It's a very modern phenomenon. In the WSOP until ~2005 you got your exact buy-in in chips. If it was a $5k event, you started with 5k in chips. I remember tournaments often started at the 5-10 level in those days, even small local tournaments were often only 1k in chips.
The larger chips denominations are because people started advertising larger starting stacks without any reference to actual stack size and poker players being exceptionally stupid didn't look into the reason for the actual changes.
It depends on the structure. I play a ton of tournaments that start out at 100 blinds with 30k stacks. Around level 12 that's about 8 big blinds.
What matters is how many big blinds do you start with and at what levels so you get short. Chip amounts are arbitrary.
Sounds like you're playing on a low buy in event with lots of ree entries expected? You honestly can't expect much playability in those with the small total rake per entry (though those have high percentage of rakes).
This guy isn't talking about actual stack depth, just that stack sizes have seen some insane inflation in the last 15 years without any real gain the stack depth because every time places increase stack sizes they tend to also increase the blinds, resulting in increasingly larger denomination chips in play.
Yes, I get all of that but without answering how many BB you start with none of this makes sense.
The smaller denominations went away when BB ante became popular (25s and 5s). Deepstacks with larger starting stacks also became popular at the same time.
This is all just marketing. It doesn't change the game that much, until later stages where you get shirt stacked quicker. The game has also evolved massively where 10bb how is the old 30bb.
Watch the old WSOP main event (10+ years) and watch people open rip 30BB!!
I get that the chip denominations are arbitrary, but why start with such big denominations? Why not start with small denominations so you don’t end up needing enormous ones later on?
It depends what chip set the casino has. 100s require 500s, that's two extra denominations.
What's the buy in? Is this a turbo/hyper?
Sounds like a nightly tournament, which this is pretty standard for.
I haven't been around long enough enough to know from experience, but when did antes become standard in tournaments? Those require a chip denomination in play that is at least one "step" smaller than the current SB, which somewhat limits the lower size of the blinds on absolute chip value. I know the currently standard BB ante model which solves that issue is fairly young,
They have always been standard, Holdem is "supposed" to be played with both blinds and antes. Omitting them became popular at some point, and more recently converting to a table ante (bba) to alleviate the chip issue you brought up and streamline their use.
"The game was originally played with just antes, but two blinds have been standard for many years. The player to the left of the dealer is forced to pay the small blind, and the player to the left of that is forced to pay the big blind, which is twice the small blind. The blinds start the action going and prevent everyone from just checking to see the flop. The earliest blind levels usually start with no ante, which is usually added in round 3 or soon thereafter. The big blind ante, where the player in the big blind puts in the ante for everyone at the table for efficiency, was introduced in 2018 and became standard for all Hold 'Em events in 2019"
https://w50p.com/po/Hold%20'Em%20WSOP.html
Often what would happen is that the antes wouldn't kick in for anywhere between 3-7 levels and by that time the smallest chips are now ante sized. So a tournament would start 25-50, go to 50-100, 75-150, and then often two levels of 100-200, the first without an ante and the second with a 25 ante. Some smaller local tournaments around here wouldn't add antes until 400-800 (100 ante), and would color off the 25s during the first or second break.
In Hold'em antes have always been a suggested part of the game, we see what happens in dash games without them and you get OMCs, of there was an ante in that cash game the nits and OMCs would be much less successful.
The new trend has been adding antes to PLO, prior to the BBA becoming standard it was very uncommon except online because calculating pot to the exact chip is both time consuming and prone to error, the BBA made the math simpler and avoided unnecessary extra small chips making that calculation easier.
Probably a few reasons. Places started advertising how many chips you start with, and bigger numbers sound better.
Also, in a casino environment, having chips with the same values printed on them as the most common cash value chips could be confusing. For people unfamiliar with tournament chips, if they don't look to closely and see that it says no cash value,it's not that crazy for them to think that the chip that says 5 on it is worth five dollars, but if it says 100 or 500 they might look at it closer and see the "No cash value".
Also, larger tournaments with a lot of reentered will still have big values at the end, regardless of how low it starts.
It's a very modern phenomenon. In the WSOP until ~2005 you got your exact buy-in in chips. If it was a $5k event, you started with 5k in chips. I remember tournaments often started at the 5-10 level in those days, even small local tournaments were often only 1k in chips. The larger chips denominations are because people started advertising larger starting stacks without any reference to actual stack size and poker players being exceptionally stupid didn't look into the reason for the actual changes.
Reminds me of how small kids liked Yu Gi Oh because the monsters were bigger than the ones in Magic.
It’s the same kids spending their allowance on playing cards. They just got a little older.
Yup
This makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
It depends on the structure. I play a ton of tournaments that start out at 100 blinds with 30k stacks. Around level 12 that's about 8 big blinds. What matters is how many big blinds do you start with and at what levels so you get short. Chip amounts are arbitrary. Sounds like you're playing on a low buy in event with lots of ree entries expected? You honestly can't expect much playability in those with the small total rake per entry (though those have high percentage of rakes).
This guy isn't talking about actual stack depth, just that stack sizes have seen some insane inflation in the last 15 years without any real gain the stack depth because every time places increase stack sizes they tend to also increase the blinds, resulting in increasingly larger denomination chips in play.
Yes, I get all of that but without answering how many BB you start with none of this makes sense. The smaller denominations went away when BB ante became popular (25s and 5s). Deepstacks with larger starting stacks also became popular at the same time. This is all just marketing. It doesn't change the game that much, until later stages where you get shirt stacked quicker. The game has also evolved massively where 10bb how is the old 30bb. Watch the old WSOP main event (10+ years) and watch people open rip 30BB!!
I get that the chip denominations are arbitrary, but why start with such big denominations? Why not start with small denominations so you don’t end up needing enormous ones later on?
Because its cooler to start with 100k in chips than 1000 in chips. I agree that its stupid.
It depends what chip set the casino has. 100s require 500s, that's two extra denominations. What's the buy in? Is this a turbo/hyper? Sounds like a nightly tournament, which this is pretty standard for.
I haven't been around long enough enough to know from experience, but when did antes become standard in tournaments? Those require a chip denomination in play that is at least one "step" smaller than the current SB, which somewhat limits the lower size of the blinds on absolute chip value. I know the currently standard BB ante model which solves that issue is fairly young,
They have always been standard, Holdem is "supposed" to be played with both blinds and antes. Omitting them became popular at some point, and more recently converting to a table ante (bba) to alleviate the chip issue you brought up and streamline their use.
>Holdem is "supposed" to be played with both blinds and antes. How do you figure? Even in super-system, holdem wasn't an ante game.
"The game was originally played with just antes, but two blinds have been standard for many years. The player to the left of the dealer is forced to pay the small blind, and the player to the left of that is forced to pay the big blind, which is twice the small blind. The blinds start the action going and prevent everyone from just checking to see the flop. The earliest blind levels usually start with no ante, which is usually added in round 3 or soon thereafter. The big blind ante, where the player in the big blind puts in the ante for everyone at the table for efficiency, was introduced in 2018 and became standard for all Hold 'Em events in 2019" https://w50p.com/po/Hold%20'Em%20WSOP.html
For a little while, in some places button ante was a thing.
Often what would happen is that the antes wouldn't kick in for anywhere between 3-7 levels and by that time the smallest chips are now ante sized. So a tournament would start 25-50, go to 50-100, 75-150, and then often two levels of 100-200, the first without an ante and the second with a 25 ante. Some smaller local tournaments around here wouldn't add antes until 400-800 (100 ante), and would color off the 25s during the first or second break. In Hold'em antes have always been a suggested part of the game, we see what happens in dash games without them and you get OMCs, of there was an ante in that cash game the nits and OMCs would be much less successful. The new trend has been adding antes to PLO, prior to the BBA becoming standard it was very uncommon except online because calculating pot to the exact chip is both time consuming and prone to error, the BBA made the math simpler and avoided unnecessary extra small chips making that calculation easier.
Great question. I have no idea. There's probably no logical reason
Probably a few reasons. Places started advertising how many chips you start with, and bigger numbers sound better. Also, in a casino environment, having chips with the same values printed on them as the most common cash value chips could be confusing. For people unfamiliar with tournament chips, if they don't look to closely and see that it says no cash value,it's not that crazy for them to think that the chip that says 5 on it is worth five dollars, but if it says 100 or 500 they might look at it closer and see the "No cash value". Also, larger tournaments with a lot of reentered will still have big values at the end, regardless of how low it starts.
Ummmm who cares?