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When you go down to the casino to play some poker, the first step you must take is to exchange your cash for some chips to play with. If you want to play poker at home or in any other venue with your friends, the best way to go about it is to get a hold of some poker chips, even if very cheap ones.
However, there may be times when you want to play poker and don’t have any poker chips at your disposal, begging the question, can poker be played without chips?
The answer, of course, is yes! Poker can be played without chips in many different ways. Whether you find a replacement for the chips or jot the results down, there are many ways you can play poker without chips.
Keep reading to find some popular ways how to play poker without chips and create a home game with nothing but a deck of cards in terms of real gambling items.
The simplest way to replace chips in a poker game is to play for real money. If you have ever watched High Stakes Poker, you have probably noticed that even high-stakes games can be played with cash, so why not your home game as well.
Of course, most home games are played for reasonably low stakes, which is why getting a hold of a whole bunch of nickles and dimes could be a smart thing to do before you throw a home game.
If you are planning to play a higher-stakes game, such as $2/5, the bills will have to come into play instead, and it would be good to have as much change on hand as possible. If you can break some hundreds into singles, fives, and tens and hand out these bills to the players at the table, the game can run without major interruptions.
Keep in mind that dollar bills come in the same color, so making sure that every bet and call is properly counted is essential to avoid confusion or accidental mistakes.
Playing poker with real money on the table can seem just a little bit too real, and some players might simply not like doing that, so finding an alternative currency can be the answer.
One great way to replace poker chips is to use various items found in board games like Monopoly or Risk, such as Monopoly money or small figures found in other games.
Monopoly money is actually an ideal alternative to real money or poker chips, as it is already distributed into different denominations and color-coded.
Apart from the fact it’s made out of paper and not as sturdy as poker chips, Monopoly money is one of the best replacements for chips in the game of poker.
If you end up not having access to any chips, ask one of your friends to bring a game of Monopoly over and distribute the game currency to the players to get the game started.
While Monopoly money or other items from board games can serve as great replacements for poker chips, so can any other household items you may have on hand.
For example, small items like buttons, screws, or rubber bands can act as replacement poker chips, especially if you can find any such items in large quantities.
Basically, every household contains some items that can be turned into temporary poker chips and used to fuel your poker game.
Even if you can’t figure out what to use as poker chips right away, look through your stuff and you will notice that stuff will come up that can serve perfectly for the purpose.
Traditionally speaking poker chips are made out of plastic, clay, or metal, but this does not mean they can’t be made out of paper as well.
If you have a simple printer at home, you can print out a bunch of “poker chips” very fast before the start of a game to get things started.
All you need to do is create a very simple design for your makeshift poker chips, figure out the denominations you want to use, and start printing.
If you have a color printer, you can print out chips in different colors for different chip denominations and set everything up in less than an hour.
Of course, such poker chips will not last as long as those you would find in a casino, but they will do fine for a single night of poker with your friend group.
The idea of using food as poker chips may seem obscure, but it can actually make quite a bit of sense with items like peanuts, chips, or other similar snack foods.
The big problem with using such things as poker chips is that it can get a little messy, as all such foods tend to be greasy or leave residue behind them.
The last thing you want to do is make a mess of your poker game, so you may want to avoid this particular form of poker chip substitution if at all possible.
Instead of these, using colored food items such as candy (Skittles come to mind), can be a great way to both substitute poker chips and have different denominations in play.
Another popular consumable often used in movies as chips substitude is cigarettes. While you do not particularly need to use this exact item, it just highlights that pretty much anything can be used as a chip. You just need to agree on it beforehand.
A bit more tedious way to replace poker chips in your game is to write down the results of every hand played and keep the tally.
This particular method may require one player in the game to be in charge of note-keeping and can sometimes cause problems if players can’t agree on what happened in a hand.
The best way to go about this is for someone to note every single bet as soon as it is made, but even this is not the perfect system, as keeping track of exact stack sizes can be a bit tedious.
Playing poker with nothing but a piece of paper and a pen is possible but can be technically challenging, which is why we recommend you use a poker chip substitute of some sort instead.
If you want to avoid all the mess of setting up a poker game without poker chips and would rather set up your home game in a smoother way, you can do so by taking the entire thing online.
As long as all the players in the game have a phone on them (and who doesn’t these days), you can all connect to a major online poker platform and play a home game with play money.
In such a scenario, you can all be in the same room but also have your friends who can’t physically be there join the game and have some fun with the group.
The home game can be set up in any way you like, and you can either assign a particular monetary value to the chips you are playing for or not, as you see fit.
Online poker games allow you to leave the details, such as counting bet sizes and shuffling cards, to the software and focus on playing instead.
If you play your home game online, you will also get to play infinitely more hands and will not need anyone to deal the cards, guaranteeing game fairness and making it all very smooth.
The one thing you will lose out on is the flair of playing poker with real cards and chips, so only do this if everyone in the game is fine with it and doesn’t mind playing on their phones.
Once you have figured out what alternative to poker chips you want to use, it is time to decide what kind of home game you want to play. The basic decision will be between a cash game and a poker tournament, and this one will determine how you distribute your makeshift poker chips quite a bit.
In a cash game, there is no reason for chip denominations to change during gameplay, and two or three denominations should be fine for the entire duration.
In a poker tournament, the blinds will go up with each passing level, which means you may eventually need bigger chip denominations in play.
You can get around this by changing the value of the smallest denomination into the biggest once it is required, which would mean you don’t have to introduce new chips into the game as the blinds go up.
However, if you don’t have real poker chips, hosting a cash game instead of a tournament will probably be easier, so we recommend you go down this path for the time being.
While all sorts of tokens, fake money, or even food items can be used as substitutions for poker chips, no poker game will feel “real” without actual chips in play.
Fortunately, poker chips have become extremely easy to come by, and purchasing at least the simplest set of plastic poker chips will upgrade your home game experience to a whole new level.
If you want your poker games to feel truly professional, acquiring heavier and sturdier poker chips can be the next step, but any chips will do for the beginning.
That said, if you and your friends want to enjoy poker as seen on TV, we suggest you all pitch in some money and purchase a nice set of poker chips that you can use in home games every week to make your poker nights unforgettable.
If you end up having to play a poker game without poker chips for whatever reason, the recommended substitutions we have listed here may be your best bet.
The main thing to remember is that games played with replacements for poker chips should never be taken too seriously, and you should not be betting big money in such situations.
Since “fake” poker chips will definitely make the whole vibe a little less serious, playing for stakes that don’t matter to anyone in the game should make the whole atmosphere a lot more relaxed as well.
If you want to take things to the next level in terms of stakes but don’t have poker chips handy, we recommend doing the game in an online poker app where everyone can feel comfortable and sure that all the chips are accounted for and that the game integrity is untouched.
If you have the feeling you need to sharpen up your game then Pokercode is a great place to start. Sign up for a free account and set your first steps towards becoming a better poker player.
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