How many poker chips for a 6 person game?

[Markk]

I'm planning a sort of poker night with a few friends, expecting there to be 6 people. A small buy in would get you a number of chips (we're not assigning specific values to chips and the buy in would be incredibly small).

I was wondering what a good number of chips would be per person in order to have a nice game (balanced, not too short/long, etc, etc). We can assume big blind would be 2 chips, small 1, and probably a betting limit per round or something.

And this all of course would be more for the social than the money obviously. A nice evening at a friends house. Of course Texan hold'em poker. We're not advanced for the full H.O.R.S.E.

I know some of you have experience in this

[Bones]

Since is isn't a cash game you are probably going to play it like a tournament. I think a typical chip set will have either 3 or 4 color chips. When you up the blinds you can swap chips out and redesignate the smaller chip amounts for new values (like cashing your 1's chips in for a higher amount and then making that chip color a higher value). You could always throw in other objects to represent a certain amount. My friends and I would on occasion run out of chips and we would use stuff like drink coasters or shot glasses.

Cash games are simpler in my opinion, because if chips run out, you can throw real money in there.

[Markk]

Since is isn't a cash game you are probably going to play it like a tournament. I think a typical chip set will have either 3 or 4 color chips. When you up the blinds you can swap chips out and redesignate the smaller chip amounts for new values (like cashing your 1's chips in for a higher amount and then making that chip color a higher value). You could always throw in other objects to represent a certain amount. My friends and I would on occasion run out of chips and we would use stuff like drink coasters or shot glasses.

Cash games are simpler in my opinion, because if chips run out, you can throw real money in there.

Hmmm, shot glasses, I like that.

Cash games are probably simpler, but we don't want to get too into that because people would probably be more keen on playing more often if smaller amounts were included, and cash games I would expect could really balloon out of size and no one wants to play with pennies (or our version of pennies). And the element of having even a bit of cash motivates people to play better than just throwing worthless chips around.

[Bones]

Hmmm, shot glasses, I like that.

Cash games are probably simpler, but we don't want to get too into that because people would probably be more keen on playing more often if smaller amounts were included, and cash games I would expect could really balloon out of size and no one wants to play with pennies (or our version of pennies). And the element of having even a bit of cash motivates people to play better than just throwing worthless chips around.

I guess this where we are two different animals. I don't play unless it is worth while moneywise. I feel people play seriously when more money is involved. That and I am really good at playing Texas Holdem.

[tone4days]

I guess this where we are two different animals. I don't play unless it is worth while moneywise. I feel people play seriously when more money is involved. That and I am really good at playing Texas Holdem.

+1 i don't play 'for fun' anymore because TV poker has ruined the game ... too many folks play clownishly

[Markk]

Well, it'll be our first shot at it. So it will also be a sort of test round. Who knows, maybe we'll up the stakes

[ParameterMan]

Since nobody else really answered your question you get to listen to me ramble.

How many chips per person? It depends on how aggressive your players are. The chips that move the most are the 1s, especially when people are betting the minimum all the way. With somewhat conservative players that don't bet a lot before the flop you might put down an average of four 1s per hand. I've found 20-30 to be a nice amount. After that you just divvy up the higher denominations based on what your buy-in is.

I've had the most fun with friends when I just give us each 50+(of one color) and we play until someone has them all. It's less confusing for guys who don't play a lot and the pots feel a lot bigger - it's pretty cool raking in a massive pile of chips like the pros.

If it were me, I'd probably order me some bulk chips instead of buying a pre-packaged set. The reason: the sets I've seen(including the one I got for a gift) have 5 values: 1, 5, 10, 25 and 100. You end up with too many 100s and not enough 1s. The 5 is especially funky as in a $1/2 game you're most always betting in multiples of 2. Hmmm... maybe you could do 25¢, $1, $5, $10, $50.

You can make fewer small chips work if you keep back enough of each value to buy back most of the denomination below it, then appoint a cashier to distill each pot to the largest possible chips before handing it to the winner.

On the other hand, this does seem to encourage exponential bidding.

[Markk]

Hmmm, points taken into consideration.
Thank You for your ramble

[dr. ad]

haven't read everything because i'm a bit drunk and impatient...
the total amount of chips on the table isn't as important as other factors; you can make it $2000 worth of chips but once it's down to 2 people they'll either be playing really tight, or really loose.
may i suggest making it a cash game?
when you make it a cash game it will generally eliminate all the BS "we'll call that a practice game"-type scenarios.
make the buy-in really small, ie even a 5 buck buy-in makes it interesting enough to play properly (even for 6 ppl).
and trust me, once there's money on the table you'll see your friends' true nature...

i've seen some interesting situations arise out of poker games; good luck to you Markk.

[Markk]

i've seen some interesting situations arise out of poker games; good luck to you Markk.

See, now this warrant further stories

[sainty]

hi there..

the amount of chips the players start with is indeed irrelevant as long as you adjust the blinds accordingly.. If you wanna play poker 6-Handed I would make the ratio from blinds to stacks relative high because players tend to play way more 6 handed then on a full table..

[Markk]

hi there..

the amount of chips the players start with is indeed irrelevant as long as you adjust the blinds accordingly.. If you wanna play poker 6-Handed I would make the ratio from blinds to stacks relative high because players tend to play way more 6 handed then on a full table..

Hey, welcome to the forum.

We eventually got to raising blinds every 15 or 20 minutes and assigned different values to the chips, something like 5 10 15 25 50 or so (can't remember exactly). It turned out decent enough with a few hours of play. I actually won the pot that night (and I was the one playing with a cheat sheet telling me which hands were the good ones lol).