Colour-Up Calculator

How a Colour-Up and a Chip Race Work

At a colour-up, the smallest chips leave play at a break. The dealers change them for larger chips.

• PokerSjef finds the break where each small chip can colour up, never the first break.
• A chip can colour up at a break when every amount after it, in every game of the mix, is a multiple of the next larger chip.
• One chip at most colours up at a break: the smallest. The largest chip never colours up.

Change Whole Sets First

At the break, each player changes the small chips for larger chips, one whole set at a time. For example, four 25 chips become one 100 chip.

Some players have small chips that do not make a whole larger chip. These are the odd chips. The dealer changes them in a chip race.

The Chip Race

1. Each player puts their odd chips in front of them, where all the players can see them.
2. The dealer gives each player one card face up for each odd chip that the player has.
3. The player with the highest card gets the first new chip. The player with the next highest card gets the next chip, and so on.
4. Each player gets one new chip at most. Then the dealer removes the odd chips from play.
5. A player never busts out in a chip race. A player who loses their last chip in the race gets one chip of the smallest value still in play.

When two cards have the same rank, the suit decides: spades, then hearts, then diamonds, then clubs.

The value of all the odd chips at the table sets the number of new chips in the race. Many clubs round it up to whole larger chips.

An Example

The 25 chips colour up into 100 chips. After the change, Anna has two odd 25 chips, and Bo and Cai have one each. Together they make 100, so the dealer races one 100 chip.

Anna gets two cards, and Bo and Cai get one card each. Bo has the highest card, so Bo gets the 100 chip.