What differentiates trustworthy poker chip retailers from the rest is the “sample” set that most of them sell which is smaller then a regular set and serves as example, to convince you of the quality. When getting sample chips, you need to test them to see how resistant they are.

Inlay Labels

Usually custom chips have a stick on or printed label. It is important that the label does not get pulled off by a nervous fingernail during a game. So what you can do is try to peel the label off either with the fingernail or with a knife.

If it is of high quality, the label won’t scratch off. Also do the water test. Dip the chip in water and leave out for the night. This way you can see how the material behaves in wet conditions, which happen a lot during a poker game when drinks are involved. You should also check whether the labels are centered on the chip and if the edge spots are lined up with the design of the label. Also see if the label gets easily marked or scratched.

Hot Stamped Chips

This kind of poker chips have a gold text stamped. The text represents either branding or values. It is important that it doesn’t rub off or the golden paint doesn’t transfer to another chip when they rub together. Use a knife or your fingernail to try to scratch the text off.

Edges

Depending on the finish of the poker chip, they can have square edges which can be quite sharp or, quite the contrary, soft edges. The Modern Clay chips have an intended “worn in” look and feeling by having the edges pre-rounded. You can smash the chips against each other with their edges, so you can see if there are dents or marks left on the edges. Denting and marking indicate a quality clay chip, but the marks shouldn’t be too intense or the chip will fast get mutilated. “All in” clay chips are too soft, for instance, so they get quickly damaged.

Stacking / Face Texture

The stacking ability for poker chips is hard to tell from just a few of a certain type. It is usually known that clay chips are better at stacking than the composite or plastic chips, which are a lot cheaper. The plastic ones tend to slip very easy. It is the case of the cheap Chinese chips. The Nevada Jack clay composite chips, on the other hand, can be stacked even a hundred of them and still have no problem.

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The agreement specifies that they will play No-Limit Hold`em, four table $50/$100. Both Blom and Negreanu will have at their disposal $150,000 to use during this challenge.

In order to prepare for this match, Negreanu has been four-tabling with $5/$10 against other good players over at PokerStars. From the practice sessions he’s up $13,000 right now.

The last showdown match of Isildur1 was done against DodgyFish72, where he won by only a $10 advance.

The schedule of SCOOP 2011 was released yesterday and it will have between 6 and 9 poker tournaments daily. The end of the series will be on May 22, when there will be 3 main events.

The buy-in event of $109 will come with a $1 million guarantee. The middle one with a buy-in of $1050 will have a guarantee of $3 million. Finally, the high main event which has a buy-in of $10,300, will come with a $5 million guarantee.

The NBC Heads-Up Championship began on Friday in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace and there were 64 players in total at the beginning. One of the surprises of the first rounds was Phil Ivey, which was defeated by Daniel Cates (Jungleman12).

Thanks to this win, Seidel is now the top dog on the All Time Money List, with a total of $14,697,297. Previously, Daniel Negreanu was at the top of that list.

Deborah Masson became the first female to win a GUKPT main event. She had the luck to defeated the 33 strong field in the £300 No Limit event. She won £3,670. Other winners were: Alisha Skene (£200 NL Hold’em Freezeout), David Gooch (£150 NL Hold’em Freezeout) and Richard Scott (£100 NL Hold’em Bounty Freezeout).

Despite her good games and a reputation for Internet’s best coaches, Selbst decided she wanted a life away from poker and decided to live a more “intellectual” life. But now she is making a comeback. Now Selbst is ninth on the EPT list. We can watch her in the summer at WSOP for two weeks.

Since this was a tournament with shootout bounties, every single finalist went home with a profit. Each bounty was $5,000 and the winner of a table got $60,000 (or $50,000 if it was a five hand table). Below you can see the final table and their final pay out, including the bounties:

1st: Jason Mercier — $450,000 (with 7 bounties)
2nd: Sam Stein — $75,000 (with 3 bounties)
3rd: Faraz Jaka — $80,000 (with 4 bounties)
4th: Matt Glantz — $70,000 (with 2 bounties)
5th: Shawn Buchanan — $80,000 (with 4 bounties)
6th: Luis Vazquez — $70,000 (with 4 bounties)