Gene, I am not a poker player other than a few games at the Florida Indian casinos with a $10 pot limit. When I did enter a tournament is was only to "see" what the chips looked like. I recall buying in for $40 & was given a certain number of NCV chips that had 5, 25 & 100 on them. I knew what I was going to do in the tournament & had a fair idea what I was going to do with the chips. My original question was to see if these NCV chips were worth walking with, if the buy in was not a large sum of money. If you walked with the chips, would they have a greater trade value or purchase price than the grand prize in the tournament? If you were loosing badly, just get up & leave with the chips you may have left. I hope I am making myself clear. As you know I tend to obfuscate issues.<g>