Going to assume people who buys these are really rich dudes who have big poker games with other really rich dudes.
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As dumb as the dream was, since I was younger than 10 I wanted "real" casino chips. I also wanted to own a Monopoly set (it exists) that has solid gold tokens and cost more than $1 million in the 80s. I ended up with the set of real casino chips.
When I was 6 my best friend and I would divide up a set of 100 Bicycle plastic interlocking poker chips, the kind you can buy at the grocery store, and play heads-up 5 card draw.
At 9 I bought my first set of plastic playing cards, KEM Arrows.
When I was 14 I bought my first poker book, "Winning poker for the serious player."
When I was 17 I tried to find out if they'd let a 17 year old watch people play poker in Wendover... they don't.
When I was 19 I rented a room in a hotel and tried to organize a poker game. I had to really search to find a hotel that would rent a room to a 19 year old. It was in Provo. When I got to the hotel they wouldn't let me rent the room because I was checking in with my girlfriend (wife now) and they don't rent rooms to unmarried couples. Poker game cancelled.
When I was 23 I joined the U.S. Navy. On my first deployment, in 2003, I suggested we play poker. My LPO (Leading Petty Officer) grew up in Reno in an LDS family who dealt table games in the casinos. He was against gambling and shut it down.
On my second deployment I was the work center supervisor and that LPO had been transferred. I started hosting poker games 6 nights a week while underway. We started a league and played 82 regular season league games during our deployment ($10 buy-in, $9 to the prize pool, $1 to the championship game prize pool). I finished first in the league and second in the final game. The total prize pool for the championship game was over 1000.
When I left the Navy I bought the chips I'm selling now.
I built two poker tables.
I joined the Salt Lake City Poker Meetup Group.
I was in the first poker league that was part of the SLCPMG, I finished 4th in the regular season and took 4th in the championship game.
I hosted games as part of the SLCPMG. Lot's of really good players in that group. Felt like I was paying twice, offering a top-notch setting, paying my buy-in and getting beat constantly.
I started hosting games for jazzfanz.com posters. Awesome games. Awesome people. I won my fair share of games.
I became unemployed for an extended period of time. Couldn't really play or host very often.
I got employed. Tried to pick things back up, but there was much less enthusiasm. Poker was going out of style again, just like it was through most of the 90s. Had to really scramble and scrape to get a full game. Nobody wanted to play for anything more than pocket change. They wanted the high roller experience for $20. I got bored. I got tired of subsidizing a top-tier poker experience for people who complained about it costing more than $20.
My boss expressed his interest in hosting a poker league. I thought he meant he would be a 50/50 partner in organizing the league. He wasn't. I did 90% of the work. He did not have the commitment to running a quality league I expected. On our final game, because he had other plans, he changed the blind schedule without saying anything to any of us about it. I laid a pretty satisfying bluff on him to take most of his chips and then nailed him the next hand with solid cards and knocked him out. I tried to organize another poker league without him but he thought he was still a co-host and there was no way I was going to put my reputation into another league he was part of, so I bowed out. League didn't happen.
Life goes on. I was no longer interested in hosting poker games.
Selling my chips next weekend.
Might get a custom set of ASMs and host the occasional cash game. Done with poker tournaments. Done with tiny stakes. If I can't host a grown-up level game then I don't want to host. Most people who want the $20 buy-in wouldn't turn their car around if a $20 bill flew out their window, yet they can't put $40 on a game they claim to want to play. I'm done with that. Love many of those people. But they can host a poker game for $20 if that's what they want. I won't play in it because they'll be playing on a surface that doesn't work, with chips that won't stack 10 high with out falling over, with paper cards that have wear that can be used to tell what cards are what from the back-side. But if they want a $20 game they should have fun with their $20 game.
I'll enjoy my $5000 I get from selling my chips and other gear. I could host games every week for the next 5 years and I wouldn't win $5000. Not even if I won every game. Not even if I didn't count the cost of hosting.
Easy decision.
