I'm planning on playing in a live NLHE tournament soon, and I was wondering what the procedure is for requesting, for example, ante chips? Let's say the ante is 500, and I have an average-sized stack, but for some reason I have no ante chips left -- do I tell the dealer that this is the case? Or should I just place another chip with a higher value than the ante, e.g. 1000, and then will the dealer take the 1000 and give me back a 500 (ante) chip?
Conversely, let's say I end up with very many low-denomination chips, e.g. a stack consisting entirely of 1000 or 500 chips instead of a mixture of 5000, 1000, and 500 chips, am I allowed to exchange, for example, twenty 1000 chips for four 5000 chips?
Thanks for any help.