Poker chips come in many weights and designs the most popular weight being 11.5g. It is essential to purchase enough chips of each colour to (a) ensure each player has an equal amount of each denomination and (b) chip exchanging is kept to a bare minimum after each hand.
Gaming chips typically have the following denominations associated with each colour

     $1

     $5

     $10

     $25

     $100

     $500

     $1000

     $5000


It is advisable however to get chips that have no denomination stamped on to them as you can then use the same chips later in the game as a different value after they are no longer needed as their denomination is too small. If money is no object however you can get your own design printed on the chip – very swish!
Standard designs are adequate though and are usually in the format shown below and are available as sets as well as in packs of 25s or 50s which makes them ideal because chips get lost or stolen and are easily replaced or added to.

Having professional gaming chips in a poker game always adds to the atmosphere as just the sound of them being thrown into the pot is exquisite. They can be stacked, restacked, tapped and generally used to put other players off their stride. (a perfectly acceptable tactic and used often to great effect by professional players)

There are no hard and fast rules on how many chips each player should start with in a tournament, a lot depends on how many chips are available to you. One 500 chip set should be enough to host an 8 player poker tournament. Some retailers allow the chip combination of your choice and a sets should usually comprise of the following combination of chips.

100 Black
100 White
150 Red
150 Green

So in a 1500 chip tournament the chip distribution could be something like the following:

No of chips Chip Value Colour total chips Value Total chips needed 10 1 White 10 80 18 5 Red 90 144 16 25 Green 400 128 10 100 Black 1000 80 54     1500 432

A total of 54 chips per player is an ample number and gives the player a large stack to begin his/her campaign. Starting a game with only a dozen or so chips in front of you is not the best way.

As the tournament progesses and the blinds go up white chips will become obsolete and can be withdrawn from the table by exchanging them for equal VALUE reds and greens. These can then be reintroduced as a higher denomination chip as the red chips become obsolete. This is why it is a good idea to buy plain chips and not numbered ones.  

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