Start from the big blinds
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How many chips to give each player at a home game
How to build the starting stack from the chips you own, with enough left for the rebuys.
Start from the big blinds
There is no right number of chips. The real question is how many big blinds you want everyone to start with. Multiply that number by the first level’s big blind and the result is the starting stack. More big blinds make a longer night; fewer, a quicker one.
The smallest chip in the set decides the first level. With 100 chips it can be 100/200, and with a big blind ante (the big blind also pays one big blind for the whole table) every hand starts with 500 in the pot. The rest of the levels are in how to build a blind structure.
Quick math
Big blinds × Level 1 = Starting stack
200 × 200 = 40,000 chips
Build the stack from your chips
With the stack set, you still have to pick the chips. Every small color needs to show up often enough to pay blinds and make change: at least 8 of each, or enough to change up twice into the next chip. The rest goes in the biggest chip that fits.
Chips bigger than a quarter of the stack stay in the set. At 40,000, the 25,000 and 100,000 chips stay out of the starting stack: they are for rebuys and for coloring up late in the night. Put your table into the calculator:
Chip calculator
Each player gets33 chips
| Chip | Each | Table | Left |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 10 | 80 | 20 |
| 500 | 8 | 64 | 36 |
| 1,000 | 10 | 80 | 20 |
| 5,000 | 5 | 40 | 60 |
| 25,000 | – | – | 100 |
| 100,000 | – | – | 100 |
- What is left in the set covers 22 rebuys of 40,000, paid in the bigger chips.
- The 25,000 and 100,000 chips stay in the set: they go into the rebuys and the color-up late in the night.
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How many players your set holds
A set with 100 chips of each color and a table of 8: everyone gets 10 of 100, 8 of 500, 10 of 1,000 and 5 of 5,000. That is 33 chips each, adding up to 40,000.
A set of 100 of each, with 8 players
- Each player33chips
- On the table264chips
- Rebuys22of 40,000
264 chips leave the set and there are still 22 rebuys left. The trick is not spending small chips on rebuys: the 100s and 500s are the first to run out, and they are what makes change for the whole first half of the night.
Rebuys and add-ons in big chips
A 40,000 rebuy is one 25,000 chip and three 5,000s: four chips, handed over in seconds. A 100,000 double rebuy is a single chip, the 100,000.
The add-on is usually bought at the break, when the 100s have already left the table. Pay it in big chips too: 40,000 the way a rebuy is, and an 80,000 double add-on as three 25,000s and one 5,000.
Coloring up
As the blinds go up, the small chips stop being useful. Color up each one when no blind needs it anymore, and the table has fewer chips to count.
When each chip leaves the table
- 100 chips1,500/3,000from these blinds on
- 500 chips3,000/6,000from these blinds on
- 1,000 chips15,000/30,000from these blinds on
In the default structure the break comes after level 11, and from level 12 on every blind is a multiple of 500. That is the right moment to collect the 100s: play has stopped and nobody is in the middle of a hand.
