S3 League almost here......... Numbers so far !

[Robbiebox]

Well just a few days till the league starts and these are the current numbers signed up for each team:

NORTH
Aberdeen ~ 3
Belfast ~ 20
Carlisle ~ 1
Dublin ~ 12
Dundee ~ 6
Edinburgh ~ 21
Glasgow ~ 26
Newcastle ~ 16
Stockton ~ 6
Sunderland ~ 3

CENTRAL
Birmingham ~ 14
Blackpool ~ 11
Bolton ~ 10
Leeds ~ 19
Liverpool ~ 26
Manchester ~ 20
Nottingham ~ 23
Sheffield ~ 13
Stoke ~ 3
Walsall ~ 17

SOUTH
Brighton ~ 9
Bristol ~ 17
Cardiff ~ 14
North London ~ 19
South London ~ 22
Luton ~ 21
Plymouth ~ 8
Southampton ~ 17
Swansea ~ 3
Thanet ~ 7

Questions for Debate............
Are the bigger clubs going to dominate due to numbers? Is the League format fair?  Will the players from the smaller clubs stop bothering all together as they have next to no chance or can we include them?

[HaworthBantam]

....will Stoke appear in the list for Central Division..?

[APAT]

I"m not sure what"s to debate Jon?  There are 400 players currently signed up, with a group email to go out tomorrow.  That is an absolutely fantastic response and this number will increase throughout the season. 

The club format is there primarily to create a structure to allow "local" poker to further develop in Season Four and beyond.

I will copy my response to a similar post that you made on PL.

It was always likely that some clubs would start with more players than others at the start of the League Jon, but it"s worth remembering that a maximum of 4 players can score points in any one event. The larger squads will have an advantage to start with, but such is the way of Leagues all over.

However, every team should have a shot at making third place in their Region and scraping into the final. From there it will be an even field of four players per team and the title and four GUKPT seats will be wide open.

We are going to try to take this League live in Season Four, so team performance in 2009 will determine the makeup of the divisions, as opposed to geographical split. So even if your team is unable to make the final in S3, they should want to get into Divison Two of the League in S4, as opposed to Division Three. We plan to get some serious sponsorship behind the League itself next year, so the higher a club finishes, the more prize money will be available to play for. That should keep everyone motivated througout this season.

It"s a bold plan, but we have to start at the start.

Cheers,

Des.

[AMRN]

I"m not sure what"s to debate Jon?  There are 400 players currently signed up, with a group email to go out tomorrow.  That is an absolutely fantastic response and this number will increase throughout the season. 

The club format is there primarily to create a structure to allow "local" poker to further develop in Season Four and beyond.

I will copy my response to a similar post that you made on PL.

It was always likely that some clubs would start with more players than others at the start of the League Jon, but it"s worth remembering that a maximum of 4 players can score points in any one event. The larger squads will have an advantage to start with, but such is the way of Leagues all over.

However, every team should have a shot at making third place in their Region and scraping into the final. From there it will be an even field of four players per team and the title and four GUKPT seats will be wide open.

We are going to try to take this League live in Season Four, so team performance in 2009 will determine the makeup of the divisions, as opposed to geographical split. So even if your team is unable to make the final in S3, they should want to get into Divison Two of the League in S4, as opposed to Division Three. We plan to get some serious sponsorship behind the League itself next year, so the higher a club finishes, the more prize money will be available to play for. That should keep everyone motivated througout this season.

It"s a bold plan, but we have to start at the start.

Cheers,

Des.

sounding good....

.... have you got the TV deal sorted Des? I can see it now - Channel 4 at 1am - APAT League Poker.

[HaworthBantam]

Jessie May commentating on a final table consisting of Scouse, kinboshi, Duke, JonMW et al. Priceless !!    

[APAT]

Jessie May commentating on a final table consisting of Scouse, kinboshi, Duke, JonMW et al. Priceless !!    

Think Jessie May would be surplus to requirements if that was your final table...

Will post some TV related news on the UK Amateur Championship discussion thread.

[Robbiebox]

Sorry Des, hadn"t noticed your PL post. I"m quite positive and open minded to it now I"ve seen the numbers of each side, I was getting concerned that it would be  dominated with super teams, but that doesn"t seem to be the case. Perhaps the title of the post was a bit controversial....I"ve changed it.

Yeh agree that it has great potential to lead to some sort of competition next year as a live event or two. There are a number of fair size teams in each section so I think it will prove to be quite a competitive league. And absolutely sure the Live Final will be a great day, sure hope to be there!

My post was made as a spark for discussion really regarding the small teams though, I personally think we are not being very inclusive for those players that have pre-signed with teams of say 5/6 or fewer.
I don"t know if it would be possible to do much about them now, re-sign or merge the v. small teams?

[APAT]

Sorry Des, hadn"t noticed your PL post. I"m quite positive and open minded to it now I"ve seen the numbers of each side, I was getting concerned that it would be  dominated with super teams, but that doesn"t seem to be the case. Perhaps the title of the post was a bit controversial....I"ve changed it.

Yeh agree that it has great potential to lead to some sort of competition next year as a live event or two. There are a number of fair size teams in each section so I think it will prove to be quite a competitive league. And absolutely sure the Live Final will be a great day, sure hope to be there!

My post was made as a spark for discussion really regarding the small teams though, I personally think we are not being very inclusive for those players that have pre-signed with teams of say 5/6 or fewer.
I don"t know if it would be possible to do much about them now, re-sign or merge the v. small teams?

I genuinely think the smaller clubs will grow Jon.  The forum only attracts a small percentage of the APAT membership, so with a few mailings and home page updates once the League hs started, we will find more and more players will join. 

The League is really a twelve month lead up to what could be something really spectacular, so its best we give every location a really good opportunity to develop.  We know each has a casino and cardroom, so time and word of mouth will do the rest.

[5 High]

if you are in a team of 4 and your 3 team mates do well and qualify even if you score 0 points you are guaranteed a seat at the final
if you are in a large team that qualifys and score well you could still be fighting it out with 10/20 or more players for a seat at the final
pros and cons for both i guess

[coprey]

Question:

If a Team qualifies for the final but there is a tie for points within the team i.e. 2 players joint 4th. On what basis is selection made then?

[AMRN]

I"m guessing a beer race....

[APAT]

Question:

If a Team qualifies for the final but there is a tie for points within the team i.e. 2 players joint 4th. On what basis is selection made then?

The player who has made the most scoring contributions would win the seat. 

If the players are still level, the player who has made the highest single round contribution would then go through. 

If they are still level, we would go to a heads up decider on Blue Square.

[cincicrappykid]

how about who is  the best looking  

[coprey]

how about who is  the best looking  

That would be unfair to my teammates.

[Paully28]

I am new to this league so forgive me if this is a daft question.  however, when we play tomorrow at 8pm i know that the top 9 get points for their region.  I have joined the central region table on bluesq, but wondered how it works.  I start off by playing against people in my own region, but later on in the tourney do the different regions combine so that you get a mix at different tables, or is it the last three from my region join the last 3 from the other two regions on the final table?
thanks