A poker chip distribution calculator answers the question every home game starts with: how many chips of each colour does each player get? The order matters. Decide the starting stack in big blinds first, then choose the denominations, then work out the counts. Do it the other way round and you end up with stacks that are too short, too tall, or made of so many small chips that every pot takes a minute to count. The page also has a free blind calculator that builds a tournament blind schedule for the same set-up.
Start with the stack in big blinds
A stack is measured in big blinds, not chips. In a cash-style home game, 50 to 100 big blinds per player gives everyone room to play a full hand without being all in before the flop. In a tournament-style evening, 100 to 150 big blinds at the start leaves time for the blinds to rise before anyone is forced to gamble.
So if the blinds are 50 and 100 and you want 100 big blinds, each player needs 10,000 in chips. If the blinds are 1 and 2 and you want the same depth, each player needs 200. The chip values themselves are arbitrary. What matters is the ratio of the stack to the big blind.
Choose four denominations
Most sets have 300 or 500 chips in four or five colours, usually white, red, green or blue, and black. Four denominations are enough. A common tournament ladder is 25, 100, 500 and 1,000. A common cash ladder is 1, 5, 25 and 100. Each step is four or five times the one below, which keeps change-making simple.
The smallest chip should be the small blind, or the smallest bet you want to allow. If the blinds are 50 and 100, a 25 chip is useful for later levels such as 75 and 150, but a 5 chip would be a nuisance. Too many small chips slow the game: players stack them, count them, and push towers of them into the pot for a bet that one bigger chip would cover.
Worked set-ups
Each row below uses a 300 or 500 chip set with an equal number of chips in each colour, which is how most sets are sold. Counts are per player, and the total used must not exceed the supply of each colour (75 per colour in a 300 set, 125 in a 500 set).
| Game | Players | Set | Denominations | Per player (counts) | Stack | Chips used per colour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tournament, blinds 50/100 | 6 | 300 | 25 / 100 / 500 / 1,000 | 8 / 8 / 2 / 8 (26 chips) | 10,000 | 48 / 48 / 12 / 48 |
| Tournament, blinds 25/50 | 8 | 500 | 25 / 100 / 500 / 1,000 | 8 / 8 / 2 / 3 (21 chips) | 5,000 | 64 / 64 / 16 / 24 |
| Cash, blinds 1/2 | 6 | 300 | 1 / 5 / 25 / 100 | 10 / 8 / 2 / 1 (21 chips) | 200 | 60 / 48 / 12 / 6 |
Check the arithmetic on the first row: 8 × 25 = 200, 8 × 100 = 800, 2 × 500 = 1,000 and 8 × 1,000 = 8,000, which is 10,000 in 26 chips. Six players use 48 of each of the three busy colours and 12 greens, all comfortably inside a 300 set. A short stack of about 20 to 30 chips is easy to count and leaves plenty of chips in the box for colouring up later.
Chip distribution calculator
Split a chip set between players
Counts are per player. The calculator keeps the smallest chips to a practical number and warns if the set does not have enough chips.
Setting blind levels for a tournament evening
Start the big blind at about 1 percent of the starting stack, so 100 big blinds deep. Raise the blinds every 15 to 20 minutes, with each level about 1.4 times the last on average. The steps are not all the same size, because round numbers are easier to read at the table. With 10,000 stacks a workable schedule is 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 600/1,200, 800/1,600 and 1,000/2,000. Ten levels of 20 minutes is 3 hours 20 minutes of scheduled play, which suits a six to eight player evening. Once the 25 chips are no longer needed, swap them for larger chips so stacks stay easy to read. The blind calculator below builds this same schedule, and others, from your own set-up.
Free poker blind calculator
This free poker blind calculator turns your game set-up into a tournament blind schedule, sometimes called a blind structure: the small and big blind for each level, how long each level lasts and when it starts. Enter your details below, or copy the players, starting stack and smallest chip across from the chip calculator above, then copy or print the result for the table.
Build a tournament blind schedule
Whole numbers only. The big blind must be twice the small blind, and the blinds and starting stack must be multiples of the smallest chip. The number of players does not change the blinds; it gives the chips-in-play total.
- Starting stack depth
- 100 big blinds
- Chips in play
- 60,000
- Levels and breaks
- 10 levels, no breaks
- Scheduled time
- 3 h 20 min
| Level | Small blind | Big blind | Duration | Elapsed at start (h:mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 | 100 | 20 min | 0:00 |
| 2 | 75 | 150 | 20 min | 0:20 |
| 3 | 100 | 200 | 20 min | 0:40 |
| 4 | 150 | 300 | 20 min | 1:00 |
| 5 | 200 | 400 | 20 min | 1:20 |
| 6 | 300 | 600 | 20 min | 1:40 |
| 7 | 400 | 800 | 20 min | 2:00 |
| 8 | 600 | 1,200 | 20 min | 2:20 |
| 9 | 800 | 1,600 | 20 min | 2:40 |
| 10 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 20 min | 3:00 |
Freezeout, no antes. 6 players, 10,000 starting stack, opening blinds 50/100, smallest chip 25, 20 minute levels, standard progression, no breaks.
Schedules assume a freezeout without antes. They are suggestions, not official or universally fair tournament structures. Scheduled time is the time needed to play every level and break listed, not a prediction of when the game will finish.
How the blind schedule is calculated
The calculator multiplies your opening small blind by a fixed ladder of multipliers, one per level. Each small blind is rounded to the nearest multiple of your smallest chip, and the big blind is always exactly twice the small blind. Your opening blinds are used as entered, so they must follow the same rule: the big blind must be twice the small blind (50 and 100, or 25 and 50), and both must be multiples of the smallest chip. The starting stack must be a multiple of the smallest chip as well, so that it can be made up in chips.
| Progression | Average rise per level | Multipliers, levels 1 to 10 |
|---|---|---|
| Slow | About 1.26 times (doubles every 3 levels) | 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 8 |
| Standard | About 1.39 times (10 times every 7 levels) | 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 |
| Fast | About 1.78 times (10 times every 4 levels) | 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 10 / 20 / 30 / 50 / 100 / 200 |
These ladders are suggestions for a home game, not official tournament structures. The starting stack depth is the starting stack divided by the opening big blind, so 10,000 chips against a 100 big blind is 100 big blinds.
Rounding can never repeat a level or move one backwards. If a rounded small blind would not be higher than the one before, that level is raised by one smallest chip instead, so both blinds rise at every level. A coarse smallest chip makes the early raises uneven, because the blinds can only move in whole chips. With opening blinds of 50/100 and a smallest chip of 50, the standard preset gives 50/100, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 250/500 and 300/600 for the first six levels, where the ladder alone would suggest 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400 and 300/600. The calculator tells you when rounding has distorted the schedule this way, and a smaller chip gives a smoother one.
Scheduled time is not finishing time
The scheduled time adds up every level and any breaks you choose, with no break after the final level. It is not a forecast. A tournament can end before the last level if players are knocked out quickly, or run on past it if you need more levels, so treat the figure as a planning aid. Breaks are placed after every set number of levels and are counted in the scheduled time. The schedule assumes a freezeout, where each player buys in once and is out when they lose their chips. It does not model antes, rebuys or add-ons. Prize money is covered separately in the next section.
Dividing the prize pool
Chips are only the scoring system. If your game has a prize pool, the tournament payout calculator splits it between finishing positions, separately from the chip counts above.
Sets with fewer colours
With three colours, drop the largest denomination and raise the starting stack in the two middle ones, or shorten the stack to 75 big blinds. With two colours, treat the game as a cash-style session with a fixed buy-in, give each player a small number of the large chip and a practical number of the small one, and keep the blinds fixed. Mixed sets can be rescued by agreeing values at the start and writing them on a card by the dealer.
Agree the values before the first hand and keep the card in view. Most chip disputes come from a value that was never written down.
The same structure at the training table
Hold'em Sim uses the first row above: six players, 10,000 play chips each and blinds of 50 and 100, which is a 100 big blind stack. If you want to practise the decisions before your home game, the training table deals the same structure with a coach on every hand, and the hand rankings guide is the one to print for the table.