Poker Chips Are They Worth Anything
Red Chip Poker Crash Courses: Are They Worth It? Red Chip Poker offers a variety of poker training materials for all sorts of players. Those interested in getting a good basic coaching should definitely look into their CORE program to receive a well-rounded starter pack for Texas Hold’em cash games and tournaments. NOB HILL CASINO $5 hotel gaming casino poker chip Las Vegas, NV. Ending Dec 13 at 8:38PM PST 4d 2h-New-.Sahara Las Vegas. $5 Chip. Or you might want to know which are the best poker chips, and what they’re worth outside of the issuing casino’s poker room. How Poker Chips Are Made. There are three kinds of common poker chip material: clay, plastic, and ceramic. Clay is traditional and durable, while plastic chips can be easily mass-produced.
Last summer when ESPN began airing its coverage of Event #57: The $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop, you might remember how the hand shown that got most of the attention was the one between Connor Drinan and Cary Katz in which both players were dealt pocket aces.
If you watched and/or followed PokerNews’ report on the hand, you know what happened. Katz was dealt and Drinan , and when the board came , Katz made a flush and Drinan was ousted from the $1 million buy-in event in improbable fashion.
At the time several mainstream outlets found the hand interesting enough to report on it, although as sometimes will happen in such contexts the reporting wasn’t necessarily accurate.
For example, in a short item on the Sports Illustrated site titled “World Series of Poker player draws pocket aces, loses $1 million,” it was originally reported that Drinan had lost $4.97 million in the hand. A correction was later added clarifying that Drinan hadn’t actually lost that much money in the hand, but rather “lost 4.97 million chips on the hand and was eliminated from the table, which had a $1 million buy-in.”
Even the correction wasn’t completely correct — he wasn’t just eliminated from the table, but the tournament. And in fact Drinan had won his seat in the event via a $25,300 satellite, so even saying he lost $1 million wouldn’t be entirely accurate, either.
In any case, the mistake to interpret tournament chips as equivalent to dollars is one often made by those unfamiliar with tournament poker. Most tournaments do not feature a 1-to-1 ratio between the buy-ins and the amount of chips with which players start tournaments, thus making it erroneous to refer to chips as money or to put a “$” sign in front of a chip amount as you will sometimes see people do.
Poker Chips Are They Worth Anything Sold
That said, tournament chips do represent the potential to earn money in the form of the payouts awaiting the top finishers. In fact, a formula exists that can help players understand how to assign a monetary value to the chips they have at any moment within a tournament.
The “Independent Chip Model” or “ICM” method of assigning monetary value to tournament chips looks at a player’s stack and evaluates it relative to the total number of chips in play and the prize pool distribution. It can prove applicable both for considering whether or not to risk an all-in situation during the latter stages of a tournament and for figuring out how to divide prize pool money equitably in final table deals.
Last summer during the World Series of Poker Main Event, Sarah Grant caught up with Tony Dunst to get him to explain “ICM” is and how it can apply to tournament poker, and he does a nice job introducing the concept in an understandable way. Take a look:
For further explaination of what ICM is and how it can apply to final table deals, see “Let’s Make a Deal: ‘Chip Count’ and ‘ICM’ Deals.”
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Tony DunstCary KatzConnor Drinan
We don't know about you, but we prefer playing poker with chips rather than cash. Even putting aside the safety issues, chips feel better in your hand, look better stacked in front of you, and sound better clicking and clacking into the pot. But not all poker games are equal and neither are the poker chips they use. Before you buy a poker chip set, you're going to want to know a few things about them, as well as the game you're going to use them on.
How Many Poker Chips to Buy
Depending on the size of your game, you're going to need to stock up on different amounts of chips. We recommend:
- 200 Chips for 3-4 players
- 400 Chips for 5-6 players
- 600 Chips for 7-8 players
- 800 Chips for 8-10+ players
You may end up with more than you need, but it's always better to have too many chips than too few.
What Denominations (Color)?
Most cheap chip sets have too many colors. Follow the casino's lead and only have four at the most. No matter what level you play at, this color scheme and worth will work:
- WHITE - 1 unit
- RED - 5 units
- GREEN - 25 units
- BLACK - 100 units
It's the same as most card room's color scheme, which makes it easy to remember, and makes the transition from the casino to the home game—or vice versa—easier as well.
Clay
There are three types of materials most poker chips are made of. The fanciest kind are known as clay poker chips, though truly they're made of a combo of clay and other materials, and are the standard casino diameter of 39 mm. They have a nice heft and weigh from 8 to 11.5 grams apiece. If you want to provide your players with a special experience, you're going to want to shell out the extra cash and get these chips. You can even go the extra mile and get custom designs on them. While this definitely starts to get expensive, it nearly completely negates the possibility of people introducing chips into your game.
Metal
The second kind of poker chips is made of a metal core surrounded by plastic and weigh either 8 or 11.5 grams. These metal-core composite poker chips are the closest match to what you'll find in most casinos these days and are a good, durable choice. If you're looking for your game to be professional in all ways, (except the rake, of course), then this is the choice.
Plastic
Poker Chips Are They Worth Anything Made
Finally, you'll find plastic poker chips. They aren't as substantial as the other two kinds of chips and are usually filled with more colors than are useful, but they are a lot cheaper and in the end, they do get the job done. You can find a kind of plastic chip that's better than the ones you can pick up at toy stores and department stores, but if you're just starting out, we'd recommend beginning with the cheapest ones and saving your money for when you can buy metal-core or clay chips.