Dear Des, wtf is going on

[TheSnapper]

Recent announcements continue a worrying trend for me, Mark gone, Leigh quickly follows, folk of this calibre are hard to come by

There is genuine concern amongst the community and the membership imho have been politely quiet, publicly at least.

With the utmost respect, we seem to be on a slide from the Tighty and Leigh days were, we knew them, they knew us, and nothing was a problem. I feel we are heading towards the other end of that spectrum were we become tied up in dogmatic rule setting.

Is it just me who gets that vibe?

[Des]

Hi Brendan,

Change is never easy and losing a huge contributor like Leigh is particularly tough - ditto Mark, who despite only being with us for a relatively shortly time, worked his bum off and got to know a lot of the members well.

Leigh will tell you his own reasons for leaving, but I know he"s got a lot busier recently with his own work; and coming at a time when APAT's development roadmap is huge, the timing appears perfect for Leigh to step back.  I hate to lose him of course, we all do, but before he came on board he was a player like many of you - and who knows what other players might step up to fill Leigh's shoes (would need big feet admittedly!).  In addition we will be recruiting for Mark"s successor in the near future.

Similarly Tom's new to APAT and he was a very successful navy officer and businessman before becoming involved with us as the owner of LPPL.  His style is get the detail agreed up front and is very thorough, and those are qualities that will help us very much in some of the growth challenges that APAT has set ourselves going forward.  He"s a great guy in person and will fit in very well at APAT events I"m sure, but he will need a little time to understand the ropes at APAT.  But the changes seen in the Scotland thread earlier confirms that Tom gets it a lot more today than he did yesterday.

The last thing I would say is this.  Ultimately I still make the final decisions on all things APAT.  It was my vision seven plus years ago and while the market and the way we operate has had to change, the vision of giving players a great weekend poker experience still remains.  My favourite day of the year is when we publish the new season schedule.  I hope the next one will be bigger and better than ever, but we"re definitely going to need you guys to continue to give us some space to develop our strategy ahead of next year.

I need to spend more time on the forum too. 

Cheers,

Des.

[Paulie_D]

I think the "dogmatic rule setting" was more of a misunderstanding than anything else on Tom's part.

It"s his first time running a live event for APAT and there"s a lot to cover and take in and no-one get"s it right first time.

**

Notwithstanding the above, re your general concerns...no, you aren"t alone.

INSTA-EDIT

I see Des has already replied before I finished typing so I"ll leave it there.

[SirPercival]

WTF is going on with......

Player committee?

USP? what is it?

Vegas package added value? what exactly is it?

The current APAT strategy? what is it? (I"ve asked this year on year without a clear answer. tell me to GTF if you want I won"t be offended. I just think players can contribute more if they know the vision)

Online schedule. Has it been published? If yes, then even some of the hardcore have missed it.

Team games. Have they been devalued to the extent that Scotland couldn"t get 2 teams and the Welsh and Irish also had similar issues?

Online Leagues? are they happening soon?

LPPL? Do the members actual resent APAT as much as some people say?

The Travel Guru? More like a google geek IMO. Others try to make helpful sugggestions are are shot down instantly every time.

The management. Who does what? Who"s running the show?

The forum. when its working... How many members have stopped posting and why?

The transparancy that used to be there. Has it now gone?

The sponsorship. Is it an option and will it "fix" things?

A National event in Yorkshire? will it EVER happen?  

And finally......

Drinks at the bar? Will Des ever buy a round?  

[TheSnapper]

Just to clarify, the "dogmatic" aspect is not a single person observation, of course I understand the difficulties Tom faces, as with Mark he is in at the deep end trying to get up to speed whilst also carrying the considerable workload an Apat weekend offers.

As an example, for the recent DTD event, we ran sats for side events value £55, it wasn"t permissible to use these as part payment for the ME, a small thing like that did not fit with my previous Apat experiences. Previously my understanding maybe even expectation, was, so long as I wasn"t taking the piss I"d be looked after.

The difference is not one big change rather lots of small nuances that for me anyhow, have a combined effect of eroding that  indescribable Apat experience. I get the feeling I"m slowly becoming less a member and more a client if that makes any sense.

[Des]

I think the "dogmatic rule setting" was more of a misunderstanding than anything else on Tom's part.

It"s his first time running a live event for APAT and there"s a lot to cover and take in and no-one get"s it right first time.

Agree with that Paulie.

[Curlarge]

[Des]

I can"t do the fancy quoting, so answers in your post below.

Player committee?

DD: The players have a say in every significant decision we make.  But every player who contributes to a debate, not just a small number.

USP? what is it?

DD:  High quality tournaments at an affordable price.  Less of a USP these days due to market saturation.  Which is why we are working on developing APAT Local - which is home and club / pub based, qualifying players into APAT National.  That"s our core focus.  APAT Online needs work as our technical partner has not delivered the branding that we wanted for our site.  

Vegas package added value? what exactly is it?

DD:  Return flights and accomodation in Vegas during the WSOP with players taking part in an exclusive satellite where the winner will be entered into a $1k WSOP event.

The current APAT strategy? what is it? (I"ve asked this year on year without a clear answer. tell me to GTF if you want I won"t be offended. I just think players can contribute more if they know the vision)

DD:  GTF .....or see above under USP.  We want to create APAT Local, National and Online with one or two other complimentary products.  The market has changed and the deals that APAT were able to do in the past are not as easy to do today, despite the support of the members - and there are very few organisations that can drive the numbers that APAT can.  That requires us to be more self sufficient and is partly responsible for the more "business" feel to the site over the past year.  It"s not necessarily where we want to be, but it is where we need to be.

Online schedule. Has it been published? If yes, then even some of the hardcore have missed it.

DD:   http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14034.0

Team games. Have they been devalued to the extent that Scotland couldn"t get 2 teams and the Welsh and Irish also had similar issues?

DD:  That"s a question for the players but utimately if the demand doesn"t exist in the Home Internationals we"ll remove it from the schedule.  Seems a real shame to me though.

Online Leagues? are they happening soon?

DD:  Yes.  

LPPL? Do the members actual resent APAT as much as some people say?

DD:  Don"t be ridiculous Stuart!

The Travel Guru? More like a google geek IMO. Others try to make helpful sugggestions are are shot down instantly every time.

DD:  That seems unfair Stuart.  Helpful suggestions are always appreciated but your continued use of the word "soon" is probably a little tired now.

The management. Who does what? Who"s running the show?

DD:  APAT is my responsibility ultimately.  Tom will be very involved in our live tour as Matt is with our Online side.  We will be recruiting additional people also.  Plenty of opportunity for you to step forward and help out if you have the energy?  I"m sure we could use your skills.

The forum. when its working... How many members have stopped posting and why?

DD:  Over 5k unique players visit APAT every month.  Traffic is trending up as opposed to down.  We took on a dedicated server to cater for our growth in traffic which ultimately has been a mistake as we are unable to manage it at the level required.  We are in the process of moving the site to a managed server much more suited to our needs.  Discussions are ongoing with the tech people at the moment.

The transparancy that used to be there. Has it now gone?

DD:  What do you think?  I mean you and I meet at events two or three times a year minimum and you never ask any of these questions directly.  I"m an open book on this stuff.  Our aims are simple, to improve our tour and give people a good time.  As soon as I feel we aren"t doing that then I"ll be out the door.

The sponsorship. Is it an option and will it "fix" things?

DD:  Things aren"t broken in my opinion.  We have acquired LPPL this season and I would say we are distracted with trying to align those two products.  We have targeted the end of this season for that alignment to be in place. Amongst the things on our plate at the moment are new website on a stable platform, branding, leaderboards, home game registration, plus a whole big list of other things.

A National event in Yorkshire? will it EVER happen?  

DD:  This is more likely to happen than your last question.

And finally......

Drinks at the bar? Will Des ever buy a round?  

DD:  

[SirPercival]

The forum is a better place with you in it Des.

and if you have the time at any of the events, I"ll buy you the beer and happily discuss any of the issues.

[Des]

[SirPercival]

For the record Des I have no issue with LPPL and was only refering to what I and others have seen/heard in chat. I wasn"t being ridiculous even although those making the comments might be.

[AMRN]

I thought it was just me - I"m kind of relieved to hear other people voice concerns that I"ve felt for some time.   APAT doesn"t necessarily feel like APAT at times now - it used to have a very special feel, and that seems to have dissipated to some degree for some reason that I can"t put my finger on.

The difference is not one big change rather lots of small nuances that for me anyhow, have a combined effect of eroding that  indescribable Apat experience. I get the feeling I"m slowly becoming less a member and more a client if that makes any sense.

^ This seems to sum it up well.

[AMRN]

Having said that, and having reflected on Des" comments above, I do get the fact that the market and APAT's place within that market has changed significantly, and we have to adapt, particularly from a commercial perspective.

[Des]

I thought it was just me - I"m kind of relieved to hear other people voice concerns that I"ve felt for some time.   APAT doesn"t necessarily feel like APAT at times now - it used to have a very special feel, and that seems to have dissipated to some degree for some reason that I can"t put my finger on.

The difference is not one big change rather lots of small nuances that for me anyhow, have a combined effect of eroding that  indescribable Apat experience. I get the feeling I"m slowly becoming less a member and more a client if that makes any sense.

^ This seems to sum it up well.

I think this is a very fair comment and I"ll give you my view on it Steve.

APAT is a very busy thing now....it"s gone from being a standalone tour to having an online poker room and a 200 tournament a week pub poker business, all in the space of eighteen months or so. 

So where guys like Leigh and myself would have been completely across the the detail of what"s happening on the forum in previous years, these days it is difficult.  We are more "corporate" in the way we work almost - with specific responsibilities.  And the quantity of work is considerable across the APAT team.  As Leigh alluded to elsewhere, it doesn"t take long for the fun to fizzle out.

Now the theory behind creating all of this was good, APAT takes a little more control of our finances, become a little less reliant on market movements, while continuing to build on something we all believe in.  But it"s very easy to become busy fools and lose sight of the most important thing in our entire proposition - our customers.  I think the focus on online and local has taken our eye off the ball a bit and I have to take responsibility for that.  

I"m as excited and enthusiastic about APAT as I ever was - but I need to spend more time here in the forum ensuring any concerns that you guys have are addressed.  

[Sugar_Free]

For the record Des I have no issue with LPPL and was only refering to what I and others have seen/heard in chat. I wasn"t being ridiculous even although those making the comments might be.

To be fair, I think they are more against the APAT.com software than APAT itself, and who can blame them. Under BOSS it"s a dog"s breakfast.

I think the issue they have with APAT is more of a "we don"t really like change" one, a few more live weekends at one or other"s events and no more of the APAT v LPPL games will soon get us mingled.