Oh, this thread is going to be epic...
Live:Countries; I assume this is limited by the Sponsor - for example France would not be a good place to go to because of their gaming laws, same for Italy. Slovenia/Bulgaria sounds interesting though from what I hear.
Venues; I don"t think it matters really for English venues, people will travel. Same for Ireland, just got to try and not make it clash with another event!
Structure/BI/Pay/AV/Trophies; all fine, IMO.
Rules; No change to the rules, but maybe make them clearer and have an APAT TD who is aware of these rules and has briefed all dealers as some might be slightly different to house rules?
WCOAP; Apart from keep it at DTD, nothing to add.
Streaming; (now this one could get controversial over the thread) I don"t think it works. I only think live streaming works when it"s on a delay and people have hole cards available. Personally, I"d rather see a live text-based update but if streaming were to stay, I would suggest maybe having some sort of password-protected event for those watching on the sponsor"s site as an initiative for players to play on the sponsor site and to watch as the password is revealed on the live stream.
Post event/Photos; BITB. (That"s "Best In The Business", copyright pleno1 over at Blonde Poker)
Team events: Just combine the two and have one big event. A lot of people will be playing both of this years anyway.
Side events: Again, a bit more variation please - although I know this is subject to dealers. Would like to see 10-game rather than HORSE this year.
Formats: Please, please, please do NOT make them a rebuy. The WCOAP could be a limited re-entry as in if you bust day 1a then you can buy back in to Day 1b as an alternate. If we do go down the re-entry route (which I dont think will happen as these events mostly tend to have an alternates list bigger than Rob Yong"s bank account) then again, limit it to one re-entry per player.
Guarantees: I honestly don"t remember APAT ever offering guarantees and don"t think they should start now. Who"s pocket will it come out of? GG added value if an event like Cork happens again.
Schedule: WCOAP last week of August, Team Champs last week of Jan. Work from there. Maybe try and get a set weekend if possible (I know, clashes) like DTD deepstacks is nearly always first weekend of the month. Don"t think we need any more than 12 live events. 9/10 in the UK & Ireland and 2 abroad. The third, if possible, should be Vegas in November every year, or Atlantic City.
Maybe for satellites to European events see how much a block of hotels costs and offer a package of £75 + hotel + airfare.
Oh, and hire Paulie_D to work out these costs!
Online:Sponsors; I couldn"t care whether we were sponsored by PokerStars, 888, DTD, Gala Bingo, Tesco, WWE, Argos, Ikea - you get the point. Whatever the best deal is for APAT, that"s who we should be sponsored by, and I trust Des to do the best for APAT in the long run.
Everything else; I don"t play APAT online because it"s just too much. 20 league games a year @ $10 = $200. Multiply that by 2 for Joobs and that"s $400. Then you have the online champs and the Omaha champs, then the WOCOAP - either way you"re looking at ~$1000pp over the year. That"s a LOT of money for a casual player. Even more for families that play.
Forum"s fine; I don"t think many big poker sites have much content bar the forum these days unless they"re in a niche market eg Hendon Mob Database, All Vegas Poker"s database etc. Fully expecting APAT to show up on Google+ soon, but apart from that all is good.
Feel free to shoot me on the 22nd October, Des/Tighty
