Best Quality Clay Poker Chips
The next product that we will be analyzing is the Smartxchoices 500 Poker Chip Set Clay Casino Poker Chips with an Aluminum Case.This product is extremely popular with customers because it features a high quality collection of poker chips that come with complimentary decks of cards and other gaming accessories that can be used for large amounts of fun. Clay poker chips are the most popular choice of chip when playing poker. They have distinct sound and feel to them. This gives you an overall better playing experience. Once you play with clay chips, you won't want to play with anything else. All of the clay poker chips are made with a clay/composite material blend.
You will find that clay chips stack better than composite poker chips, beacause they are less slippery. The chips with graphics have a label inlay on them. These label inlays are recessed into the face of the chip, unlike ceramic poker chips, which the graphics are part of the chip.
All clay poker chips have some percentage of composite materials in them. The composite materials give the chip strength. A 100% pure clay chip would be extremely brittle and easy to break. Even our casino grade poker chips which have a higher percentage of clay can be broken in half, if you try to break them.
Generally, the more expensive a clay chip costs, the higher the percentage of clay it is made with. It is more complex to manufacturer chips with a higher clay content.
Weight has nothing to do with quality. Our highest quality chips are the 10 gram chips. The weight of a chip is is purely personal preference. Our most popular chips are the heavier 14 gram clay chips.
All clay chips that weigh more than 11.5 grams have a metal insert in them to give them their weight. The larger the weight the heavier the chip.
All of our clay chips are either 39mm or 40mm in diameter. The thickness of most of the chips are the same too.
We don't know about you, but we prefer playing poker with chips rather than cash. Even putting aside the safety issues, chips feel better in your hand, look better stacked in front of you, and sound better clicking and clacking into the pot. But not all poker games are equal and neither are the poker chips they use. Before you buy a poker chip set, you're going to want to know a few things about them, as well as the game you're going to use them on.
How Many Poker Chips to Buy
Depending on the size of your game, you're going to need to stock up on different amounts of chips. We recommend:
- 200 Chips for 3-4 players
- 400 Chips for 5-6 players
- 600 Chips for 7-8 players
- 800 Chips for 8-10+ players
You may end up with more than you need, but it's always better to have too many chips than too few.
What Denominations (Color)?
Most cheap chip sets have too many colors. Follow the casino's lead and only have four at the most. No matter what level you play at, this color scheme and worth will work:
- WHITE - 1 unit
- RED - 5 units
- GREEN - 25 units
- BLACK - 100 units
Best Ceramic Poker Chips
It's the same as most card room's color scheme, which makes it easy to remember, and makes the transition from the casino to the home game—or vice versa—easier as well.
Clay
There are three types of materials most poker chips are made of. The fanciest kind are known as clay poker chips, though truly they're made of a combo of clay and other materials, and are the standard casino diameter of 39 mm. They have a nice heft and weigh from 8 to 11.5 grams apiece. If you want to provide your players with a special experience, you're going to want to shell out the extra cash and get these chips. You can even go the extra mile and get custom designs on them. While this definitely starts to get expensive, it nearly completely negates the possibility of people introducing chips into your game.
Metal
The second kind of poker chips is made of a metal core surrounded by plastic and weigh either 8 or 11.5 grams. These metal-core composite poker chips are the closest match to what you'll find in most casinos these days and are a good, durable choice. If you're looking for your game to be professional in all ways, (except the rake, of course), then this is the choice.
Plastic
Best China Clay Poker Chips
Finally, you'll find plastic poker chips. They aren't as substantial as the other two kinds of chips and are usually filled with more colors than are useful, but they are a lot cheaper and in the end, they do get the job done. You can find a kind of plastic chip that's better than the ones you can pick up at toy stores and department stores, but if you're just starting out, we'd recommend beginning with the cheapest ones and saving your money for when you can buy metal-core or clay chips.