Comment by ryandrake

Yea, one of the main attributes that define poker is that the chips are worth something (either cash value, or as potential equity in a tournament cash-out).

It's hard to articulate how this happens, but when the chips have no value, the game plays totally different, and just isn't poker anymore. There's no point to bluffing, or aggressively raising, or agonizing over whether you should fold your two pair, if a 100 chip bet has the same zero value as a 1000 chip bet. It just ends up playing like a boring, no stakes "guess the number I'm thinking" game.