APAT Season 8 - [Pre-release Discussion]

[IrishTom]

Ladies and Gents, as I start to look towards Season 8 this thread is simply for players to put forward thoughts and ideas to get the best possible out of the APAT Tour in 2014/15 - I absolutely make no promises, other than that I will read this thread and take on board all that is said before starting work on the tour prior to Christmas and putting a draft schedule to the APAT Board asap in the new year.

So, please feel free to suggest geographical areas to visit, venues, improvements to events, event schedules etc etc.

[hi_am_chris]

East Midlands
East Of England
Ireland
London
North East
North West
Scotalnd
South East
South West
Wales
West Midlands
Yorkshire

Attach a city / casino to each of the above?

[Matt D]

New casino for Cardiff event.
More lights for Glasgow event.
An APAT championship event in Bristol.
Drop Luton/Stoke.

[s4ooter]

[hi_am_chris]

Quick note on the team events,

Agree with Dann that one is probably enough but also would prefer to see a qualification process rather than a selection process for the team.

Whether that be leading player for that country in the online rankings (obviously this affects welsh, scottish, english and irish teams more than it does other nations where maybe selection is the best way), Leading player for that country in the live rankings at a certain date but something along those lines.

If a player declines to play his/her place would go to the next in line?

[Matt D]

New casino for Cardiff event.
More lights for Glasgow event.
An APAT championship event in Bristol.
Drop Luton/Stoke.

Do you mean drop the Venues of Luton and Stoke or the Team Event itself??

lol, of course not!! (?!). That"s my favourite event by far.

I guess Luton/Stoke are both pretty big so work well for it, but it can be held anywhere with a capacity of 200+

[MintTrav]

Dangerous place, Luton.

[Jon MW]

...
Locations: Having Vegas/Prague is a great thing to boast, but surely its kinda against the APAT ethos?  ...  Tryin to promote the amatuer game, by holding events in these places seems a little odd.  ...

I"m pretty sure they have amateur players in the US and the Czech Republic as well as here.

[adilong1]

The team event, in my opinion should be a Ryder cup style pick with the most ranking points getting in the team and then the captain having two wild cards? Maybe a none playing captain too, who could coast around and support his players.

With Chris on the venues and it is about time one was held in Yorkshire! Genting at Sheffield was great at the GPS,

Like Danns point of the cut back on so many online games it"s ridiculous, people have family"s and partners/wife"s to keep happy and sitting down every night playing cards is out of he question.

The return of the online league has to be a priority as well, I"ve missed it this year and getting Yorkshire to the team event in Luton and playing myself was a great experience and one I would love to do again. I know Matt has explained  to me that there may be a change of site etc but it needs sorting.

[AMRN]

Reduce the dilution of the International team events to try and make them special again.

More focus on locations that the majority of the membership can afford to get to, and less focus on holiday destinations to satisfy the few that can afford it.  How much has the APAT brand really been expanded by the foreign trips to date? How many of those locals that have played in the foreign locations joined up with APAT.co.uk, or used the forum, or played other APAT events?

Love the festival weekend approach - makes the travel expense far more worthwhile.... (although please not in London, as it"s just cost prohibitive).

Get off Boss (seriously!).

Bring back Walsall in the APAT live schedule

[Sugar_Free]

My main wish for season 8 is that you guys give us more notice. You seemed to forget that we"re all amateur players with jobs, families and limited resources. We need more notice than you gave us this year to organise time off, get cheap hotel and travel deals and get our green cards.

[Matt D]

The team event, in my opinion should be a Ryder cup style pick with the most ranking points getting in the team and then the captain having two wild cards? Maybe a none playing captain too, who could coast around and support his players.

With Chris on the venues and it is about time one was held in Yorkshire! Genting at Sheffield was great at the GPS,

Like Danns point of the cut back on so many online games it"s ridiculous, people have family"s and partners/wife"s to keep happy and sitting down every night playing cards is out of he question.

Which games are you referring to?

Championship events wise - there"s only a main + a side to complement each Live festival (these are usually the weekend following the Live event).

The Mini League (current prize: Vegas Package) is an LPPL league that has run each month for years. We"ve now opened this up to APAT players, which I think is a good thing. It provides more choice and an option for people to play any night of the week - in fact, LPPL players have recently asked if I can increase the number of games here (from 1 a night to 3 a night at various times).

Which games would you like to see dropped?

The return of the online league has to be a priority as well, I"ve missed it this year and getting Yorkshire to the team event in Luton and playing myself was a great experience and one I would love to do again. I know Matt has explained  to me that there may be a change of site etc but it needs sorting.

Seems a little bit of a contradiction between this point and your first? We are looking to launch the online league ASAP, but we haven"t for the reason I"ve explained on a few other posts recently (and will explain again in reply to SR"s post below).




edit: corrected typo

[IrishTom]

My main wish for season 8 is that you guys give us more notice. You seemed to forget that we"re all amateur players with jobs, families and limited resources. We need more notice than you gave us this year to organise time off, get cheap hotel and travel deals and get our green cards.

I can assure you this will happen.

[Matt D]

Get off Boss (seriously!).

Not sure if you"ve seen my other posts on this recently, but this is a very high priority at the moment. We are in discussion with other networks with a view to move. However, this is not likely to be until mid-next year, as these things take a long time (there"s so many boxes to tick, hoops to jump through)... So, in the meantime, we are in other discussions re: partnering with another site until we have a permanent home. It is likely that the first online events to be held here will be the Online League (hence the delay that Adilong mentions in his post).

[Sugar_Free]

The Mini League (current prize: Vegas Package) is an LPPL league that has run each month for years. We"ve now opened this up to APAT players, which I think is a good thing. It provides more choice and an option for people to play any night of the week - in fact, LPPL players have recently asked if I can increase the number of games here (from 1 a night to 3 a night at various times).

I agree 100% Matt, this is a great little league with a terrific format, decent prizes and for the most part friendly (not miserable) people. There is no need to play every night since 8 games gets you into the play off, but you can if you like. My only complaint, although a small one, is that it could start and finish a little earlier, but it sounds from what you say that plans are afoot to counter that.