So you’ve recently gotten into the Texas holdem rage, and have been playing poker every night with your buddies. Up to now, the only things that you’ve been playing with are cards and pennies. You’ve just decided that you want to up the stakes a bit. What you are going to eventually have to do is invest in a poker chip set. Now, there are different type of poker chip sets to fit every player, every budget and every style.



If you are new to playing or have always played with the cheap-o discs from your local discount store, get yourself invited to games with guys who play with real chips. This will allow you to feel the chips, see if you like the feel and the weight of them. It will help you out on buying the right poker chip set for yourself.









First, you have to decide how many chips and how many colors you have to buy. A good rule of thumb is that if you are just starting out, it is best to buy five hundred chips for your first poker chip set. You can’t just buy 500 red chips or 500 black chips; you need to have different denominations or different chips to represent different units of money. If you normally play with lower bets, you might need a color for five cents, one for ten cents and one for a quarter, and perhaps even a 50 cent and dollar chip. That’s already five denominations, so you need five colors of chips. The more players you have, the more money is going to be changed, and you are going to need more denominations.



The number of chips is also dependent on how many players you have. If it is only you and three buddies, you can probably get away with 300 chips in your new poker chip set; however, if you are going to have six or seven buddies, you are going to need closer to 500 chips. It’s recommended that you start off with a standard poker chip set of 500 chips in five to seven different colors. The vast majority of these chips are going to be two or three of these colors, and the rest will be a smaller quantity of the higher bet chips. So you need to figure out how many of each chip will suit your needs. One way to do this is to keep track of the chips you use in your next poker game. How many times do you have to keep changing in, and how much time is wasted by re-banking?



So now that you’ve decided that your new poker chip set is going to be a five colored, five hundred chip set, you are going to have to do a little research on the material for the chips. If you can spend whatever you want, go with the best right off the bat. Buy clay chips. This is what the professionals use, and what is used in the casinos all over the world. These chips are very durable, and with proper care can last a lifetime. The advantages to this type of poker chip set are that they look great and play great.



If you don’t have an unlimited budget, you may want to consider a composite poker chip set. These are clay chips with some sort of insert in them (usually plastic, resin or metal). One of the advantages to these chips is that they are virtually unbreakable. But a disadvantage is that the color can wear off after many, many years of play.



If your budget is even lower, you can always get a resin poker chip set. A lot of resin chips are designed to replicate clay. These also come in nearly any style and color to suit your style and playing needs.



Ok, so you have just bought your first poker chip set. The final thing for you to do is to protect your new investment, so make sure to budget in a poker chip set case. Follow this advice, and you can use your new poker chip set for years and years to come.

By: Thom Riemersma -

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Tom Riemersma plays a lot of recreational poker and is a poker chip expert. He offers his poker related advise through Elite Poker Chips, the one and only poker chip set destination worth visiting on the web. See more at www.elitepokerchips.com/