Which Regional Team Can I Play For?

[Sef]

I am an Irish citizen, I work in Wales, I was born in South West England, I live in the North West. Can I play for Scotland?  

Well you signed up for them ye eejit!

I blame san miguel, I have since resigned.

He is Spanish.!!

Oh no, the Spanish will want their own Region next...

Oh so they get a choice??   sry couldn"t resist. lol

[Des]

I am an Irish citizen, I work in Wales, I was born in South West England, I live in the North West. Can I play for Scotland?  

Well you signed up for them ye eejit!

I blame san miguel, I have since resigned.

He is Spanish.!!

Oh no, the Spanish will want their own Region next...

Oh so they get a choice??   sry couldn"t resist. lol

Oi, the Scots have had a Region and its taken less than a day to break it...

[Sef]

I am an Irish citizen, I work in Wales, I was born in South West England, I live in the North West. Can I play for Scotland?  

Well you signed up for them ye eejit!

I blame san miguel, I have since resigned.

He is Spanish.!!

Oh no, the Spanish will want their own Region next...

Oh so they get a choice??   sry couldn"t resist. lol

Oi, the Scots have had a Region and its taken less than a day to break it...

lol yeah thats true, after an englishman moaned ne less hehe

[jacklevel06]

Personally i don"t want anyone playing under the banner of Scotland who is English or Scottish with an English accent.

Rules out Mickey P from the Borders then.

Think i live in the Scottish borders, but youve got me confused now.Maybe im english.

[fandango]

Damn my head hurts  .... I will miss playing for my beloved "team Luton" it is the nearest casino to where I live, but rules are rules and I guess my new region will be greatly out numbered by the larger poker playing regions.. But love APAT so I"m cool with the decision, Des Richard and all the staff are always gonna make rules decisions that ain"t gonna please everyone, that"s life accept the rules grit ya teeth and be THANKFULL for the hard work they do to make APAT the success it is.

The end.

[Zozzy]

The way I see it is that Des and the Apat Team have updated the league boundaries rules from last season in the interests of fairness, predominantly to ensure equal numbers in each team.
These are good intentions as always. What Apat does year after year to look after their members is second to none.
The main criticisms in season 5 were disparity of numbers in each team / the amalgamation of teams.

Will this change provide twelve equal size teams (in numbers and abilities) ?  
It will seek to improve the situation by carefully selecting the boundaries but it is difficult to achieve.

The saying goes "You can"t please all of the people all of the time" ? -  LETS TRY !

A minority are very passionate about who they would like to play for

It is an $11 buy-in, enjoying the fun and team rivalry is more important than financial gain.
Nobody should feel unhappy with the situation

reasons for being less than happy :
1) "Played for team Luton last year and don"t want to split up"
Answer 1) All play together again in a region that won"t get the numbers to compete equally anyway (East ? )

2) "I am a proud Scot who wants to play for Scotland"
Answer 2) Play for Scotland

3) "It is unfair that Mr 1) and Mrs 2) can choose to play for teams away from their abode because there is a possibility that they are doing this to gain an advantage, by choosing a random team with lots of  players.
Answer 3) Take the soft option. Ask every player to register for a team primarily on location of where they now live. If this would make them unhappy or resentful or even prevent them from entering the competition (e.g. reasons 1 & 2) allow them to make their own choice. This would be the passionate minority with genuine intentions.
There has to be an element of trust and self policing.

Maybe a week before Leg 1 all the team numbers can be looked at. This would not be equal whether the soft option or rigid boundary option was in place, so why not try to avoid having disgruntled players.
The majority could have the option of playing for a team in a different region to balance the numbers in the name of fairness.
If when the number crunching is done and two regions are seen to be low on numbers e.g. Wales and North-West England equals same amount as Scotland, then amalgamate Wales/NW England as one team.

[Swinebag]

A lot of things on this thread sadden me.

I think the decision to make players play for the region they live in is ultimately the correct one. Des has explained that the competition is a regional competition and not a national competition.

The nearest thing I can think of is a cricket example. Scotland play in the cricket world cup with just scottish players (and the odd South African with scottish grandparents). Scotland also competed in the Domestic Pro 40 (or whatever it was) a few years back and this was a regional club that had irishmen playing and they had Rahul Dravid playing for them as their overseas player.

I do feel sorry for all the exiled scots, welsh and Irish who are not allowed to play for their countries, especially after the announcement last night seemed to give the impression that that would be the case.

I also feel for the luton players and thought that John"s comments in their direction were a bit insensitive. I am extremely impressed with the class shown by Waz in accepting the subsequent decision. His tireless work in creating a community of players was very impressive. In some ways they have been victims of their own success where other teams were unable to create such a strong community, and subsequently lost interest in the old format.

I just hope that people will see the bigger picture and look to play some cracking games with a cracking structure on a decent piece of software with some superbly negotiated (vwp Desmnond) added value to boot as well.

[AceOnTheRiver]

I also feel for the luton players and thought that John"s comments in their direction were a bit insensitive. I am extremely impressed with the class shown by Waz in accepting the subsequent decision. His tireless work in creating a community of players was very impressive. In some ways they have been victims of their own success where other teams were unable to create such a strong community, and subsequently lost interest in the old format.

Waz = Class in Human Form

[mylesfdo]

sorry if this already been asked but didnt really fancy reading through 12 pages!!

Im from Brighton and have my permanent address as Brighton but currently am living in Slough but have not changed any address details as i have only just moved up here and been moving aroun a bit.

Which region can I play for?......SE or London & Home Counties?

[Des]

sorry if this already been asked but didnt really fancy reading through 12 pages!!

Im from Brighton and have my permanent address as Brighton but currently am living in Slough but have not changed any address details as i have only just moved up here and been moving aroun a bit.

Which region can I play for?......SE or London & Home Counties?

There will be some clarification on this point later tonight, so may be worth delaying your sign up until that has happened.

[Denis67]

Whatever comes of all this getting PokerStars onboard is a real plus, well done to all at APAT who worked hard on this.

[poker_jason]

This thread is just awful. I cannot say I am surprised.

I think the APAT guys have set up a stunning on-line series with some great add-on prizes to boot. With regards to the Team events - they made a decision based on fairness to each individual player by trying to balance the "Team event" numbers to promote balance across the "regions" so each "individual" still has a fair chance in the team comp to win equal to the stake they enter with.

And what is returned - aggressive, nationalistic, petty squabbling cliques.... Is this the APAT ethos....
I was talking to someone about APAT and they stated that APAT players were ignorant to newcomers and very clique.

From my limited experience I cannot really disagree with that perception, with the exception of a few people, this my experience thus far.

Regardless, each to there own.

However I implore the APAT guys to keep the "play where you live rule" in place - it adds clarity but more important if it offers fairness to each person who invests their time and money in this series thats more important. This seems much better than the school playground metality of "If I can"t play for my country / with my friends I won"t play". And just maybe you"ll actually enjoy making new friends  I feel better now.  

[Ironside]

des as much as i love you i think this is a bit wrong
people living in englandshire wont be able to win the seat in the scotish team for the worlds
bit unfair IMHO

now if i was to die and end up in hell rather than hevean you telling me i would have to play for
london rather than my natrual hevean and scotland?

[poker_jason]

Also, while we at it - don"t know why we even have this teams-region ********.

Would much preferred to have seen a UKIPT seat put into an ironman free roll, i.e. if you played nearly every week you"re entered into the freeroll. And prizes for overall league finishes/play-off freeroll for top 20 for example.

i"m finished now.

[AJDUK]

The top scotsman in the league will be an auto pick for Scotland, regardless of which region he plays for. Des clarified that somewhere above.