A CT History

Rakrul’s posting of his history with chips got me to thinking.

Others have posted photos of their collection in full as it ebbs and flows (djriley), but what was interesting to read in rakrul’s post was the process behind the acquisitions and purges.

So here’s my version of CT influenced chippage…

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Winter 2006:

I had been invited across the street to my neighbor’s house for some tourney poker.

We played with dice chips and Bee paper cards. I won that first night without knowing a thing about what I was doing in terms of positions, hand holdings, bet amounts etc.

Total luckfest.

I was hooked. But the chips bothered me. And the setup bothered me. The blinds weren’t going up in a timely manner. we didn’t have a timer, the guy who was supposed to check forgot to check half the time. We didn’t know what to do when the small blind got eliminated, yadda yadda. We were all total noobs.

I couldn’t do that again. So went online, found holdempokerchips, then CT. Oh boy. Joined CT Jan 11, 2006, after being referred by a link from holdempokerchips.com.

Saw the Pharaoh’s, but was attracted to obsolete casino Paulsons and TRK’s. Worked on endless chip colors and edgespot configurations using the old version of the Chipfactory. I primarily wanted my own set of small crowns.

I mostly lingered around the forums, but did not buy anything.

Screenshot-

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Summer 2006: The bottom hits.

I wanted a custom hostamped TRK set with edgespots. Started mocking that up. Started an email conversation with Dennis. His emailed response to my request was $1.25 a chip. WTF? ok, maybe not for me.
He then decides to retire in the summer. Well, hell. Now what?

Protege contest was kicked off on CT, spent even more time tinkering in both chipfactory and chipforge with colors and edgespot configurations.

Didn’t get very far in the inlay design contest portion of the Protege line. Still love the design. (it’s way too busy for a 1″ inlay though)

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Lola. August 7, 2006.

And then something happened. My dog died. She was our little baby, our first child, really. She was thirteen.

(Lola)

And for some reason it made me reassess. I stopped delaying wants over needs. I felt like I was deferring away things that made me happy. So I bought some chips. It certainly did nothing to smooth over the emptiness, but it served very well as a distraction.

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Mass Consumption #1: August 2006

Bought ‘the gimps’ (120 arc yellow starbursts) from dammitjim.

Bought 200 St Jo secondary $100’s from djriley.

We now had real chips.

12 T25’s (arc yellow)

22 T100’s ( the st jo’s)

T2500. And it was GOOD. Even felt smug for being able to run a tourney with only two denoms and 300 chips…

Bought 160 Grand Casino $1’s and 100 blue Grand Casino NCV’s that djriley hand picked for me out of Bullseye’s stash in AZ. Figured we needed a cash set to go with the tourneys.

Things should be good, right? RIGHT?

I now have sick, sick obsolete casino Paulsons, with edgespots that are killer!

pic

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Mini Purge #1

Well, no. Never played cash at all. Just another tourney after the first one.

Sold the blue NCV’s off at a loss, as the smoothness and roundness of the chips didn’t get me going at all. They went to jldecarlo, who funny enough would end up with djriley’s GC monster cash set as well.

Sold half Arc Yellow Starbursts. Kept the REALLY gimp ones.

Purged some of the singles I had been collecting off eBay.

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December 2006: Cherries

Got it into my head that Wilson may still have cherries in her house somewhere….

Found her info, tracked her down by snail mail, of all things.

Bam. My little boy helps me unpack.

400 cherries. Almost all in mocha. (Wilson’s term, it’s supposedly called Colon Orange by Paulson)

Bought some $2.50’s from Bullseye again with the hopes of using them for a cash game.

Kind of like a mini pink chip game, with the mocha cherries as quarters and the 2.50’s as big pinkies.

Never happened.

Still used the St Jo’s in the tourney, and the arc yellows were now T500. (They looked like a creamsicle falling into a black pot, awesome) I think I used a rack of the mochas for the T25.

It’ s all good.

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January 2007: Got restless.

Purged out of more of my Paulsons.

Sold the mocha cherries.

Sold a rack of the St Jo’s to aquaman.

Another rack of the blacks went to the Aussie contingency.

So all I had left from the early Paulson stage was a rack + of GC $1’s and some REALLY abused Arc Yellow Starbursts.

I was loaded with $.

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February, 2007. Lightning hits.

I see an auction on eBay for a sample set of Caesars Tahoe hotstamped spotted Paulsons.

I ask a quick question of the seller: do you have more than a few of the sample chips for sale?

Uh, yes.

Bam.

Instant Caesars Tahoe chipset.

100 reds, 100 charcoals, 60 oranges and 60 whites. He would not budge and sell me more charcoals as these came from ‘his’ tournament set.

I even remember how they came. It was a Saturday. Got home that morning to see a green USPS note saying the priority package would be available for pickup on Monday. EFF that!

Jumped in my car, drove around each block until I saw my postman’s truck. hopped out, signed for it, and wow. I’ve got a tourney set again.

Traded some of the Grand Casino $1’s to cpiaaq for a rack of Caesars tahoe gold.

So. 1 rack gold NCVs, 1 rack red NCV’s, 1 rack charcoal NCVs, 60 orange NCV’s. workable.

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Cash Set #2 (I think it’s #2…)

I start buying cash chips for a cash set again.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson the first time.

Bought 15 GC snappers from jldecarlo and 200 gold cherries from bounty.

Bought another rack of red Caesars Tahoe NCV’s from the ebay guy.

Started another innocent conversation with Larry Hollibaugh of renocasinochips.com about TRK’s.

260 solid off white solid roulette chips arrived. And some lime green Comstocks.

And then I realize I really like lime green.

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Cash Set #2 1/2

roolife offers me some Vineyard $2’s for a price that was below market rate. 200 lime green Vineyards appear.

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Summer 2007. Caesars Tahoe Add On

Don’t ask me why, but I ask the ebay guy if he has anything else for sale.

1 rack of mocha with yellow stripes arrives.

I then ask again.

150 orange with dark green chips and 150 white Caesars chips arrive. A rack of green Caesars Roulettes comes in the box as well since he initially said it would be 200 oranges and 100 whites. Freebies are awesome.

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July 2007. More Tournament Sets…

Harlequin then posts that Grand Casino Biloxi set that I wanted a long time ago.

1 week later, 1400 chips arrive.

Whoo, busy summer.

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September 2007: Purge #2. Time to sell again.

Sold some GC $1’s.

Sold 2 racks of the Plantation TRK roulettes because I thought I would never find anything else to go with them.

(Boy was that stupid.)

Sold the Vineyard $2’s. $3 a chip was not going to work as a home set for me.

Sold the gold cherries. Sold the GC $1 leftover rack. Sold eight GC $25’s Sold the green Caesars roulettes. All of them went to cpiaaq, god of Caesars Roulettes.

No cash game ever came about.

Sold two sets of Grand Casino Biloxis to others.(I’m thinking, what am I going to do with a 1400 chipset? We only play with nine guys, MAX)

I should be good, right?

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Cash Set #3

Bought an Outpost Casino cash set. Two racks of 50 centers, 165 $2’s, and 25 $20’s. Thank you cpiaaq, you’ve plunged me deeper into the hole.

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Cash Set #4

Bought Caesars Palace Las Vegas House mold $1’s, ’cause, hey, I need a second cash set, right? And those orange Caesars Tahoe chips look like quarters, don’t they? So, two racks of quarters, two racks of blue $1’s, I’m good to go for a cash game, right? Right?

I need $20’s now, don’t I?

They kind of look similar, in that the sprig of leaves looks slightly Roman…

By the way, the last time we all played poker was a year ago. I have multiple sets for tourneys and cash AND I DO NOT PLAY.

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2008 – ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE: tonypap lists a mother of a set.

500 TRK Kings Crown set, originally from Shiv. Whoo. Had cold sweat pooling down my armpits just thinking about letting the M2M go to someone else, which told me I should just get them, even though I had three tournament sets already.

140 greens, 200 blacks, 140 lavenders, 20 whites.

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2008 – Hell has lower levels: Medium Greek Key Mold Group Buy.

I am still knee deep in it. We got a lot of work to do.

In the meantime, I keep buying mini sets.

I bought back a rack of St Jo 100’s from aquaman, after he said a year ago that I woul dhave to pry the rack from his cold dead hands.

I have his hands. Look:

Can you see the stigmata on his hands?

Spook-y.

I bought beekeeper’s mini dimes and quarters TRK solids. The Plantation Roulettes were feeling unloved.

So, to sum up:

1. Do not buy cash sets. That is a never ending debacle of epic proportions.

2. Do not look at the classifieds during boring work meetings. Boredom leads to impulsive buys.

3. Transfer all $$ out of paypal the instant the money is deposited. Otherwise you might as well leave it on the street for some nice person to find and take home.

4. to paraphrase Mr. Gekko: ‘Churn is good’.

5. Mr. Dennis O’Neill, please come out of retirement. I have some hotstamp spotted mockups of chips I’d like to show you. And $2 a chip would be fine, Sir.

6. This will never end. I will redo this two year sum up biannually. Should be interesting…

ps: thank you djriley, cpiaaq, eBay, everyone who bought from and sold to me and CT, thank you for being there.