Best way to count your chips?

[Ask Jeeves]

I'm wondering what you all do to keep track of your chips effectively? I often lose track of just about how much I have in front of me; Are there any quick ways to keep track of your chips and/or count your opponents chips? Like certain ways you should stack them etc? Or counting methods?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[TheStation]

well most people will use standard 20 chip stacks which makes it pretty easy to quickly get a rough count

I am guessing you are referring to NL or PL games (and not limit) and have a hard time counting your own chips quickly, I would recommend coloring up a rack of chips every time you get 8 stacks of 20 of one denomination, just to make it simpler that way

I have also found that this is just something that get easier over time as well

[sapol]

Some beginner players find it better to stack chips in stacks of a certain denomination, for example stacks of 1000 chips. You can use chips of any denomination to make this stacks and then all you have to do to count your chips is to count the number of stacks you have.
Hope that helps

[Ask Jeeves]

Thanks for that info guys, good advice here, and I'll try to impliment it.

One more question: Do you all count your chips all over again, after every single pot?

[pfapfap]

Uh, I count my chips by looking at them. In a single chip game, once you're used to it, this is trivially easy to get a general sense from a glance. With multiple denominations, it just takes a bit longer to get used to it.

In cardrooms, most people stack by 20s (it's what fits in a rack). Some like 25, 30, 40, or 50, but it's pretty easy after a while to tell what's what for purposes of counting the stacks of others. At my home games, depending on the table type, it's either stacks of 20 or 10.

I tend to constantly remind myself how much I have on the table, because I'm OCD like that. It's not like I'm counting them all one at a time, just keeping them in the stacks. Do not keep your chips in a big messy pile.

[Milo]

Stacks of 25 in yellow ($2) chip games at Canterbury.

[KenProspero]

Stacks of 20 -- and I usually make triangles with the stacks. I can tell within a chip or two by glancing down.

[Hair_of_the_Dog]

[ QUOTE ]
Do not keep your chips in a big messy pile.

[/ QUOTE ]
In limit cash games it is a very good idea to keep them in a messy pile. It helps your table image and also keeps you from knowing exactly what your results are, thus helps you from being results oriented. In NL or PL it's a different story.

[Photoc]

This is my favorite way to count them, and I know exactly what's there [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] :

[whorasaurus]

[ QUOTE ]
This is my favorite way to count them, and I know exactly what's there [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] :


[/ QUOTE ]

this is un-possible