Understand the Chip Stacks in Poker

Video Transcript

"Having a nice, neat and tidy chip stack at the table is very good poker etiquette. It allows a couple of things. It allows the other players to look at your chips and get a rough estimate at how many chips you have in front of you. Especially when you have your high denomination chips sitting out in front. If you look at player in seat one, he's got his chips there in different heights. You can't get a real good idea of how many chips he has, so you would have to ask him. Not only that, but he has his high denomination chips set in the back, so you can't see them at all. You need to have your hight denomination chips out front, so that the other players can see them. Now, if you'll look at seat two, yeah he's got some neat chip stacks there, about the same height, but he's taking up too much room at the table. You want to be tidy with the space, you want to manage the space at the table that you have, so that you are not crowding up the other players at the table. Another instance of a bad chip stack is seat three here. He's got what is called a dirty stack. He has his chips rippled together, and the one's and the five's are all mingled together, so again, I can't look at his chip stack and get a good estimate of how much money he has sitting in front of him in case I want to raise him All In. And the worst chip stack of all, seat four over here just has his chips in a big pile. He doesn't know how much he has sitting in front of him, and of course I can't tell either. When he goes to make a bet he has to look around to find his chips, and look around count some more and then put them out into the pot. Again, this takes away from the game. You want to keep the game rolling as smoothly as possible, so keep you chips in a nice, neat stack in front of you and the game will go really smooth. "