Dear Des, wtf is going on

[Matt D]

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.

Have to agree. In retrospect (and I probably should have realised before), that was a bad idea for an opening series of games. It was meant as a bit of fun, and to encourage some banter, players getting to know each other etc. However, it seemed only to be divisive, and even lead to accusatons about the software favouring certain teams, players. etc.

[Scousebill]

For anybody who doesn"t know I"m going to Dublin this weekend for the Boylesports IPO... This was won on one of the LPPL/APAT leagues.. I will try to get a general feeling of the merge. That"s if I am not to full of Guinness...

[Curlarge]

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?  

Stu, whilst I have noted your "jousting" with Paulie of the past 18 months or so on here, I have to say that your comments are wholly inappropriate and disrespectful towards him and likely to cause a fair bit of a annoyance to people who value his guruing, which is after all, done on "our" behalf.

I"m sure that Paulie will admit to being a tad abrasive on occasions, and I"m sure we have all experienced that from time to time, but he does it for free, it is very helpful to a lot of people, and is totally selfless IMHO.

His "forthright" approach is just his way and not everybody "gets" his humour I understand that, but to suggest he is just a google geek is quite honestly a joke, particularly coming from someone of your standing within the Apat community.

I value your friendship as much as I value his, but this is over the line mate.

[SirPercival]

Rich, I am not critising Paulies advice and I certainly had no intention of being disrespectful. Nor do I question his commitment to the cause or claim he is selfish.

My "issue", as I have voiced on a few occasions is the way in which others are stomped on. What you refer to as abrasive. I can be abrasive for free too, doesn"t make it right.

Big Al trying to offer advice on taxis
http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14198.15

In fairness to Paulie he did apologise to Al for this one, but only after Al displayed his annoyance.

I could find other examples but I fear I am wasting my time. I was only trying to express what many others in APAT have said to me privately. I am genuinly trying to help and I do apologise if I have gone about it the wrong way.

The "Google Geek" was meant as a joke. I thought it was a compliment (I for one am rubbish at using google/the internet to it"s fullest capability). It was in hindsight a bad way for me to get across my point and for that I apologise.

[Curlarge]

Rich, I am not critising Paulies advice and I certainly had no intention of being disrespectful. Nor do I question his commitment to the cause or claim he is selfish.

My "issue", as I have voiced on a few occasions is the way in which others are stomped on. What you refer to as abrasive. I can be abrasive for free too, doesn"t make it right.

Big Al trying to offer advice on taxis
http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14198.15

In fairness to Paulie he did apologise to Al for this one, but only after Al displayed his annoyance.

I could find other examples but I fear I am wasting my time. I was only trying to express what many others in APAT have said to me privately. I am genuinly trying to help and I do apologise if I have gone about it the wrong way.

The "Google Geek" was meant as a joke. I thought it was a compliment (I for one am rubbish at using google/the internet to it"s fullest capability). It was in hindsight a bad way for me to get across my point and for that I apologise.

nuff said and we move on.

[Fatcatstu]

http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=14190.0

I wonder if frank ever recovered from this brutal stomping from Paulie Pot?

Oh no, wait, he was thanked for his input.

[ian.ski309]

I think Brendan should be given credit for having the cojones to post this thread. Like others have mentioned above, I have heard the collective concerns of other players at recent APATs like the rumbling of distant thunder. The most commonly held view is that APAT is losing it"s personal touch as it becomes more of a corporate entity and in this context Leigh's departure is huge. Although it may be accurate, the use of phraseology such as "development roadmap" and "market movement" does little or nothing to reverse this perception. I sent a PM to one of the APAT management team four days ago and never received so much as an acknowledgement. Nothing I say here is intended as criticism in any shape or form, as I believe that there"s a reason for everything and we are not always privy to the reason, but this merely further illustrates the point.

I"ve always thought of APAT as an "extended family" where a large network of true friendships have been forged over a number of years. Whatever the future holds for APAT, without that "personal touch" I fear it may lose the uniqueness and the familiarity which we have all come to know and love.

[Matt D]

I think Brendan should be given credit for having the cojones to post this thread. Like others have mentioned above, I have heard the collective concerns of other players at recent APATs like the rumbling of distant thunder. The most commonly held view is that APAT is losing it"s personal touch as it becomes more of a corporate entity and in this context Leigh's departure is huge. Although it may be accurate, the use of phraseology such as "development roadmap" and "market movement" does little or nothing to reverse this perception. I sent a PM to one of the APAT management team four days ago and never received so much as an acknowledgement. Nothing I say here is intended as criticism in any shape or form, as I believe that there"s a reason for everything and we are not always privy to the reason, but this merely further illustrates the point.

I"ve always thought of APAT as an "extended family" where a large network of true friendships have been forged over a number of years. Whatever the future holds for APAT, without that "personal touch" I fear it may lose the uniqueness and the familiarity which we have all come to know and love.

Apologies, that was me who didn"t reply. I was away from home (and therefore my computer) Friday 6AM (arg!) until last night, and therefore only saw the message then. Replying to all the PMs I received in the period I was away, is on my "To Do" list for today. So you would have received a reply today. If not, tomorrow for sure.

Hard not to take that as a criticism tbh, though it really was unavoidable in this case.

[MintTrav]

I have known Tom virtually from when I first played in LPPL six years ago. I think that when people get to meet him at tournaments, they will realize that a lot of the things that they value about APAT will still be there. He is an excellent organizer, but is also a very down-to-earth guy who enjoys the craic. LPPL has just as much of a community or extended family feel as APAT. They have 400-600 players at their National event every year and Tom knows the overwhelming majority of them on first-name terms, so I expect that any fears about the personal touch being lost are likely to prove unfounded.

I see that there is a Jim Brady entered for the Glasgow tournament. If that is Tom's father, I can tell you from personal experience that anyone who is drawn on the same table as him is guaranteed to have a hoot.

[AJDUK]

As Brendan has already clarified, these issues are not about Tom. Just because a bunch of things have happened to set this thread off doesn"t mean that nothing was wrong, or sliding the wrong way, before. They"re just symptoms or perhaps examples.

[AJDUK]

The Fitz were extremely challenging to work with and I have to say it"s unlikely we would go back again.  Given the numbers that we have always previously got in Dublin I"m surprised that we didn"t have a larger contingent over, which ultimately is why Mark was there on his own. I was due to travel also, but the numbers didn"t suggest it was going to be a two person update. 

Personally I think it"s critical to keep Ireland in the mix, but next year we will have to manage it differently.  Firstly we need a better venue and the Emporium is the obvious choice (they couldn"t do our dates this year).  Secondly we need to partner with an Irish promoter to ensure the event has a big Irish contingent playing.  We"ve already had a topline discussion with Stephen Mclean about this.  Some of our events have a strategic purpose (Las Vegas for example) while others should always be core - and that includes Ireland for me.

As one of the very few that travelled, I have to say I really enjoyed playing at the Fitz. I really liked it last time too.
Their free food and drink is bang on and something missed these days. I"d rather have a 20 min break with food on tap than a 1 hour break where I wait 45 minutes for an order to turn up and then have to scoff it at the table or worse run somewhere else. Dealers were excellent, knowledgeable and fun people. I"d say the lack of 1 dealer at the start is probably them having more of a clue about how many would turn up than we did. I"d be sad to go elsewhere. But wherever we go, if no effort is put in to promote the event then no-one will turn up. How hard can it be to send them a few flyers to stick on their wall and make sure there is a banner or two in their reception?
Plus a tad more promotion to the faithful over here wouldn"t go amiss.
Sorry but even re-reading your response tells me there were more issues on the APAT side than with the Fitz. At least on the face of it.

Given the numbers that we have always previously got in Dublin I"m surprised that we didn"t have a larger contingent over

Really? It wasn"t a surprise to me.

[BOINGBLITZ]

Would just like to throw my opinion into the ring for what it is worth.......

Have always found Brendan to talk nothing but sense and I think he is more or less on the mark with his comments here.
Des responds by saying that APAT has to move forward and I also respect that view too.

But......

IMO APAT is now totally alien to what it used to be.

When it began it was an affordable British tour and over 3 or 4 seasons we saw regular players playing most if not all the events.
When the BCPC was founded in 2008 our core players were almost all APATers and those who were not were encouraged to play also. We went en-masse to Dublin, Cardiff and Edinburgh and supported each other for those weekends and had some great times and happy memories.
 There was the rankings to aim for. You WANTED to play every event and were gutted if you missed one.

Now, sadly, all that has gone. There is no real point to playing every event unless you have a job/ bank balance/ family that will allow travel to Prague, Vegas, etc.....
  I am afraid that while it is good to meet up with familiar friendly faces on the APAT weekends still, it will never be the same now.
 APAT has a global vision and that is fine. It just means isn"t what it used to be and in my opinion (and I don"t think I am alone in this one) that is a great pity.
  The loss of Tighty & Leigh is sad. Mark"s decision to quit was also a shocker on my return from holiday.  These are respected, experienced and knowledgeable people in the amateur poker community.  Why are they all leaving?
 I will still look forward to playing APAT events and support APAT through the BCPC where possible but, sadly, I feel it is now a different animal and not a better one.
     
 

[MintTrav]

Nothing stays the same for ever. No-one stays in their job for ever. It is to be expected that some people associated with APAT will move on to other things.

When I started playing APAT, there was one tournament for the weekend. Day 1 would be great, but on Day 2 the casino would be like a ghost town, with just the three tables or so who were left, some APAT management and maybe a half a dozen watchers. Frankly, it was depressing.

Then Day 2 tournaments were introduced and the whole feeling changed. Some people played them, others stayed around and Day 2 became fun.

More recently, the Cash Tour has been introduced on Friday night.

It has now been improved further. The best-prepared briefing document I have ever seen shows that, in Glasgow, there will be:

Friday:
Cash Tour Qualifier

Saturday:
Main Event
Cash Tour Qualifier

Sunday:
Cash Tour Final
Main Event Day 2
Pub Poker tournament (okay, not really for us)
PLO tournament
Dedicated APAT-only cash tables

A full weekend of poker, non-stop from Friday night til Sunday night if anyone wants to play that much. In short, the best offering APAT has ever made outside of the WCOAP/ECOAP. It is a dramatic contrast with the weekends of a couple of years ago.

The following week, APAT will be holding a tournament in Las Vegas for the second time, followed shortly after by a tournament in Prague. I don"t know how they have done it, but they have managed to attach APAT to the WPT event.

There are still plenty of APAT events in the UK. A few months ago, they gave us the opportunity to play at Wembley, the only players outside the ISPT to get that chance.

There was a super online team league that went on for a few months earlier in the year and another one is promised.

WTF is going on Des?

[AAroddersAA]

John makes some excellent points here. Let"s be fair, you cannot honestly say that the product offered by APAT is not still good. I will be doing Vegas and Prague which I am looking forward too immensely. The atmosphere generated at these events remains great and the community remain some of the best people in the world that will support APAT as they try to break new ground in the poker world. The weekends are becoming more like mini festivals which is great and event though I have not had a great chance to play it yet, the cash tour is a great idea and one I would love to see developed. APAT only cash tables are also a great idea and I hope it takes off, hopefully they will be a success in Scotland.

It is true things have to change, which is not a bad thing. There are a few things that APAT could address though to make the current product event better:-

When Tighty and Leigh were on the forum questions always got answered, even if they were not able to give an answer straight away you were kept up to date with what was happening. Can I draw attention to this thread as an example. The questions about the National Online League and the APAT rep travelling to Vegas have been out on the forum for a while but there is no answer to them. With the event in Vegas being in less than three weeks time I would hope that the answer to this is therefore

http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=13889.225

Something that might seem silly to some people as well is the live updates. They use to give you a real sense of being there if you missed an event or you could read through the live updates and really enjoy them when you returned from the event. It is something I used to really enjoy doing. Over the last few events the live updates seem to have been missing that.

Overall I am very happy with the APAT product and understand that people like Tighty, Leigh and Mark will sometimes have to move on and as an onlooker APAT certainly seem to have a strong team in place. Look forward to attending the rest of the events this year which are going to be awesome and I am sure Season 8 will be highly anticipated.

[Des]

I think Brendan should be given credit for having the cojones to post this thread. Like others have mentioned above, I have heard the collective concerns of other players at recent APATs like the rumbling of distant thunder. The most commonly held view is that APAT is losing it"s personal touch as it becomes more of a corporate entity and in this context Leigh's departure is huge. Although it may be accurate, the use of phraseology such as "development roadmap" and "market movement" does little or nothing to reverse this perception. I sent a PM to one of the APAT management team four days ago and never received so much as an acknowledgement. Nothing I say here is intended as criticism in any shape or form, as I believe that there"s a reason for everything and we are not always privy to the reason, but this merely further illustrates the point.

I"ve always thought of APAT as an "extended family" where a large network of true friendships have been forged over a number of years. Whatever the future holds for APAT, without that "personal touch" I fear it may lose the uniqueness and the familiarity which we have all come to know and love.

Good post Ian but there are a couple of things I"d like to address. 

Firstly, Brendan was absolutely right to make the original post.  However I don"t believe he really required "cojones" to do so as I believe APAT has always been open to well reasoned feedback, whether good or bad.  And Brendan is one of the most well reasoned guys in the whole group.

Secondly, maybe I"m wrong (its been known!), but I didn"t necessarily want to dumb down my language when talking about stuff like the roadmap and market, when it s preoccupying our thoughts at the moment.  Even though I think like that, I would hope that anyone who knows me from APAT wouldn"t consider me "corporate" when they meet me at events.  I do deal with corporate types when representing APAT externally and I"d like to think I represent us well in that environment.

Finally the personal touch is important.  I wouldn"t want us to lose that in any way.  We"ve had some personnel changes over the years and I"d like to think all of the people who represent the management at APAT events are personable and know our members.  This is a tougher ask of new management members in the short term, but Mark certainly had it and once the members get to meet and know Tom, they"ll quickly recognise what a good guy he is and it will not take him long to get to know you guys.