No Limit Texas Hold'em is played with a typical 52 card deck. Regular poker hand rankings apply. Regular poker hand rankings apply. During any betting round, any player can go 'all in' (bet all the chips they have). Poker Tournament Chip Distribution. In a typical tournament, players get a particular number of certain-valued poker chips. That chip stack usually includes a few larger values, some of a medium denomination, and several lower values for the early stages when blinds and antes are low.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.”
Table Of Contents
It looks like you made it way past the bubble and secured a spot at the final table in a multi-table poker tournament at your local card room. Congratulations!
At this point, the money is starting to get serious with increasing pay jumps following each knockout. Suddenly, one of your fellow opponents brings up the c-word:
'Do you guys wanna chop?'
You probably knew it was coming, but how should you respond?
Before we explore possible answers, let's first attempt to understand the question. What does it mean to 'chop'?
(Hint: It's not as straightforward as you might think.)
What Does It Mean to 'Chop'?
In a nutshell, a 'chop' — or, more formally, a 'deal' — refers to the players' agreement to redistribute the remaining prize money among the current contestants in a way that everyone agrees upon.
Usually, when a deal is proposed, the tournament clock stops so that the players can discuss their options.
If they reach a universal agreement, the tournament ends and the prize money is distributed accordingly.
In some cases, a portion of the prize pool is set aside for which to play and the tournament continues until the winner claims that last share.
If even just one player disagrees, the other players can either propose a different deal or the tournament resumes.
If the above sounds a bit vague or open-ended, it's because it is!
As a matter of fact, most card rooms, having no horse in the race, would happily honour pretty much anything players come up with, so that they keep their customers satisfied and move on to the next event.
READ ALSO: Visiting a New Poker Room? You Better Ask These 7 Questions Before You Play
However, without any standard guidelines in place, players would have a hard time coming up with a mutually accepted proposal.
They do have conflicted interests after all, as they all want to make as much money as possible from a limited prize pool.
The Standard Chops in Poker
Luckily, there are some standard types of deals used widely in the industry. Let's look at the three most popular ones.
- Equal Chop - The most straightforward type of deal where the remaining players distribute the prize money evenly.
- Chip Chop - A slightly more elaborate method where each player gets the same percentage of the remaining prize pool as their percentage of chips in play.
- ICM Chop - The most complex of the methods. It calculates the chance of each possible final ranking (based on current chip distribution) and weights it accordingly to estimate the expected return for each player (assuming players each possess an equal amount of skill).
How to Calculate a Deal at the Final Table
This is a lot to digest, so let's jump into some examples.
For the sake of simplicity let's assume that there are three players left:
- Alice
- Bob
- Charlie
We'll also assume with these deals that no money is being set aside for which to play after the deal is done — that is, with each we're figuring out how to chop all of the remaining prize money.
- Alice has 50,000 in chips
- Bob has 30,000 in chips
- Charlie has 20,000 in chips
This makes for an easy 50%-30%-20% distribution which will lead to easier calculations. The scheduled payouts are $900 for 1st place, $400 for 2nd, and $200 for 3rd for a total prize pool of $1,500. This is summarized in the two tables below:
| Rank | Prize | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st place | $900 | Alice | 50% |
| 2nd place | $400 | Bob | 30% |
| 3rd place | $200 | Charlie | 20% |
With the above assumptions in mind, let's see what each player's share would be if they were to agree to split the prizes according to one of the three deal-making methods listed above.
LEARN: 5 Tips to Survive with a Short Stack in Poker Tournaments
Equal Chop
As the most straightforward of the methods, this will simply net each player an equal share of the total prize pool.
That is, each player will receive one-third of $1,500 or $500.
Chip Chop
For this option, the calculations remain rather simple.
Since Alice has 50% of the chips, she will receive 50% of the $1,500 prize pool or $750. Similarly, Bob will get 30% of $1,500 ($450) and Charlie 20% of $1,500 ($300).
| Chip Chop | Prize |
|---|---|
| Alice | $750 |
| Bob | $450 |
| Charlie | $300 |
ICM Chop
Often what will happen when the 'chip chop' numbers don’t look good to everyone is for someone to request that 'ICM' figures to be produced, with the acronym standing for 'Independent Chip Model'.
The topic of ICM deal in poker is too complicated for us to delve into that deeply here — it’s relevance to tournament poker extends beyond just the area of final-table deals. But the concept behind it is easy enough to understand.
Like with the 'chip chop' method, the ICM method also assigns cash value to the chips in play.
However, ICM does not consider each chip to be of equal value, but rather accommodates for the fact that chips change in value as a tournament goes along.
It’s a calculation that takes into account each player’s chance of finishing in each of the remaining positions (based on the players’ relative stacks), then multiplies those percentages and adds them up to figure out a theoretical cash value for each player’s stack.
Many tournament players think the ICM is where things get complicated, but also more fair.
No one is going to be offered more than first-place money according to an ICM-based deal, nor is anyone going to be asked to take a deal in which they’d receive less than what the next eliminated player is scheduled to receive.
By way of comparison, let’s look again at the scenario listed above and see how the payouts would go if the ICM method was used.
Assuming that Alice deserves 50% of the entire prize pool is a little absurd if you think about it. If anything, she only deserves 50% of the first prize and much smaller pieces of lower prizes.
Unlike the 'chip chop' method, the 'ICM chop' method is more realistic in the way it estimates the chances of all of Alice's possible results, including ones where she doesn't finish first.
For instance, given the current stacks, a scenario in which Charlie comes first, Alice second, and Bob third (C-A-B) is relatively unlikely and it will only happen about 12.5% of the time.
For the mathematically inclined, that number is calculated as follows.
All else being equal, Charlie, with 20% of the remaining chips, has a 20% shot at the first place. From there, Alice has a 5-to-3 chip lead on Bob or 62.5% chance of winning second.
Altogether, then, we have a 0.20 * 0.625 = 0.125 = 12.5% chance of that C-A-B outcome happening.
Without a deal, if such a C-A-B scenario occurs, Alice will win $400 (second-place money), Bob will win $200 (third-place money), and Charlie will win $900 (first-place money).
Of course, because that outcome only happens about 12.5% of the time (1 out of 8 times), we have to scale that payoff down by multiplying it by 0.125 or dividing it by 8 (which is the same thing mathematically).
Either way, the expected payoff for the 3 players should only be 50-25-112.5 (see the 'C-A-B' row in the table below).
For the sake of due diligence, I summarized the chances and expected payoffs for each of the six possible outcomes of the tournament. For simplicity, I also rounded the results to the nearest dollar.
| Outcome | Chance | Payoff | Alice | Bob | Charlie | Totals: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A-B-C | 30% | 900-400-200 | $270 | $120 | $60 | $450 |
| A-C-B | 20% | 900-200-400 | $180 | $40 | $80 | $300 |
| B-A-C | 21.4% | 400-900-200 | $86 | $193 | $43 | $321 |
| B-C-A | 8.6% | 200-900-400 | $17 | $77 | $34 | $129 |
| C-A-B | 12.5% | 400-200-900 | $50 | $25 | $113 | $188 |
| C-B-A | 7.5% | 200-400-900 | $15 | $30 | $68 | $113 |
| Totals: | 100% | $618 | $485 | $397 | $1,500 |
- Outcome: The order in which they finish. C-A-B means: Charlie is 1st, Alice is 2nd, Bob is 3rd.
- Chance: The likelihood of the outcome. The outcome C-A-B will happen 12.5% of the time.
- Payoff: The assigned prizes in alphabetical order. 400-200-900 means Alice will be 2nd, Bob 3rd, and Charlie 1st.
- Horizontal totals: The fraction of the total prize pool based on the chance. $188 = 12.5% * $1,500, etc.
- Vertical totals: The results of the ICM. Alice deserves $618, Bob $485, and Charlie $397
- All other cells: The expected payoff if the certain outcome occurs. Alice deserves $50 from the C-A-B outcome, etc.
All in all, this leads to the following expected payoff table:
| ICM Chop | Prize |
|---|---|
| Alice | $618 |
| Bob | $485 |
| Charlie | $397 |
If you think the above calculations seem unapproachably complex, you are not alone!
The calculations are a little tedious to explain — especially at the end of an already long article — but understand that essentially what’s happening is each player’s chip stack is being looked at as representing the chance that player will be finishing first, second, third, or fourth.
Then, those percentages are multiplied by the payouts and the totals are added up to indicate amount the player is due (an amount referred to in some contexts as the player’s 'poker equity' in the tournament).
Luckily, these calculations are not meant to be done at the poker table. Instead, players and casinos alike typically use one of the many ICM apps and calculators that can be found online and can be used for free.
There you have it... a full breakdown of the three most popular chops used in card rooms today!
This brings us back to our original question, 'Do you guys wanna chop?' To which we now can add, 'If so, how do you guys wanna chop?'
Figuring out the best way to answer that question will be the topic of the second part of our conversation, so stay tuned.
Again, the answer is not as straightforward as you might think!
Should You Make a Deal?
Now that you know how to calculate an ICM deal in poker and you see why his is the fairest choice for everyone - let's answer to another question.
Should you make a deal?
Say you are one of four players left in a no-limit hold'em tournament that cost you $135 to play, and let's say the remaining prizes are:
- $4,000 for first
- $2,500 for second
- $2,000 for third
- $1,500 for fourth
All four of you are guaranteed at least $1,500, which isn't such a bad return on your $135 investment. But you're all also eyeing that $4,000 prize, too.
If you're the chip leader with four left, you stand to have a better chance of getting that first prize than do the other players.
But should you suffer an unlucky hand or two, you might find yourself the short stack and then in danger of going out in fourth.
It's the knowledge of the risks associated with tournament poker — and the significant role chance does play, especially at the end of a tourney when the blinds tend to be high and more often than not players have found it needful to edge over into an 'all-in-or-fold' strategy — that encourages some players to want to make deals to divide the remaining prize money rather than play out a tournament.
Making a deal is like buying insurance. You give up something, but you protect yourself against losing more later, as could happen if you bust in fourth and don't get any more of the remaining prize money up for grabs.
Deal Making / Chopping FAQ
A deal (or chop) refers to an agreement the players make to redistribute the remaining prize money between those still in play. For a deal to be effective, the agreement has to be accepted by all players.
An 'ICM Deal' is the most complex to calculate but also the most fair deal-type players can make in a poker tournament. The ICM Chop takes into account all the possible scenarios and re-distribute money accordingly.
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The calculation of an ICM Deal in poker takes into account elements like:
- The number of players in play
- The stack of each player
- The total prize pool
- The tournament's payout structure
To learn the mathematical model to calculate an ICM deal in a poker tournament, see this example.
Konstantinos 'Duncan' Palamourdas is a math professor who specializes in the mathematics of poker. When not at the poker tables, Duncan can be found teaching poker classes at UCLA extension to people of all levels. His passion for simplifying complex poker concepts has also led to a poker book titled 'Why Alex beats Bobbie at Poker'. You can follow Duncan on Twitter @AskTheMathDr.
How To Make Chips In Texas Holdem Poker Real Money
We also thank Martin Harris for the description of the ICM deals. Harris is the author of Poker & Pop Culture (D&B Poker Publishing) and has been PokerNews Associate Editor and Head of Strategy Content for nearly 15 years.
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tournament strategydeal-makingfinal table strategystack sizeschip chopICMICM chop