There was a lot of discussion about the format for the cash championship, and whether or not it would work as an event. I had views on this before the event, and had no intention of playing it - I"ve never been a cash player, and when I do play cash I tend to see the monetary value of the chips, and this restricts my ability to play "proper poker".
I only played this event on Saturday as I had profit from the previous night, and the main event was going horribly wrong for me. I treated the buy in as a tournament buy in, and as such was able to divorce myself from the cash value of the chips, and was able to play effectively.
The tournament approach in the first three hour session made for some great spots that just never really materialise in a cash game, where people were gambling to try and create big stacks.... and that others knew this was happening and were calling pretty light, which made for some great squeezing opportunities.
The restriction of the reload (could only reload when felted) made it less like a cash game as people with under £40 were searching for spots to gamble with any two cards knowing that if they lost they could then get back to a £100 stack.... I got lucky in that every time 40x stacks shoved, I had reasonable hands to call/isolate with, and was able to hoover up those short stacks. If this event runs again (which it must!), I suspect there will be calls to have the reload split into 25% chunks that can be used as top ups rather than as a single reload when felted..... this will make the game more akin to a cash game, which is probably the right thing to do, BUT the single reload approach certainly opened up some really interesting scenarios.
Having got a FT stack, the chance to play super deep stacked cash for an affordable buy in was awesome. Some on the final table were playing it as a rake free cash game, whilst the others were playing for the win - it was no surprise that these were the biggest stacks at the end. The tournament approach, and the added value ISPT seat, made for some great pressure points during that final table. People had to balance the winner takes all mentality of the title and added value for first place, with the risk of losing several hundred pounds of real hard cash.
On our starting table, we were trying to decide if we were playing cash or tournament.... we agreed that we were playing "cash-ish" (not to confused with certain substances that seemed to grab Laxie"s attention).
Obviously pleased that I managed to get into this (with less than 5 minutes to spare), and just hope that it gets repeated at future events. APAT continues to break ground, and I really do see mileage in this concept.