A stack of seven 25-unit tournament chips is worth 175. If the event withdraws that denomination and keeps 100 as its new minimum, the player cannot receive an exact replacement stack. The 75-unit remainder needs a procedure of its own.
A scheduled colour-up replaces smaller denominations with larger ones. Its chip race handles the remnants that cannot make a complete replacement chip. Under the Poker Tournament Directors Association's rules, the race has a one-chip award limit and a safeguard against eliminating a player through that race.
The governing text here is the 2026 Poker TDA longform, version 1.1 dated 21 September, checked on 4 November. These are tournament procedures. Our tournament-chip article explains why the numbers below are units of play rather than a cash balance.
First exchange the complete amounts
Take a fictional four-player inventory. The event is removing 25-unit chips, with 100 the smallest denomination remaining. For this example, the table holds exactly the chips listed below and no other chips. Four old chips make one replacement chip.
| Seat | Old 25-unit chips | Equal-value exchange; remainder |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7, worth 175 | One 100; three 25s remain |
| 2 | 5, worth 125 | One 100; one 25 remains |
| 3 | 8, worth 200 | Two 100s; no remainder |
| 4 | 4, worth 100 | One 100; no remainder |
There are 24 old chips, worth 600 altogether. The complete exchanges use 20 of them and issue five 100-unit chips, worth 500. The remaining four 25s total another 100. Only seats one and two have remnants in this invented inventory.
One further 100-unit chip can therefore replace that remainder exactly. This example leaves no fractional table total to round. The event must supply its card-dealing and rounding procedures; TDA rule 26 does not specify those details.
One race award does not mean one replacement chip
Rule 26-A starts the scheduled race at seat one and caps a player's award at one chip. The cap concerns the race. It does not prevent seat three from receiving two 100s in the equal-value exchange above.
If seat one receives the available race chip, its final holding is 200 and seat two's is 100. Seats three and four retain 200 and 100 respectively. The table still holds 600, now represented by six chips instead of 24.
If seat two receives that chip, the first two holdings become 100 and 200 instead. Seat one's three remnants do not entitle it to a guaranteed 75-unit payment or several race awards. The individual stack can change even when the table's total is unchanged. Neither conditional outcome here reports an actual draw or predicts a winner.
Losing the race cannot be the last elimination
Consider a separate fictional player whose entire stack is one 25-unit chip. With 100 the smallest denomination remaining, losing that chip in the race would otherwise leave the player with nothing.
Rule 26-A requires a player who loses their final chip or chips in the race to receive one chip of the lowest denomination still in play. In this example that is 100. It is a protection written for the race, not a statement that every 25-unit remnant must always be rounded up.
The earlier four-seat calculation has no such case: seats one and two each retain a 100 from the complete exchange. Do not add this separate protection example to that table's 600-unit total.
A forgotten chip has a different treatment
Rule 26-B requires chips to be fully visible and encourages players to watch the race. Rule 26-C then addresses removed denominations discovered afterwards: they are exchanged only at equal value. An amount below the smallest denomination still in play is removed without compensation.
With the same 25-to-100 assumptions, four forgotten 25s can exchange for 100. Three total only 75 and are removed. That later discovery is not a fresh claim to a race award.
An odd chip from a split pot is a separate matter again. It belongs to the distribution of a completed pot between eligible winners, rather than the withdrawal of a denomination.
TDA rules supplement house rules, and its introduction gives gaming-agency requirements priority in a conflict. PokerStars Live expressly adopts TDA rules alongside its published deviations; that adoption does not establish every tournament's policy. A count dispute needs the event's procedure and the player's inventory before the exchange, not just the number of discs left afterwards.
TDA rules used by permission of the Poker TDA, Copyright 2026, http://www.pokertda.com, All rights reserved.
