Chips Ahoy!

Over the past year, through affiliate poker site offers, I have acquired three of the cheap Chinese dice poker chip sets. Three may seem a bit excessive, but new poker site deals kept coming up at ITH and I already had copies of the poker books I wanted, so the chips seemed the best of the available items. I figured two sets would allow me to host a decent sized tournament and I could always give a set as a gift.

But having three sets got me thinking. If I could round it off with a few more chips of higher denominations I could do deep stacks tournaments. (The chips don't actually have denominations, just colors. But I was thinking along the lines of sticking with standard color and denomination assignments. I'm funny that way.) So I started looking for a case that would securely hold 1,000 chips.

The search eventually lead me here. This was the best case I could find for 1,000+ chips at anything approaching this price. The only other sturdy alternative appeared to be something like a Pelican or Stormcase. I have a Stormcase for some of my radio gear. I like it a lot, but the wheeled cases aren't dimensioned properly for chips. To fit 1,000 chips you'd end up with a case that's much bigger than the chips. And price-wise you're already pretty far up there so you might as well go for the case that will hold 2,000 chips. And that case is so big it's intimidating.

I sort-of moved to Orlando before I did anything about assembling all my chips into one giant set. I say 'sort-of' because while I've been here for several months, most of my belongings, including my chips, are still in California.

So here I am, chip rich, yet without a chip in sight. And I'm dying to get some of my co-workers involved in poker. So I get the idea of buying another cheap set of chips so I'll have some here in Orlando. I thought about doing another new-user deal at ITH, but I've already played at all the sites they currently have deals with.

While looking for chips I ended up back at Poker Chips Depot where I'd first checked out the 2,000-chip case. Since I was last there they have built chip sets around this case. The prices are quite good and one of the available sets uses the exact same chips of which I already have 1,500, meaning I'd be able to mix and match chips to cover almost anything from a low level cash game to a multi-table 10,000 starting chip tournament.

So I'm now the proud owner of a set of 2,000 poker chips. I picked colors and quantities to mix with what I already have. The original sets were heavy on the white (1) and red (5) chips, so I ordered what would seem a disproportionate number of green (25) and black (100) chips, adding purple (500) and yellow (1000) chips to the mix. If I deviate from the standard colors and say the yellow chips are worth 5,000, I'm just a bit shy of 1,000,000 in chip value. Deep stacks with rebuys anyone?

The chips and the case came boxed separately. Once I got all the chips in the case, the first thing I noticed was that this thing is heavy! The chips alone weigh over 56 pounds. The case adds probably another 10 pounds. It's a good thing the case has wheels because my back wouldn't put up with moving it very far otherwise.

My general impression is that the case is sturdy enough to hold and transport the chips as long as reasonable care is taken during transport. I wouldn't check this at the airport and expect it to come out intact at the other end.

The latches are sufficient to keep the case from popping open during normal handling. They are the type with a loop of wire that fits over a fixed post and compresses against the post when the latch is closed. These strike me as much more secure than the simple flip latches used on the other cases I have. But I'm stil not sure they would keep the case secure if it was dropped from more than a few inches.

The handle on the case is sturdy and seems well attached. The case does not flex at all when lifted by the handle. Again, I don't know that I'd trust it with rough treatment by professional baggage handlers, but it should serve adequately for carrying the chips to and from poker games.

As mentioned previously, the case has wheels. There is also an extendable handle to make it easier to pull the case. This handle feels a bit on the flimsy side, having quite a bit of flex to it when pulling the fully loaded case. My guess would be this is the weakest link and will be the first part to break. Still, with a bit of care, I don't think it's likely to break soon.

The chips are stored in two layers of 1,000 each. The top layer is formed by four removable trays, each holding five rows of 50 chips. The trays are constructed of wood covered in velvet. They have sturdy woven fabric handles secured to each end.

The bottom layer is a single velvet-covered wooden tray with ten rows holding 100 chips each. The dividers stick up above the top of the chips, so the top trays rest on the dividers, not on the chips in the lower level. There's actually room for about 105 chips in each row, but the chips fit very snuggly and it's almost impossible to remove them without having some finger room at the end of each row.

The bottom tray is secured to the case with screws and, I believe, adds to the overall strength of the case.



The chips I got are the cheap plastic Chinese chips with the metal inserts. I have no delusions of these being casino-quality chips, but they're certainly an improvement over the all-plastic chips readily available in many discount department stores.


They should provide many years of service (particularly if they get used as much as the 'free' chips I got through ITH). And I really can't complain at all about the price. Less than 6 cents per chip, not including delivery.