New Tournament Chips, Tables and Chairs

When I first started hosting poker tournaments, I didn’t have a great job. I had young kids to take care of, a car lease that I was scrambling to pay for each month and an astronomical rent payment. I barely even had money to play poker, but had one table that fit in my apartment living room and a set of 2,000 9g Super Diamond tournament chips that did not have denominations printed on them. They did the trick, but after years of constantly reminding people which color represented what, I finally purchased a legitimate tournament set - 1,200 Claysmith 13.5g Desert Heat chips (pictured) with palm trees printed in the center.

Claysmith 13.5g Desert Heat Tournament Chips

I bought them via ThePokerStore.com and I couldn’t be happier with their service. When I emailed them with questions, they responded almost instantly. When I finally bought the tournament set, they arrived on my doorstep within 2 days. What a ridiculously fast turnaround!

That same day, I drove out to Terry’s house in Seville, OH to pick up the Playboy table (pictured in background below) he agreed to sell me along with Data's hand-me-down CPMG table (pictured in front).

Now that Dana and I have our own house, we have more than enough room in our basement to fit all three tables. The last item on the shopping list was folding chairs. An old colleague of mine works for W.B. Mason and sold me 6 padded and 4 non-padded chairs that were leftover in his warehouse. I'm pretty sure I have enough chairs in the house for 27 player tournaments. The new chip set, tables and chairs were a $400 investment, but it's been one that I've been wanting to make for a long time.

Now I'm anxious to host a game...