Okay guys, looks like it"s down to me to clarify a view points.
Firstly, the structure that we have gone for is aimed at giving players a bit more play in what is the end of season finale. As far as the seating draw goes, it is random and we have had to go with this due to Blue Square software issues. We looked at other options, and spoke with the relevant club captains, before taking a majority view. For your information, the only way to ensure a different player from each club on each of the 4 starting tables was to play 4xSTT with a double shootout type of structure. Going by the comments about us changing the structure anyway, glad we didn"t go with this one.
I"m not sure that making it a $10 tournament would have any influence on how the tournament will play out. What"s a $400 prizepool when there is over £4k of GUKPT seats up for grabs ? And this is the grand final that players have qualified for, so making them pay up seems not quite right.
How will players react if they are the only player left in their team with a lot of chips and little chance of winning ? Well, points are awarded at 20th place on onwards. If we are at a point of 20 player, I am chipleader and all my team-mates are out, then my thought would be the maximum points I can get are 20, will that be enough to take it down ? Don"t know, might get us medals though ? It"s quite a prestigous event to win, bearing in mind you are playing against the best 40 players in the league.
And finally, collusion, softplay and chipdumping. We realise that this is a team event. So far the league has mostly been played in the spirit which we had hoped, and I cannot think of an instance where play has crossed the line as far as collusion goes. No one is going to want to knock out a team-mate, so there is going to be an obvious case of finding a balance.
There will be a lot of eyes on this tournament tonight, and any suggesting of chipdumping will be dealt with strongly by APAT. As for folding AA when up against a team-mate, well, in my opinion, you have to make the decision that is right for your team. A lot of it comes down to pot commitment and the table dynamics.
We cannot stop MSN, Skype, text messages, phonecalls between players, but I would hope that APAT players are above that and show some respect for each others game.
I"m sure everyone of the players playing tonight will play in the correct spirit and with the structure in place, the best team will win out and take down the GUKPT seats.
Good luck everyone.