It"s a great debate and that"s one of the reasons I love APAT best of all! You talk and we listen...and then we tell you why we"re doing it our way!
Joking of course, this level of feedback is great and APAT was built on putting together an excellent tour, then taking your feedback on board to make it even better.
The debate centres on the following (I may miss stuff here) and my thoughts are as follows:-
- The £75 buy in.
I like this price point and am proud that APAT offers its members a poker experience better than they might receive at events at many multiples of our buy in, while still being the entry point in the market. We could up the average National price point to £100, but then we wouldn"t be offering the entry level multi table, multi day tournament - and that is part of what APAT is about. We"ve certainly offered events at higher price points to try and keep something in the schedule for those whose game has grown beyond APAT. We have done so to be inclusive for members, as opposed to looking to challenge DTD, the UKIPT or GUKPT.
- Sky Tour.
Love this to pieces. Remember it was Tighty and I who set that up and it is a compliment to APAT that established brands like Sky and Virgin in the past, have copied the APAT model - it means far more choice for you guys (although not at a cost to your participation in APAT events we would hope). The challenge for APAT is to stay ahead of the pack, and we have a good record of innovating and doing this. I"m looking forward to next season"s schedule discussions already, because there is at least one initiative on the table that will be a real WOW
- Away events.
As Tighty wrote, this is all about stretching the brand. This is important for strategic / commercial reasons and there will always be one or two of these events in the schedule. To see any UK or Irish APAT members travel to them is great, but its not really what they are about. Lots will tell you they are great weekends away however! Personally I wouldn"t like to see them have a different buy in to the other National events in our schedule despite the good points made.
- Schedule
As Tighty also wrote, we had some odd scheduling difficulties in pulling Season 5 together and have ended up with a rather lop sided second half. This is something we are going to review and I"ve already suggested to Tighty that we review the Pro-Am tournament versus an Amateur National, and the Czech Republic as the location of the Europeans versus a UK venue. We don"t like to change things, but you guys are talking and it is our job to listen. I"ve also asked Tighty to look at how exciting we could make a three day European festival, with two day 1"s and a side event on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday - a mini WCOAP if you like. Not saying that the above changes will definitely happen, but they are being looked at.
- Buy In format.
You will always be able to buy in directly with APAT. This is an advantage we offer over some of the other competing poker tours. It"s important to support our sponsor, but at the end of the day APAT's core focus is our live product and we will not make you satellite in if you do not want to. You may need to set up an account with our sponsor, but you will be able to buy in direct. That"s important.
- "It was a chance to play a "champagne tournament at a lemonade price""
Thank you Colin McCarty, because that"s as good a definition of what APAT offers as I"ve seen for a long time.
Whatever the other tours offer, I don"t believe anybody will consistently give you the community driven, registration free, high quality format, added value tournaments that APAT do.
Thanks for your support and keep the feedback coming!
