Just laws of physics.

The most obvious reason (only one of several ones) - you weakened the construction. Poker players are your target audience. So at least search how they test their working instrument http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vJI17D9aNI Good luck.

Any ideas for the court cards?

Poker.buddy - if you have more things to add within moments of making a post and no one else has posted, please edit your last post and add the new information.  It cuts down on clutter around here.

I'd suggest removing the white border around the circles.  When you die-cut the chips out, if the registration isn't perfect, it becomes much more obvious with the border.  And a poker deck has to have a two-way design - your deck name printed across the back is one-way.

- Make it very obvious that this comes with cards included on the FRONT of the box, if you ever plan to sell these on a store shelf. Even a sticker you can peel off at home that says "cards included!" would do wonders.

- The back HAS TO BE TWO-WAY. Even the most casual poker players I've played with like to scrutinize a deck. No one wants to play with cards that a nine year old can cheat with.

- The #2 most important thing about a poker deck is index readability. Serif fonts are a big no-no. But cursive fonts have to be the only thing worse than that.

- Those cards look bridge-sized to me. Nobody likes bridge-sized cards, and they have no place in the plane of existence. If they are bridge-sized, expect a seriously lower amount of interest.

- Take the index of the cards, and move it into that blank space in the corners to improve readability. You should be able to see what your cards are from a quick 1 second peak at the corners.

Everything else about the design is very nice. I love the artwork. It screams classic card design, but then has quite a few modern elements to it. Good job.

How many of these chips will make it back into the package, and not be eaten by the cushion monster.
Don't get me wrong. I think its a great idea. the design is ingenious, but keep in mind who your market would be for this.

Was a price point mentioned on this thread? For $10-15 it's a must have, for $5-10 it's a steal. Like, if you mass produce these, the cost can easily be under $5 a deck to sell, and that would make these very handy.

Hell, you could save manufacturing costs by making the kit with some assembly required.  Print the chips on the cards, score them for later punching out manually, let the owner do that at the end.  No need for chip holders, really - stack the deck of cards and the chips fit right in.  If you use a traditional tuck box style, you can have two uncut cards (rules cards) at the top and bottom of the deck for holding the chips in place while stored.  Right there, you've saved a lot of headache in manufacturing costs.

Make the cards out of plastic.  For a deck like this, durability has to trump handling. 

And make certain that the back has a true, one-way design.  A real card player wouldn't play a money game with a deck having a one-way back like this one does.  When held vertically, all the card backs should be completely the same in appearance when turned 180 degrees.  You must have tested this prototype - can it be riffle-shuffled?  If not, it needs some kind of improvement.

Make the chips out of plastic - but not "chip plastic."  Use the same plastic that's used for the plastic cards and you'll have a stack of chips equal in size to the deck thickness (and almost no wasted plastic).  Paper anything in this deck is too flimsy.  Consider even getting some sort of heavy-duty plastic box.  You could promote the entire set as being waterproof, making it ideal for travel under most circumstances.  You can also promote it as a "must-have" for anyone's disaster-preparedness kit or "go" bag - a waterproof poker set that takes up the space of a single deck.  Heck, you might even find "prepper" (formerly known as "survivalist") supply retailers interested in carrying your decks, either individually or as part of one of the aforementioned disaster kits.

Consider making the chip tubes screw-down or pop-top - it will hold up better and is less flimsy.

Mark the ends of the tubes - one can be your "dealer" marker, the other you can mark "blind", and if you wish to take it further, mark the cap of the "blind" tube "little blind," so it can be a separate marker for games with two blinds.

The chips - leave off any value markers.  The most common practice for a set of this size would be to make 50% of the chips one color (usually white) with the remaining 50% split evenly between two other colors (usually red and blue).  You can, and should, make a decorative edge pattern, but leave the values up to whatever the players themselves want.  If it's possible, after the chips have been punched out of the card plastic, get the cut edges colored to match the chip colors, perhaps with white, yellow or black stripes to break up the color pattern in a similar fashion to casino-grade chips.  It makes the chips easier to identify and count in a stack.

That's all I can come up with in a nutshell.