks will increase the length of the game. Rebuys and Add-ons. The number of rebuys and add-ons in a tournament also effect the total number of chips in play during a tournament.
What are the poker chip values for home games?
- White or Gray – $1
- Red – $5
- Blue – $10
- Green – $25
- Black – $100
- Purple – $500
- Yellow – $1,000
- Pink – $5,000
- Orange- $10,000
While these are the traditional values assigned for poker chips, what denominations you use can be tailored for whatever type of game you happen to be playing. The rest of this article will cover everything you need to know about optimizing your poker home game so that your friends will think you are a pro.
What Values for Common Chip Sets?
The traditional chip values for each color were established by casinos to represent real money. In other words, a blue chip at a casino can be traded in for a $10 bill
Nowadays, this system doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for home games unless you happen to be playing a high stakes cash game
Most people either play cash games for small amounts of money, where the highest denomination is something like $5. Or, they play a tournament.
Setting Up Cash For Games
In cash games, your chips count as actual money and there is no prize pool. If you run out of chips you are out of the game unless you reload. This format is the easiest to organize and play, since you don’t have to worry about a tournament clock or rising blind levels.
Cash Game Chip Values
If you are using your poker chips to play a home cash game, I recommend just following the traditional rules. White is $1, red is $5, blue is $10, green is $25
If you want to play higher stakes, say $5/$10 or $10/$20, you will need black and possibly purple chips. Or, you can just convert the white chips to $100 and red to $500 if your set does not contain black and purple.
How Many Poker Chips Do We Need for Cash Games?
A good rule of thumbs is to figure that you need at least 50 chips for every person in the game
If you have 6 or more players, you will definitely want to invest in a 500 piece set, like this inexpensive one (Click to see Amazon Listing).
If you want to customize the denominations of an individual poker chipset, you will likely need to get a higher-end brand, like my absolute favorite chipset.
How Many Poker Chips per Person? What Do They Start With?
In cash games, poker players may buy in for as much as they want. If you want to set a minimum or a maximum, that is fine. A 20 big blind(bb) minimum and a 100bb maximum are common.
Here are the chip distributions for common stack buy-in sizes:
$1.00/$2.00 Blinds
$2.00/$5.00 Blinds
$5.00/$10.00 Blinds
$10.00/$25.00 Blinds
What If We Want to Play Smaller Stakes?
If you want to play a small friendly game, feel free to play as low as you want. For example, you could make chips worth the following:
- White – $0.10
- Red – $0.25
- Blue – $1.00
Here is a good distribution for playing .10/.25 blinds. For a friendly game, I recommend playing with 40 big blind stacks of $10 each:
$0.10/$0.25 Blinds
By choosing to play 40bb each, no one would be likely to lose more than $50 in a typical night. I included the 100bb distribution if you prefer deeper stacked play.
Tournament Setup & Starting Stack Distributions
Tournaments are actually a fairly recent invention that has grown immensely in popularity since Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003. Now, it’s the most common poker format played in home games.
The great thing about tournaments is that it’s easy to limit the amount you can lose in a session. If it’s a $10 buy-in that’s all you can lose for the events. Just throw your money in a hat and play.
Tournaments do, however, take a bit more organization and
- Setup and decide on the prizes
- Manage the rising blind levels
- “Color up” the chips as the blinds go up
Poker Tournament Chip Values
If you decide to play a poker tournament and want to be able to play more than 5 or 6 blind levels, then you will need at least 4 chip colors. Most chip sets now come with at least red, white, green, and black.
Here is a simple and flexible chip value system commonly used in live poker tournaments:
- Red – $25
- White – $100
- Green – $500
- Black – $1,000
- Pink – $5,000
This distribution will work perfectly in most events with less than 30 people.
If you get to the point where $5,000 or $10,000 chips are needed, you can just bring $25 chips back into play and change them to whatever is needed. Or, if you have a 5th color, usually either black or pink, you can designate them as $5,000 or $10,000 chips
How Many Poker Chips Are Needed for Tournaments?
Tournaments tend to require fewer chips per person since the chips are usually worth more each. Even so, a common 300 piece set will still only accommodate up to 6 players. It is definitely worth your while to have at least a 500 piece set for every 9 people that will be playing.
I did some research and found a really good inexpensive 500-piece set (Click for Amazon price). I would suggest getting one of these for every 9-person table you are hosting.
What If My Chip Set Only Comes with Three Colors?
Some of the cheaper chips sets come with three colors. Usually, you get white, red, and blue.
For tournaments, if you only three chip colors you will want to assign them as follows:
- Red – $25
- White – $100
- Blue- $500
If you have different colors, use the same values but just assign them to whatever color you want.
How Many Poker Chips per Person?
For most home game tournaments, a solid option is to have each player start with 3,000 chips using the following distribution:
- 8 Red $25 Chips
- 8 White $100 Chips
- 2 Green $500 Chips
- 1 Black $1,000 Chips
This will have each player starting with 60 big blinds. I find this amount to be a good balance between having enough room to play without having the event take too long.
What If We Want to Play Deeper Stacked?
If you want to play a deeper stacked tournament and have enough chips to go around, I recommend starting with $10,000 chips each with the following distribution:
- 8 Red $25 Chips
- 8 White $100 Chips
- 8 Green $500 Chips
- 5 Black $1,000 Chips
What blind levels should we play?
Based on the recommended chip distributions, here is a solid blind level schedule:
Helpful hint: If you want a deeper stacked feel to the tournament but don’t have many chips, just play a standard 3,000 stack with longer blind levels. Instead of the usual 15 or 20-minute blind levels, you might play 30 or 45-minute levels.
How Long Should Blind Levels Be?
For most home games, I advocate never having blind levels higher than 20 minutes. 15 minutes is a really popular choice. Even 1 table events will still last a couple of hours using this speed.
If you want a fast event, go with
When Should I Color up the Chips?
Here is a good schedule for removing smaller chips and introducing a larger denomination:
What Is a Good Tournament Prize Schedule?
For friendly home poker tournament games, I recommend a fairly wide distribution of prizes. Therefore, I suggest paying out at least 1/3 of the field. Here is an example payout structure:
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, I have given you all the information you need to get set up for your poker home game. If I missed anything please be sure to let me know in the comments and I will get it added.
Also, if you need more help planning your poker event, be sure to check out my article on hosting the perfect poker night. And don’t forget to use high-quality playing cards, they’ll take your game to the next level. Thanks for stopping by!
Related Products
If you want to really add class to your home poker games, here are a few products that I recommend:
- Copag Playing Cards– My favorite premium brand of playing cards. Trust me on this, don’t use those cheap Bicycle cards anymore.
- Octagon Folding Table– For smaller games with 5 players or less.
- Oval Poker Table– For games with 6 or more players.
- Heavy Duty Folding Chairs– These will fit any size player up to 600 pounds. I come from a rather “large” family if you catch my drift. Make sure you have good solid chairs to prop them up.
Related Questions
What is a short stack in poker? A short stack if poker is usually any chip stack that is 40 big blinds or lower. 50 to 100 big blinds is a
What poker table shape is best for home games? The best poker table shape for a home game varies based on how many players you are hosting. You will also need to factor in the size of the space you are fitting the table into. A safe bet is to buy an oval-shaped table. They usually seat at least 6 players comfortably and come in a variety of sizes.
How many buy-ins should I take to a poker game? When going to a casino or home game to play poker, it is usually a good idea to take at least 3 buy-ins for the stake you intend to play. However, it is a personal decision as to how many buy-ins you can stand to lose in one session. Limiting the amount of money you can lose in a poker session is known as setting a “stop-loss.”
How to run a NL Texas Holdem Poker Tournament
Poker tournaments are the most popular form of home poker games. Here, I will teach you everything about Poker Tournament Structure, various poker tournament styles, and more.
If you haven’t decided whether you should host a poker tournament or poker cash game read the Cash vs. Tournament Poker page.
Home Poker Tournament Setup
To run a poker tournament you should pay attention to many different factors. Following are most important notes to learn.
Sign Up
Before the tournament starts, every player must sign up and pay the entry fee. It’s best to write down the name of players and mark their names off as they pay.
When each player signs up, you should tell him his random assigned seat too. (refer to the Seating Players section)
Chips Distribution
Before the tournament starts, every player must have poker chips. Since every player will have exact same amount of chips, it doesn’t make much difference as what that amount is. That is because it’s the same for everyone.
The most common starting chips amounts are 100, 1000, 2500, and 10000. This amount can be given in any denominations. However it is good to choose the denominations wisely.
I personally prefer to give 1000 starting chips in my house games. You can give 5 black chips (worth $100 each), 15 green chips(worth $25 each), 25 red chips (worth $5 each).
Any color can be given any value. However certain colors are known to be used for certain values. Almost all casinos follow this color convention as it makes it easier for players to remember the values without any numbers written on the chips. Following is a list of the most common chips colors and their values as well as sample chart for starting chip distribution.
I didn’t suggest “Blue” chips in the above example, because most people don’t have blue chips in their chip cases. However if you have them, you can use them. They are worth 50.
Buy In – Rebuy
Buy In: is the entry fee that every player must pay in the begriming of the tournament in order to be able to play.
Rebuy: happens when players are allowed to buy chips once they loose their chips.
Different buy-in amounts can affect the tournament. Rebuys also affect the tournament in different ways depending on how it is used. These concepts are all covered in the Buy-in / Rebuy page.
Seating Players
To insure a fair poker tournament players should be seated randomly. This can be accomplished different ways such as using marked cards, numbers and more. Seating & moving players page explains the most common methods and how to use them.
Blind Period/Structure
To ensure that the tournament ends in a reasonable time blinds rise every certain number of minutes. For example starting blind might be $10/$20, but after half an hour it will go up to $20/$40. Two factors affect blinds: 1- Blind structure, and 2- Blind Period.
Blind Structure: is the structure that blinds go up based on. Typically the first big blind should be 1/50 of the starting chips amount. Blinds usually double after each blind period. Deeper explanation of this topic can be found in the Tournament Blind Structure page.
Blind Period: This is the time period that blinds are raised at the end of. For example if the blind period is one hour, it means that after each hour through the game blinds should go up based on the blind structure.
Moving Players
In your poker tournament there will be times that players need to be moved from one table to another. Such times arrive when players bust out of the tournament and the tables don’t have the same number of players seating at them. If table A has two, or more players more than table B, a random player has to move from table A to table B.
Check out the Seating & moving players page for more info.
Tournament Payout
Payout: is the prize paid out to the winning player/players at the end of the poker tournament. A payout structure should be decided before the game begins. The payout structure is mainly decided based on the number of entrants.
The Payout Structure page covers this topic in full and includes a table with the most common payout structures.
Final Tips:
- The best form of tournament to use in House Poker Tournaments is rebuy tournament with one or unlimited rebuys.
- You can always hold two smaller/shorter tournaments than two long ones. That would suit a house game better as players don’t have to sit out for a long time and watch other play.
- Use the Tournament Director software. It will make your life much easier.
There are many different forms of poker tournaments. The most common form is the Freezeout tournaments. That is the form of WSOP and most of the tournaments shown on TV. In this form (as you read below), once a player loses his chips, he is out of the tournament. This might not be the most preferred method for a friendly home poker tournament. Read on to find out why.
Freezeout
In a Freezeout tournament, players are eliminated once they loose all their chips. There are no second chances. once hosting a freeze-out tournament you should try to make all tables with approximately same number of seated players players. Refer to the seating/moving players page for instruction to achieve that.
Freezeout tournaments are the most popular home poker tourneys. However you should consider Rebuy tournaments as well as they have great advantages for house games. That is because players can rebuy certain number of times. Therefore once they lose their chips they still have a second chance and don’t have to sit out and wait for everyone else to lose (perhaps for a new tournament to start.
Rebuy
As the name states, a rebuy tournament allows player to rebuy chips. Rebuy happens when a player looses his all of his chips or has less than a certain amount of chips left. In such a case the player can buy chips again (if rebuy is allowed). Refer to the Buy-In/Rebuy page for more info.
In a rebuy tournament:
- The rebuy period has to be limited and specified before the game. For example players might be able to rebuy during the first hour or the first 3 blinds and such.
- Players might be allowed to rebuy if they haven’t lost all their chips but have considerably low amount of chips left. For example if everyone started with 1000 chips and the player has less than 100 or 50 chips.
- A rebuy tournament can allow unlimited rebuys during the rebuy period or a limited number of rebuys for each player.
Shootout
Shootout tournaments style can be used in multi table tournaments. In a shootout tournament, every table plays until it is down to one player. Then all the players from different tables advance to the final table and compete for the prize.
In a shootout tournament usually all the players who make it to the final table win a prize. This prize can range from the buy-in amount and up.
Free Roll
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Freeroll tournaments are free to enter. However, almost all of them have prizes. These tournaments are most common in online poker websites.
Most of the online poker websites offer weekly/daily freerolls, free rolls for the new members, and free rolls for members with certain number of points.
Recently there has also been a rise in free poker tournaments at local bars to attract customers on slow nights.
Guaranteed Payout/Prize
Guaranteed payout tournaments have guaranteed payouts (if it needed explanation). For example the tournament might have a $109 buy in but guarantees $50,000 prize pool. Therefore, even if there are 250 people playing (meaning $25000 real cash paid for entrance) the prize pool is $50,000. As you might guess, this doesn’t happen very often.
Guaranteed prize pool tournaments are mostly held at online poker websites. While they look very tempting, they mostly end up having more players than what was guaranteed. However, you can find tournaments that doesn’t fill up in less popular online poker rooms.
For example in a $50,000 guaranteed, $109 buy in(the $9 is the tournament fee) tournament there are usually over 500 players. This makes the tournament no different than if it did not have a guaranteed prize.
Heads Up
Heads up tournaments are held between two players at a time. Following are the instruction to host a heads up poker tournament:
- Certain number of players sign up for the tournament.
- Players are divided in groups of 2.
- Heads up games are held between each group of two players.
- The winner advances to a higher level where he paired up with another winner. This continues until the tournament is down to two final players. They play against each other and the winner is determined.
Satellite
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Satellite tournaments offer seats to higher level tournaments. For example, 10 players can play a $20 buy-in satellite tournament where the top two winners get tickets into a $100 buy in tournament.
In a satellite tournament, prizes are usually the same. For example the top 3 players in a satellite tournament might get an entry into tournament “X”. If there is still any money left but it is not enough to pay for another entry to the tournament “X”, that money can be given as a cash prize to the next position (in this example the 4th position).
Some larger satellite tournaments offer seats at higher level tournaments for the let’s say top 3 players and cash for the let’s say fourth and fifth position. However the cash prizes is less than what the higher level tournament tickets are worth for.
Bounty Tournaments
A common practice in regular home poker games is having a Bounty. A bounty tournament can be any type tournament mentioned above with the bounty prize.
The bounty is a prize taken out of the the tournament prize pool. It is usually on the winner form the previous week/game. If player A takes out the winner from last week, he would win the bounty. That is regardless of the position that player A ends up at the end of the tournament. So player A could possibly win both the bounty and the first position prize.
Laws Related to Home Poker Games:
In most of the U.S. States it is legal to host a home poker game as long as you don’t take any rake (make any money for the house).
Make sure to check your states’s (or country) gambling laws before hosting or participating in a house poker game.
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Poker players are also required to pay tax on their income.