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The default buy-in for the site is about $10, which is perfectly reasonable for a game between friends. I've almost never played a game where the pot exceeded $100 (we had 6 people in a $20 buy in once, I think) and most of my friends have never played a game where having a $100 denomination would be any use at all.

This is something that most amateurs want, it's OK if pros don't want it.

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Why have any denominations for chips then? If the total value at risk is $10-20, just play for fake points. This isn’t remotely significant money for anyone.

I play with low stakes amateurs all of the time, as often as not in home games, and the smallest games people play are 1/1 or 1/2. You can’t even buy a cheeseburger in America for $1 anymore, anything less than that and you might as well not be playing for money at all; just use points and don’t worry about denominations.

Depends on the crowd. Our $0.25/$0.50 games often have hands that go to showdown with $100+ pots, sometimes $500. Yet, every time someone says "Should we just do $1/$2 next time?" they get poo-pooed :)

Can relate. We mostly play 0.1/0.2 or 0.25/0.50 but I've seen a friend of mine spend 700 bucks in a game while the rest, at most, 100. It makes it very unbalanced but everyone finds it fun to see the big stacks guy lose it all.

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