APAT North American Amateur Poker Championship - Result

[Sugar_Free]

L&Gs, our communications with Caesars" for this event was far from ideal.  In the week leading up to the event it was discovered they were unable to hold the advertised $150+$15 (I"m not sure where some of you guys saw it was advertised as $75 as all I know it was meant to be $150) and therefore it ended up being their usual $200+$35 - and over 1 Day rather than the expected 2-Day event.

Unable or unwilling?

As for communications being far from ideal, why, in the week leading up to the event, were the (rather substantial) changes to the event not communicated to the members?

[IrishTom]

L&Gs, so the "forum post" (dated 14 Jun 2013) advertised the event as £75+£7.50 (so $130?) - however, when I changed the "schedule/tour dates" to $200+$35 (the week prior to the event) it was listed within there as $150+$15 - all I can say is that the "schedule/tour dates" would be the (expected) latest version of events and supersede anything previously posted in the forum - I would think.

It seems I missed communicating with the players in the week leading up to the event - accepted and apologies - my efforts were concentrated on trying to finalise things with the venue and communicating with Adam.

I personally am not getting into further drawn out discussions on things like:

"Des said it was £75 - Tom said it was $150" - I did not say that - I said:  

(I"m not sure where some of you guys saw it was advertised as $75 as all I know it was meant to be $150)

There is a big difference, and I am not prepared to get into discussions/arguments on matters like this including things like unable/unwilling - I"ve given my (sincere) apologies for this on behalf of APAT - I will ensure it never happens again.

[s4ooter]

L&Gs, so the "forum post" (dated 14 Jun 2013) advertised the event as £75+£7.50 (so $130?) - however, when I changed the "schedule/tour dates" to $200+$35 (the week prior to the event) it was listed within there as $150+$15 - all I can say is that the "schedule/tour dates" would be the (expected) latest version of events and supersede anything previously posted in the forum - I would think.

It seems I missed communicating with the players in the week leading up to the event - accepted and apologies - my efforts were concentrated on trying to finalise things with the venue and communicating with Adam.

I personally am not getting into further drawn out discussions on things like:

"Des said it was £75 - Tom said it was $150" - I did not say that - I said:  

(I"m not sure where some of you guys saw it was advertised as $75 as all I know it was meant to be $150)

There is a big difference, and I am not prepared to get into discussions/arguments on matters like this including things like unable/unwilling - I"ve given my (sincere) apologies for this on behalf of APAT - I will ensure it never happens again.

Hang on a minute, lets not get knickers in a twist

I dont know how many members actually use the Schedule/Tour page, i didnt even know it existed (but then again thats more to do so with the layout of the APAT landing page). 

Call that negligence on our part, but sometimes knowing your audience is helpful.

My point was that i saw 1 post in the schedule that said £75, and then you posted today that prior to changing it to $235, you believed it to be $150.  All in all 3 diff amounts.

Nothing more, nothing less. 

[Des]

As I said in an APAT blog post a few days ago, if we can"t manage an overseas event in the appropriately then we won"t do them.  We"ll work to our strengths in S8 and that"s focusing on the UK - where we can resource and sell out most events if we do a good job.  Vegas has always been more of a strategic event but we will not do any of those in future.  On this occasion there were issues with communication with the venue - we had an agreement with them to run the event several months ago. When this became apparent, we rescued the situation as best we could and offered any participating UK player a free WCOAP side event credit to compensate for the increase in but in. And of course we were also aware that the majority of the travelling players were not planning to play in any event. Nonetheless this has been a learning experience for us and we won"t repeat this mistake again.

[KarmaDope]

So.

Report.

This is, sadly, going off memory and I have been in Vegas for a full week afterwards so apologies if I miss something.

[KarmaDope]

12 regular/known APAT players were part of the group of 67 die hard souls who stumped up the $235 required to buy in for this event. It was a one day event with 15,000 in chips and 30 minute blinds, that took place on Saturday 9th November 2013. Faces spotted in the field included Glenn Laming, Don Logan, Don Roberts, Ed Stanborough and Steph Boyd, the latter two making it all the way to the final table.

18 players received APAT Ranking Points, with APAT stalwart Rita Galvin the unfortunate bubbler of these points in 19th.

The event was originally scheduled to only pay 7. However, at the start of the final table, David Kempe of the United States proposed a very clever deal to negate the bubble. He suggested that every player put $105 into a separate pot from their own pocket, and the players that finished 8th-10th received $350 out of this, meaning that all final tablists got their money back at least, in fact they earned a few dollars more than they started with. This was very quickly agreed and as a result, it did not take long for Michael Santoro and Ed Stanborough to bust.

At this point Thomas Eidenschink was running over the table, but eventual winner Matts Jakobsson and Kempe both won big pots to eliminate players and we went from 8 to 5 in what seemed no time at all. Scotland"s own Steph Boyd then took over the aggression, but he clashed with Eidenschink and was eliminated in 5th place. Eidenschink looked like he would be the champion at this point, but he proceeded to double up every other player at the table before Jakobsson finished him off to eliminate Eidenschink in 4th.

With Eidenschink gone, each player had roughly the same amount of chips and decided to chop the money up evenly. For the medals and added value, it was agreed that the player with the most chips at this point would be declared the winner, and Jakobsson was the chip leader by a small margin, which gave him the title of APAT North American Amateur Poker Champion.

[SirPercival]

For future reference. Are deals allowed in APAT events now?

[Des]

No, clearly the above is very unsatisfactory and won"t be allowed to happen again.

[Chipaccrual]

I think it was a very good suggestion regarding the 8th-10th finishers.  Never heard of that on a final table before, but as they have effectively created a separate prizepool for the 8th-10th placed finishers, and not touched the original payout structure, then I think that part of it doesn"t actually go against the APAT rules on deals.

Obviously, the four way chop does break APAT rules, but I think considering the fact that this appears to just be a standard Caesars tourney which would normally allow such thing, it"s a case of when in Rome, or Vegas for that matter


Nice tourney report Adam.  Impressive that you remembered stuff, considering you had a week in Vegas with that lot in between.  

[GiMac]

For future reference. Are deals allowed in APAT events now?

I would think like any other poker leagues ran around the UK that all points are frozen once a deal was done.

[Hammerite]

I would like to thank Adam for his efforts in representing Apat in Vegas, I did feel rather sorry for him as I felt he had been somewhat dropped in it, which may or may not be correct but that is my personal perception. However I do need to correct the tournament report, I did not actually play the Apat event or should I say the regular Caesars Saturday tournament as the structure was light years away from a normal Apat main event, more than happy to take the free world side event seat though  

[WASP]

I couldn"t imagine spending big bucks getting to Vegas and sitting in a two day 75 whatever tournament and when we heard it was 1 day and 235 bucks 3 of us decided to play it, so it works both ways

Most of the players at my tables and the staff, dealers etc understand it was APAT and are looking forward to receiving their medals

I quite sure that 100% of the people that travelled did not have APAT as their main priority for the week so where"s the harm done?

PS well done Adam for all that you did!

[jjandellis]

As I said in an APAT blog post a few days ago, if we can"t manage an overseas event in the appropriately then we won"t do them.  We"ll work to our strengths in S8 and that"s focusing on the UK - where we can resource and sell out most events if we do a good job.  Vegas has always been more of a strategic event but we will not do any of those in future.  On this occasion there were issues with communication with the venue - we had an agreement with them to run the event several months ago. When this became apparent, we rescued the situation as best we could and offered any participating UK player a free WCOAP side event credit to compensate for the increase in but in. And of course we were also aware that the majority of the travelling players were not planning to play in any event. Nonetheless this has been a learning experience for us and we won"t repeat this mistake again.

Blimey logged in out of interest and only saw this.  Good post Des.

America is almost like the whole music industry than I guess. UK and Europe is one thing, but that big leap across the pond is a whole different ball game. Would it be possible to set up a mirror network in the States, for Yank domestic players, to establish the brand? Trusted, enthused people working to you?  That would then give you a better base for these sort of events - and twinning type opps?

Me just rambling really. Des being Des I"m sure you"ve already done all this!!