Option 1
South (Solent and across the South coast going West)
Great - so we would amalgamate with Plymouth"s two active players. I assumed the proposal would include us combining with Kent and/or London. You will be aware that APAT hasn"t taken off in the South, possibly due to every tournament being a long way away until now. [Thanks for Brighton btw - lots of Solent players going.] Giving us a region which seems comparable in size to others, but is basically a desert, is not equitable. Would Sussex players at least have to play for their own region instead of going with Kent and their lovely captain? TBH, I feel that the regional format is a bit tired now.
Love Option 2, whether drafts or seeded. Should make for a much more competitive league, rather than one where the players of one team are competing to see which of them gets the free seats this time.
John,
If it helps, I"m pondering pushing APAT much more in Dorset, Devon, Cornwall now that I have moved a bit further West. It would be great if we could get an APAT event in Bristol perhaps, but can understand that it would clash with Cardiff/Birmingham as far as catchment areas go.
It"s a tough balance to get right.
On the draft scenario, how does it work for players that haven"t played APAT before, and therefore wouldn"t be ranked ? Also, what if a player gets allocated to a team, but then chooses not to play as much next season. Surely that would hinder that team considerably ?
I don"t think that poker is such a skill fest that the odd player who may be a "7" in knowledge and ability terms, is likely to get far greater results over a 10 match season than a player who is a "3" for example. I think it is right to separate them as best we can with the understanding that anomoly placements will happen.
So, as far as new players are concerned, there will be an element of "luck of the draw". But they would be allocated to the next team in the rotation, who may have had a player less than some of their competitors to that point.
Ultimately, in the seeded/draft scenario we are unlikely to have super teams and that is the primary objective of that approach.
In addition, reducing the number of overall teams concerns me a bit; not to mention how new players might perceive a league that contains such apparently disparate teams as Ireland and West Midlands for example.
My concern is as Steve and Waz mentioned earlier, what happens if teams lose that local feel? I think their two teams and one or two others contained players with a lot of passion for the game, but very few of the other League teams did. Most of our community interaction occurs at the live events, so players know each other across quite a wide geographical spread. I"m tempted to think that passionate players would be equally passionate no matter which team they play for; particularly if the team they represent has a shot at winning points on each and every matchday.
