In a poker tournament, a chip race is the process of exchanging lower-denomination chips for higher-denomination ones. This is done to reduce the number of smaller chips in play and to make it easier to manage the chips.
During a chip race, each player with chips of the smaller denomination receives one chip of the higher denomination for each chip they possess that is of the smaller denomination. The player with the highest remaining amount of chips of the smaller denomination receives a chip of the higher denomination if there is an odd number of chips that cannot be exchanged evenly. The smaller chips are then removed from play.