Probably best that I clarify what happened, as I was there. Although the TD did have to translate for me.
We had explained prior to the tournament that one of the APAT "rules" was no deals. The card room manager said at the time that he was okay with that. He said 50% of the times, there are normally chops in his tournaments.
When it got down to the final table, I had another conversation with him, and he said he planned to make sure that should any discussions take place, he would at the least ensure that an amount was left to play for between the players.
This seemed a fair situation, as a lot of the players were new to APAT. As it happened, a chop was only discussed when we were heads up, and as Christophe explained in his post, it was declined at first.
When it swung the other way, it was discussed again, and they agreed to chop 3k euros each, and play for the remaining 700 euros + the GUKPT seat.
This all took place in German, and to be fair to the players, it could have easily passed me by. I had been at the final table for a few hours by then, and I was aware the discussions going on at that point weren"t just about how nice a weekend it had been.
APAT's stance on deals hasn"t changed. We have always discouraged deals from being made. We, of course, aren"t naive enough to think that this is something we can totally control, as once the players have been paid out, what they choose to do with their winnings is entirely up to them.
But in essence, APAT is all about play to win, and that hasn"t changed.