Are you a poker chip supplier who would like your chips reviewed on this site? email me.
This site is here to be the ultimate resource for the home poker chip buyer.
Injection Molded chips:
So you want nice chips but haven't won your local state
lotto. No worries. There are plenty of great injection molded chips
out there for a reasonable cost. And the best news is that they are getting
better each day.
Rating System:
Everything is a 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.
FEEL is the overall feel of the chip when you handle it, shuffle it,
splash it, etc etc.....
QUALITY is how well the chip has been manufactured as well as my
guess on how well it will hold up in the long run. Off center graphics
and bleeding colors take points away from QUALITY.
Finally, LOOKS is how attractive the chip design itself is to
my own eyes. This one is the most subjective. Here is where the
pictures help you make your own decision.
These chips are rated against each other, on
their own scale of 1-10. These chips are not rated against the
ultra high-end chips.
The reviews: (in order, by supplier, alphabetically)
All-In Chips.com: Clay
Composite Chips
Good news first. The All-In chips
are a non-metal insert, injection molded chip that have a pretty good
appearance/design. Personally, I like the colors a lot. Looks
wise, you should be happy to show them off to your friends. (Even
though the self promotion thing on every chip is a bit overboard). The
"graphics" on the chips are crisp with no bleeding. They feel pretty
good as well, although there is a rubbery feeling about them that prevents
you from going 'wow'. Sound wise is OK...but you won't mistake these
for a real casino chip. More dull sounding. Where these chips fail
completely is in their durability. First, I can break these chips in
half with my bare hands. Something that I have tried and cannot
accomplish on ANY other chip I've reviewed. Second, these chips are
easily damaged both by fingernails and by rubbing against each other.
The damaged half a chip you see in the second picture was made that way just
with my thumbnail. Again, damage I have not been able to recreate in
any other chip I've reviewed.
WEIGHT: 10.3 - 10.5 grams.
FEEL: 6
QUALITY: 3 (7 on manufacturing and 1 on durability)
LOOKS:
7.5
BuyPokerChips.com: Neophyte Chips
Coming out as a high-end injection molded chip, the
Neophytes don't disappoint. Weighing in at roughly 12.5 grams and displaying
very bold colors, the Neophytes give a great first impression. Good,
although a bit redundant color-wise, edge spots. Nice logo in the chip
center...perfectly placed on every chip I looked at. Good sounding
chip as well. So what's wrong with these? Really, not much
unless to are a chip masochist. If you try pretty hard, you can cause slight
damage to these chips with your fingernails. Maybe a bit worse than
that is the center logo can be damaged as well, (look closely at the $100 in
the photo). Now, bare in mind that you have to *work at it* to damage these
chips...just know it can be done. In the end, a good chip that
deserves serious consideration for the chip shopper.
Note: These chips are not
available until mid November, 2004.
WEIGHT: 12.5 grams.
FEEL: 8.5
QUALITY: 8.5
LOOKS: 8.5
neophytes on the left
New:
Excalibur Electronics: World Series
of Poker
A real treat for all you WSOP fans, these chips are good
stuff. While I'm not normally a big fan of the standard
'red/blue/green/black' colors, the WSOP chips are easy on the eyes.
Great, straightforward, design that should appeal to lots of folks, not just
rapid WSOP junkies. Feel wise, the first thing that hits you are the
WEIGHT of these chips. Now, keep in mind these are pre-production
chips, but these "11.5" gram chips come in at a bicep-enlarging 14.3 - 14.4
grams a pop. The second heaviest chips reviewed on this site except
for the Tangiers Brass all metals. I'll adjust this review if the
production chips come in at a different weight. The chips' surface is
a nice matt texture, with no hint of gloss of any kind. The material
is similar to BuyPokerchips.com's Neophytes, but slightly harder. I could
not scratch or rub off the logo AT ALL, and my thumbnail assaults left
virtually no damage. (I was really reefin' on them.) Probably the only
real downside to the chip is that they are slightly slick...so extremely
large stacks might get a bit iffy. As you might have guessed, these chips
have a metal insert to add heft. Sound is good. You won't mistake
these for a Paulson, but they don't have any of the 'ringing' found in
cheap, plastic, low-end chips. As a final note, while I had these
chips laying out on my desk at the office during the day, everyone that took
a look at them immediately said 'I like these chips'.
*** Available in February of 2005. ***
WEIGHT: 14.3 - 14.4 grams.
FEEL: 8.5
QUALITY: 9
LOOKS: 9.5
Plastic Poker
Chips: Yuck!
Plastic poker chips are available all
over the 'net and especially on Ebay. If you play poker even just a
few times a year, and you're looking into getting a poker chip set, do
yourself a HUGE favor and don't buy these. The plastic chips are often
advertised a 'clay' which is a load of crap. If they are priced
cheap...they are cheap. The chips are a regular, hard, plastic around
a metal slug to help them weigh more. The surfaces are generally slick
and they make a really horrible ringing sound when handled. For a bit
more money, you can buy a clay composite chip set that will really be
something enjoyable to use.
Poker'NStuff is one of the companies that
supplies a good variety of clay composite chips.
WEIGHT: 8 - 13 grams.
FEEL: 1
QUALITY: 4 - 9
LOOKS: 5 - 8
Poker'nStuff: Pro Clay Composite
Poker'nStuff is another company that has a variety of chips
to select from. They don't have any traditional clay chips, but they
do have a variety of clay composite chips that have a nice feel. I'm
not going to describe them individually, because they pretty much all feel
and handle the same. The '9 gram pro clay' chips (4 chips on the left
in the top picture) that they describe weigh in at around 7.7 - 8.1grams on
my scale. These look good, and feel pretty good. The composite
has a soft feeling, matt finish, so the chips stack easy. The edge
spots are nice. Really the only major thing detracting from these
chips is their very light weight. Most of them have a glossy sticker with a
graphic on them. The sticker is on there pretty good. You
shouldn't have to worry about them coming off unless your obnoxious, drunk,
poker friend pulls out his pocket knife and goes to town. I did notice
a few color blemishes on my samples, which affected my quality rating.
WEIGHT: 7.7 - 8.1 grams.
FEEL: 6
QUALITY: 6
LOOKS: 8.5
The other chips on the picture are their
heavier 13 gram composites. What these give up in cool colors and
graphics to the 9 grammers, they more than make up for in 'feel'. The
entire chip has a semi-soft feel and they make a pleasant sounding 'thud'
when handled. And the extra weight makes a huge difference. (Note: The
construction on these guys is exactly like the 'cheap' plastic chips.
They have a metal slug in them to help weigh them down. However, the
surrounding clay-composite material has a much better feel than their crappy
plastic cousins). A pretty good
chip, which suddenly becomes a very good chip when you look at their cost.
The only major detractor to the chips were that the lighter chips were
easily marked up my scratching a darker colored chip on them.
WEIGHT: 12.8-13.1 grams.
FEEL: 8
QUALITY: 7
LOOKS: 4
Target: Michael Graves Poker Set
For the poker player on a budget, I
cannot think of a better bang-for-your buck than the poker chip set
available at any local Target store as well as online. For $40, you
get 240 clay composite chips in 4 cool, low-key colors. The chip's
texture is great, and really give a 'soft' feel in your hand. They
sound great when you play with them. They only problems are they are
slightly THINNER than a 'real' poker chip, and thus, feel less substantial in
your hand. However, these chips just clobber all
the cheap plastic poker chip sets you see on E-Bay. Aside from
their thin-ness and lighter weight, the feel is really good. I own 2
sets and use them for Roulette. HIGHLY recommended for those players
with a limited budget. Really a great buy.
WEIGHT: 7.0 - 7.2 grams.
FEEL: 7
QUALITY: 9
LOOKS: 8
The Poker Chip Co. Ltd:
Clay Composites
Just when you thought you'd seen
everything. An injection molded chip that is a serious threat to the ceramic
and compression molded buyers out there. Everyone at my office that laid
their hands on these chips immediately fell for them. These are *VERY*
nice chips. If you like their looks, then I highly recommend you order
a sample to check out. There is no metal insert in these, as you can
see in the picture. Great quality as well. These chips have raised the
bar.
WEIGHT: 10.8 - 10.9 grams.
FEEL: 9.5
QUALITY: 10+
LOOKS: 8
We Do It All Vegas.com: Clay
Composite and Plastic
WeDoItAll sent me a hefty sampling of
both their plastic and clay-composite chips. Both types turned out
high on the quality meter. Overall I was really pleased with the chips
they sent my way. I've included pictures of both types of chips, but
I'll concentrate on the clay-composite for the review.
Clay-Composite: We Do It All Vegas.com's clay-composites
immediately gave a great first impression. (There is one review here,
because all the chips have exactly the same construction. The only
difference is their appearance.) They all have a 'inlaid' sticker in the
center that rests below the chip's edge...so it's not so likely that the
sticker will get caught on anything. As always, I pried away at the
sticker with first fingernails and then a knife. Long story short is
that they are really 'stuck' on and you should not have to worry about anything
peeling off barring a VERY VERY obnoxious poker friend. I particularly
liked the rough, matt texture on most of the stickers. It gave the
chip a similar feel to a ChipCo style chip. The icing on the cake was
the nice feel and sound made when handling. Bottom line is that these
are very good chips, and if you like the looks, one shouldn't hesitate with
purchasing them.
WEIGHT: 9.6 - 9.9 grams.
FEEL: 8.5
QUALITY: 9
LOOKS: 9
'Casino' Clay-Composite: This is the solid green chip with black
edge spots seen in the top two pictures. This
isn't a bad chip on any scale, but when compared to the 'stickered' chips
above, it's a step down. Feel is good, as is the sound made when handling.
Just visually not as striking as We Do It All Vegas's 'stickered' chips.
WEIGHT: 12.9 grams.
FEEL: 7.5
QUALITY: 8
LOOKS: 7
10 gram Dice faux clay chips:
Wow. This is the first of the low-cost 'next
generation' chips that I've received. Looks wise, these won't knock
your socks off. However, the colors are nice and subdued.
Obviously, no edge spots. Where these chips shine is when you pick
them up. The chips have a nice, 'chalky' clay feel to them...very similar to
a top end clay chip. They handle well and sound JUST LIKE real clay chips.
No joke. In fact these chips sound closer to my real Vegas chips than
many of the high-end clay's I've got. Throw in their amazing low cost,
and wow, killer chips. Also, for the most part, the edges on the chips
are *slightly* rounded. On the minus side, there is a very visible injection
spot that might bug some. These chips are solid composite material.
There is no metal insert. If this is the future of low-cost home-use
poker chips, then the future looks really bright.
WEIGHT: 9.2 - 9.3 grams.
FEEL: 9.5
QUALITY: 8.5
LOOKS: 8
clay composites
clay composites
plastic
plastic
10 gram
Dice
World Poker Tour
A PokerchipReviews.com reader sent me a
few chips from a damaged Sam's Club WPC tour set. First impression
with these chips was not positive, mostly because only fair job at quality
control with the injection molding process was done. Quite a bit of bleeding
is noticable. However, that said, the more I handled these chips, the
more they grew on me. The center logo graphic is crisp and impossible
to damage unless you use a sharp instrument. The outside colored part
can be scratched with a fingernail, if you *really* try....but it takes
quite of bit of effort. These chips have a metal insert in them, but
the material used in the chip does a good job of preventing the 'metalic
ringing' sound from raising it's ugly head. It's still there if you
listen for it...but it's not anywhere close to a regular 'plastic' chip's
ringing. The finish is a nice, matt, textured surface. They are
a little slick, but not to bad. All in all, not a bad chip, especially
considering the price range.
WEIGHT: 12.0 - 12.2 grams.
FEEL: 7.5
QUALITY: 8
LOOKS: 7.5
Questions, comments
or want to advertise on pokerchipreviews.com?
Please
email me. info@pokerchipreviews.com
Thanks for visiting.
Friends
don't let friends play with crappy chips!
All reviews are the opinions of John Tucker unless
otherwise stated, and can be changed at any time. Content
cannot be used without express written consent of John Tucker.
Copyright John
Tucker 2004. All rights reserved.