Home tourney: How to get chip counts mid-tourney?

[SillyPuppy]

Hi, everyone!

I run a home game about once a month, and it's usually a two-table affair, with about 16-20 players total, myself included. Very occasionally, it grows to up to 25 players. TD has helped me manage the whole thing for about a year now. Our tournament usually starts around 6PM on a Friday night, and runs until around 10PM, give or take half an hour. Before we start the tournament, we order pizzas for delivery, and there are breaks scheduled after every four (15-minute-long) blind levels (chip-up occurs on a couple of them along the way, too). When pizza arrives (usually before the first break), the clock is stopped and everyone gets up to eat. What I'd like to do is collect chip counts then, and at the breaks, mostly because it'd be a kind of fun statistic for the players to have - they can see how they're doing, who's doing well and who's not, and it would make for fun conversation.

My wife is a dedicated dealer at one table, so she helps me with chip-ups and other administrative tasks, and I know at least a couple of the players wouldn't mind helping me get everyone counted. Because it's a low stakes game among known people, I don't have to worry about anyone doing anything unethical with other people's chips, but I would understand if someone didn't want another player handling their chipstack.

So my questions are these: How would you go about getting quick, accurate chip counts for the tournament - would you ask each player to count their own stack? Should only the TD and non-players (dealer, for example) be allowed to do the counts? Is this a silly idea to begin with?

I welcome any opinions, either way, on this matter, and look forward to hearing different viewpoints.

Thanks, everyone!
Orrie

[badbeat]

I don't see why you should have a problem, they trust you to chip up, so why would a chip count be a problem. If they want to count their own chips, let them, it saves you the trouble and it's for their own benefit in the end. As long as you explain what you want to do, before you start, you will probably find people will be happy to help you. If you make up some chip count sheets and hand them out to each table, people only have to count their own chips and write the count on the sheet. If the counts are slightly out, it won't matter too much anyway.

[Corey Cooper]

Everyone has to give their chip count in order to get their pizza. 

[Phaze]

I agree with badbeat, but I can see the allure of keeping track of chips, especially during big games, so I got a suggestion that might help. Record the game with a camcorder and then you can track the movement of chips there. That will free up the players to concentrate on their game paying attention to thier opponents rather than how many chips they have hand to hand.

[SillyPuppy]

Oh, I doubt the players would like having cameras around very much, and I wouldn't have time to analyze chip movement mid-game anyways (at least until I bust out, which, yes, can be early sometimes!).

Tonight, I asked for chips counts before pizza, and within 4 minutes, I had everyone's (14 players came to play, 12 made the pizza break). Thanks for the help, folks!

The only bad news of the night is that my TD 2.5.3 upgrade from the last couple days didn't work so well - I loaded my tournament file, started the clock, and the Main Screen just seemed to freeze. Every few minutes, it would update the clock (it seemed to keep time correctly, but the screens didn't update), but it didn't really work well tonight. I'd like to go back a few revisions, or maybe uninstall TD and re-install it or something, but at very least, I'll have to try a new tournament and see if I can get that main page working right. I've got about a month to get it all fixed.

And, if anyone cares, I finished second... again... I was agead of my heads-up opponent going into a river, but he caught his a straight on a straight and flush draw, and finished me off a few hands later.

Good night, and thanks again!
Orrie

[Corey Cooper]

Try re-installing Windows Script.  This clears up a lot of issues.  If that doesn't help, I would re-install Internet Explorer.  (Might also look into one types of plug-ins you have installed in IE - toolbars, etc.)

Windows Script for Windows XP:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=47809025-d896-482e-a0d6-524e7e844d81&DisplayLang=en

Windows Script for Windows 2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C03D3E49-B40E-4CA1-A0C7-CC135EC4D2BE&displaylang=en

Windows Script for Windows Server 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=887fce82-e3f5-4289-a5e3-6cbb818623aa&DisplayLang=en


IE 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9ae91ebe-3385-447c-8a30-081805b2f90b&DisplayLang=en

IE 6:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1e1550cb-5e5d-48f5-b02b-20b602228de6&DisplayLang=en

[SillyPuppy]

Thank you, Corey! As always, support, the app itself, is top-notch. I'll let you know if I still have problems.

Edit: Reinstalling Windows Scripting fixed it! You're da man!

Thanks again,
Orrie