Calculate in Big Blinds with Chips2BB

Almost all online poker players at one time or another have converted their cash game or tournament chips into big blinds. Many have done so in order to get the current "M," which is a term invented by Dan Harrington. With Chips2BB, players can view the values of their stack and their opponents' stacks exclusively in big blinds, psychologically removing the element of real money from games and prompting a person to think more in terms of big blinds.

This concept is not new, but the implementation of this type of software on 888 Poker's virtual tables is. Currently in beta, Chips2BB is accepting testers in hopes that it will soon receive enough customer demand to be tried out on other sites as well. At the time this article was written, this software will only work at cash games tables on the 888 Poker Network, which includes sites like Pacific Poker and Lucky Ace Poker.

Due to the beta version's instability, the use of Chips2BB is limited to the $0.05/$0.10 Fixed Limit and No Limit games on those sites. Support for tournaments and other games will be added if there is customer interest in this MTT tool.

The advantages of using the Chips2BB converter are many. For one, you can easily play multiple stakes simultaneously without having to read off different stack sizes and then manually calculate them in big blinds according to the stakes.

For example, if you have one $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em table open with a stack of $1.00 and another table of $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em with a stack of $2.00, both of your stacks would be listed as 20.0, representing the number of big blinds you have at each table. The same is true for the stacks of your opponents.

Customizable font settings for small table sizes can be used in order to ensure you do not misread the relevant big blind stack sizes and bet amounts.

Push/Fold strategies can be applied with much less effort as well when you use Chips2BB. That's because the stack sizes you will be using to make your calculation will be shown in big blinds automatically. Because less time is spent on making these calculations, a player can immediately improve his long-term expectation and spend more time making actual poker-related decisions instead of computing numbers.

Another great benefit of a program like Chips2BB is that it can emotionally disconnect players from the amount of money or number of chips at risk in a particular pot. All a player is aware of is the number of big blinds, which can result in a much less emotional, less tilt-prone method of competing online.

There are several issues with the beta version that still need to be worked out according to the program's developer. For one, the icon is displayed incorrectly at times. The program may not function properly on some language settings and could crash during a session. That's why stakes are currently limited, but the player should still be aware of the risk of losing funds until the issues are resolved.

The program includes a 15-day fully featured version for trial purposes. After that, the user will need to pay a one-time fee of $59.95 via PayPal in order to continue using it. The license key will take between 12 and 48 hours to arrive to the customer's e-mail once payment has been received.

This program is compatible with Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or later), Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It will not work on Macs nor will it function on mobile devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry.