Truth is, we"ve failed to deliver a significant event in Ireland over the past two to three years and I had actually told the guys to pull the leg this year, for the reason that I felt it important to simplify the overall schedule and commit to delivering the events we were focusing on, to a higher quality.
Imho the failings here of late were largely down to poor advertising within the Irish poker community, a presence on Irish poker boards with advanced notification of the event would have a huge impact on numbers.
I"ve always wanted to do a big Irish event and felt that S9 would be the time to do it, when we hadn"t so many other projects to work on like merging our websites etc, as we do this year.
When Tom came back with an Irish event with a difference - PLO, in a hotel setting by the airport, and with the support of an Irish promoter, then I was happy to see it included. To make the event stand out on the Irish calendar it needed a point of difference - hence the decision to go with PLO.
I have touted the Independent operator hotel based event to you previously, it"s a tried and trusted format in the Irish poker market and always seemed to me to be ideal for the travelling Apat contingent, so bravo for that excellent change.
Maybe I am being a little selfish here but holdem is my game and to have my single home Apat event changed to PLO is devastating tbh. An Irish Apat leg without a holdem main event offers no appeal whatsoever to me personally.
I understand there may be a market for a two day well structured PLO event but would it make more sense to fit that in over the big Stratford WCOAP schedule where its impact on the two card player is less invasive.
