Where has the fun gone??!!

[Jeffers]

I have been a proud member of the APAT, like many of you, since the very beginning and can remember the days when playing online, and live alike, used to be plenty of banter, a good standard and a pleasure to be a part of.

When I look at the forum today all I read about is people complaining about prizes, complaining about blind levels, complaining about slow playing and collusion etc etc etc!!

Personally, and like many others of you I hope, I still enjoy playing in all of the APAT events, and intend to play in as many of them as possible. The thought that, during on line leagues, people may be colluding with other team members I find very sad, and goes against everything the APAT stands for. The event is a $10 tournament, and yes there are good prizes on offer but the more people moan about things the more people will be afraid to check a hand in case they are seen as cheating! Believe me, if colluding is occuring during a game it will be identified, and if people want to risk their Betfair account and APAT membership through doing this more fool them!!

One point (one I think is worthy to mention); I"m glad to see that people are not able to transfer between clubs during the season, as we are already seeing that the first division is top heavy. I also think we could do with some form of control in between seasons as well, or the need of three divisions will soon be negated.

[AVFC.WILSON]

+1

[BOINGBLITZ]

Sorry that you seem to think that way my friend.
APAT is not about collusion, but this is a TEAM competition and therefore you don"t want to knock your TEAM-MATES out.
On Sunday, I was railing my 2 players on the FT. One of them TONYTRIPPS was the short-stack, and to his left he had THREE Liverpool players.
 I told him this, but then this hand occured........
Liv 1 is in SB, Liv 2 BB, Liv 3 makes 3 x BB raise UTG. It"s folded to Tony on the button and I typed in "DON"T DO IT !" as I thought that the UTG player would not be taking on his team-mates without a BIG hand.
 Tony ignored me (He often does !) and shoved......but then, the SB goes all-in !!
The original raise (from his team-mate) was ignored, so the SB MUST have a monster......and he did.....A-A, but the UTG STILL called him.....with K-K. Aces held and 2 go out.  

Now it would have been hard for the UTG to pass KK there, but had he been playing for his TEAM, surely he MUST have realised that his mate had AA and therefore passed ?
Also, am I colluding by telling my teammates what team the rest play for ?
I also informed my other player that he needed a MINIMUM 5th place finish to get us into the points. In normal circumstances, he was that low that he would certainly have took and "Any-2-will-do" attitude but on this occasion, he played for his TEAM and eventually finished 3rd in what was one of the best TEAM performances I have seen in the League since it began (Well done Andrew Barton).

The point here is that the Team comp is totally different to a normal game of poker so unless someone types in "I HAVE AA" or the like, then please.....this is NOT collusion.

[Swinebag]

Unfortunately the nature of forums tend to have posts where people are complaining about something or other. If everyone thought that APAT did everything perfectly then there would be no need for a forum. Des and APAT know they dont get it right all the time and value the opinion of the membership to help them get it right. (which they generally do in the end).

On the flipside, a quick trawl through these forums will also find plenty of supportive posts. As for the online games, I think that at the majority of the time there is great banter (with plenty of posts on this forum referring to it) and very rarely do you get unsavoury moments.

As for collusion...Think you got the wrong end the stick there Brian. OP was complaining about people complaining rather than collusion itself.

FWIW, I instruct my manchester team (and of course they do exactly what I say ) to avoid any form of soft playing to the point of encouraging them to take each other out. (that way the chips still stay in the team). But then again..... could lead to complaints of chip dumping  ...........

[Jeffers]

BOINGBLITZ, I couldn"t agree more, and everything you have posted does not strike me as collusion in the slightest.

I do not see the problem with letting people know which teams people play for (people can check that for themselves), and people can also work out where they need to finish to pick up points for the team, and I think this is what team poker is about.

What I find frustrating comes from other posts I have seen in the forum where people have been accussed of collusion because hands get checked down, or perhaps someone did not play a hand the way someone else would have, and therefore it must have been collusion! I honestly would like to think that 99.99% of people that participate in the online leagues play the way it is intended to be played, and would in no way intend to cheat. I just find it somewhat dissappointing that after one week people are being accussed this!

[Jeffers]

Swinebag, spot on. I wasn"t complaining about collusion, rather that it"s too easy for people to accuse others of this.

[AMRN]

@ the OP - I think you"re right! Since I joined APAT 18 months ago, I"ve loved everything it stands for..... but feel that a lot of the good stuff is taken for granted nowadays, rather than being appreciated for what it is. There is so much moaning about structures, formats, seat counts, changes, prices, satellites, sponsor poker room, etc etc etc...... many people (myself included at times!) would do well to take a step back and consider the positves before continually voicing and repeating the perceived negatives.

@ Boingblitz - no I don"t think it is collusion for you to advise your team-mate on the state of the team competition. Clearly if you tell him that your Hand History on a player suggests a certain action would be best, that would be illegal.... but simply stating freely available information to make sure your team mate has all the available info in his sights is simply good team management.

@ Swinebag - imo there is nothing wrong with soft play in the team event, so long as it is within reason. Raise/Folding for the purposes of chip dumping is an absolute no-no, but folding the better hand to avoid putting a team mate at risk is perfectly fine (imo). On Sunday miiiiike was down to 3xBB and shoved - I was in the BB with KK and folded. I don"t think I cheated - this was just part of the team dynamic. Clearly if I had open raised KK, then folded to a small shove from a team-mate, that would be chip dumping and would be different.


As for the garbage that went on during Sunday night"s tourney across the Betfair chatbox, the Forum, and Facebook - this was just so far away from APAT standards, and I"m pleased that appropriate action was taken. If we all played perfect poker, then we wouldn"t be on an Amateur tour ffs!!


APAT FTW!

[smileriraq]

glad this thread came about i stated something similar on one of the other threads

but glad to see that the genuine APAT spirit is still alive n kicking

[Roscopiko]

Doubt there are many social groups who complain as much as poker players tbh.  

[Mikeyboy9361]

there are so many places to play poker now that if you dont like apat, then you can hop it! Personally i play for the great value tourneys and the fun of sparring woth players you know. It is almost like playing live but on line. As regards comments re structure etc, i would like to think the majority are constructive, and that des and co take them on board. Fwiw i think apat is great, and gives so much to us recreational players.

[AceOnTheRiver]

but glad to see that the genuine APAT spirit is still alive n kicking

this  

[Shogun112]

Liv 1 is in SB, Liv 2 BB, Liv 3 makes 3 x BB raise UTG. It"s folded to Tony on the button and I typed in "DON"T DO IT !" as I thought that the UTG player would not be taking on his team-mates without a BIG hand.
 Tony ignored me (He often does !) and shoved......but then, the SB goes all-in !!
The original raise (from his team-mate) was ignored, so the SB MUST have a monster......and he did.....A-A, but the UTG STILL called him.....with K-K. Aces held and 2 go out.  

Now it would have been hard for the UTG to pass KK there, but had he been playing for his TEAM, surely he MUST have realised that his mate had AA and therefore passed ?

I was player Liv3 here in this position...!!  I had KK UTG or UTG +1...  I raised to 10k (of my 30k stack), ...  I think someone either called, or raised to 20k+...   My team mat pushes all in for 50k......  At this point, I have 10 seconds to decide what I do because my team mate (who i have never met or even knew before this game) he must have a serious hand...  Do I fold and leave 20k to let my team mate go ahead and play this other all-in...  20k is a virtual low stack at that point in the game...  Or do I go with him, and, we have a 2 against 1 situation against another team member....  I decided very quickly, one of us 2 here will likely become chip leader from this hand.... If I win this hand, my team mate will still have 20k back and it will be me the daddy....  If I lose I am out...  So many options and scenarios to go through in 10 seconds...  So, in the interest of the team, I have to have get involved and hope one of us hits the win...  I am not soft playing playing here, and some of the spectators said exactly that when the hand was in play...

The hand did not go eactly as Brian explained it...  I had KK...  My Team mate had AA...  and the other guy K 10...  I am in serious trouble here, but so is the K 10 guy...  I had a 1 outer and it came on the flop... with 4 cards that did not scare me...  The net result..  Out team (And me personally) benefited, because there was one more player out, and we still had 3 players in....  This was team play, and not collusion.  Collusion would be 2 of us telling each other what we had and trying our best not to tangle with each other.  In fact Captain Ger was watching wondering what the hell I was doing here, LOL....

Just wanted to give an insight to that massive hand from my point of view they way it came to my mind in those 10 seconds...

[AMRN]

Liv 1 is in SB, Liv 2 BB, Liv 3 makes 3 x BB raise UTG. It"s folded to Tony on the button and I typed in "DON"T DO IT !" as I thought that the UTG player would not be taking on his team-mates without a BIG hand.
 Tony ignored me (He often does !) and shoved......but then, the SB goes all-in !!
The original raise (from his team-mate) was ignored, so the SB MUST have a monster......and he did.....A-A, but the UTG STILL called him.....with K-K. Aces held and 2 go out.  

Now it would have been hard for the UTG to pass KK there, but had he been playing for his TEAM, surely he MUST have realised that his mate had AA and therefore passed ?

Sod off Brian - I was never folding KK!!

Shogun - FYP mate

[BOINGBLITZ]

To Jeffers, sorry I misunderstood. To Shogun, Mikey and AMRN.....agree with you all.
I have felt the wrath of Des occasionally (!) but then again I feel that the reason that I have an opinion is because I care about APAT and what it stands for and I know that there are lots of you out there who feel the same.
At the end of the day, If Des, Leigh and Richard said "We have had enough", would people be happy or not to see it fold ?
I think we all know the answer to that one !

[Eck]

Nothing worthwhile to add to the discussion just keep seeing the title and humming this:

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRo79fVMvMs[/youtube]