APAT Over Subscribed ! Whats the answer ?

[Ken Jude]

In my opinion it hard to call it the "English Championship" unless a structure exists that allows everyone to qualify - and we have the regionals/onliners to do just that. However I"d like APAT to eliminate all the £75 direct buy-in lottery and increase the number of qualifying places in the regionals. I wouldt give the £75 cash or ticket option. Players at the regionals should be members of APAT not just locals who happend to turn up for a game and have no interest in APAT or the championships.

If you take sponsorship, as APAT has to to do to make this work (and give value) then there are conditions that inevitably come with that. One of those conditions, as I understand it, is that anyone that turns up and pays to play on the day at the regionals gets membership. Some of the fields at the first round of regionasls would hae been a bit grim without those players, worsening the value compared to travel costs for APAT members who travelled.

And on that point, if you add in more seats at the regionals then you reduce the value at the top end of the prize scale and you reduce the incentive to actually try to win one of them. Which also potentially reduces the standing and value of the regional championships.

At Luton there was a slight sense that reaching the final 7 was the main point (it was certainly an initial trigger point for me being satisfied with the day"s work and it was only once that was achieved that I started considering that I had a chance of winning it) and there was a sense among some that relative positions didn"t matter that much on the final table (the cash on top of the seat was the same for three of the positions and went up more from 3rd to 2nd than 2nd to 1st).

So you already had a flatter payment structure than would be the norm in a tournament paying 7 places and there was already a sense that winning wasn"t necessarily important. Any more dilution of the value for the final positions would worsen that in my opinion.

So, I don"t think there should be a change to the top 10% payment structure at the regionals. There is a championship associated to them, relative positions on the final table matter, and they deserve a structure that makes them worth winning from a financial return perspective (some people will have significant time and travel costs associated with playing a regional in some parts of the country) and thus helps maintains the integrity of the regional championships.

There won"t be much kudos attached to being regional champion (or even winning an event) if people stop caring once they"ve achieved their seat and decide that they"re happy to chuck their chips in, take their seat and whatever cash they get at that point, so they can head over to the ring games.

[cabbie007]

I think poeple love the idea of APAT which is shown in the membership growing and growing. But what happens if it grows say to 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 which I think it could well do. I think the membership has out stripped expection in the first 12 months creating a monster for APAT, Season Two i think will also be above expection. I just hope members stay and follow Apat into glory ! lol

SHOW ME THE MONEY $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Maybe the regionals could grow to 200+ with Super Nationals ? I have not got the answers. I just wanted to start debate to bring up ideas for the future plus to test the waters on the memberships views of the future.

I am sure APAT will be doing their up most to make APAT bigger better for all in time.
Its great to see the debate   :"(

[Jon MW]

could we not just have 2 or 3 day 1"s and allow 600 to play?

What about the people who couldn"t get the time off work to play any other time than the weekend?

[Jon MW]

In my opinion it hard to call it the "English Championship" unless a structure exists that allows everyone to qualify - and we have the regionals/onliners to do just that... 

We also have the clickfest method - there is absolutely no practical reason why anybody couldn"t get a seat using this method.

... However I"d like APAT to eliminate all the £75 direct buy-in lottery and increase the number of qualifying places in the regionals...

It isn"t easy for me to get to the nearest regional casinos to me - it is highly likely that anytime I get deep in one I will be on the streets until the next morning waiting for the first train home, but I can at least make it.

What about the people who - absolutely can"t make it to the regional tournaments?

Would you suggest that they are just excluded from APAt National Championships because of this? And similarly, live and online can be very different - would you exclude those people who don"t like playing online from them - because that could be the practical effect of increasing the number of qualifiers through online satellites.

...I wouldt give the £75 cash or ticket option....

So you would effectively want to turn the Regional Championships into a series of satellites? As alluded to in an earlier post this would utterly destroy the credibility of the results as so many people would stop trying once their seat was secure.

What would you really prefer - a number of satellites, or a genuine Regional Championship?

I personally would wait to see the cumulative effect over the whole season before jumping to conclusions, but my intuition suggests to me that the other way would be more effective. If the Regional Championships did not provide a seat (other than the big prize at the end for the Champion), ie if they were not a satellite at all, this would reduce demand for the Regionals (which I think will come in very handy when they start filling up). And it would increase the supply of seats for the clickfest - making it less manic and give a larger margin for success for the number of people who are committed to entering the National Championships.

I would reiterate that this is my first impression, and at the end of the season I will be perfectly happy to concede that I was wrong if the evidence suggests otherwise. I don"t think that there is anything spectacularly wrong with how it is now, I would expect there to be a few tweaks to improve the format next season but that we will only be able to get a good idea of what they have to be when we get the full dataset of results for how Season 2 has panned out.

So my ultimate conclusion is: why don"t we wait and see?
(for a little bit at least)

[Digger]

I"ve sent my applicaiton to deed poll.

Changing my name to 0000001AAAAAAAAAAAADaniel...

Thought I"d just go for Aaron  

[Jon MW]

I"ve sent my applicaiton to deed poll.

Changing my name to 0000001AAAAAAAAAAAADaniel...

Thought I"d just go for Aaron  

I"ll go for Aaaaaron then

[TightEnd]

Allowing alternates would ease the pain!  

Actively considering this, announcement about arrangements soon..including late entries (ie those on the player list who are not in the casino for 4pm)

[asarge]

I"ve sent my applicaiton to deed poll.

Changing my name to 0000001AAAAAAAAAAAADaniel...

Thought I"d just go for Aaron  

I"ll go for Aaaaaron then

Oi!!! i know my name would come good for something. now i dont want everyone haveing it   cheers, aaron

[Slayersboyuk]

Re Ken"s Summary of Luton Regional.

I am one of the seemingly unpopular, "joined on the day" people.

Now I had heard of APAT, but never got around to joining until i ventured to Luton and the Regional was on, instead of the usual £10 rebuy, so when the guy explained what it entailed i thought great.

To cut a long story short, I was Chip leader at the start of the final table and Yes, once we were down to 7 I did take the attitude that I did not want to sit there for 3 more hours for an extra £40 or whatever it was, so decided to have a bit of fun and play ultra loose and ended up 6th I think, if that upset anyone, my apologies.

Had I understood there were medals for the regional, I would have played differently (when asked the cardroom manager knew nothing about medals - so I thought the person asking was mixing up the regional with the biggun).

Roll on Walsall - I look forward to having a great weekend there with you guys.

And I promise, no ultra loose play........

DW

td - I"m with Daniel Negreanu on this hand!

[HaworthBantam]

Welcome to APAT.

The first regional events were not advertised widely, so it"s no surprise that you didn"t know too much about the event. This will change for leg two in November.

Enjoy the National in Walsall.

[kinboshi]

...Yes, once we were down to 7 I did take the attitude that I did not want to sit there for 3 more hours for an extra £40 or whatever it was, so decided to have a bit of fun and play ultra loose and ended up 6th I think, if that upset anyone, my apologies.

Nothing to apologise for.  As long as you weren"t abusive and didn"t break any rules, no one has any right to make you play one way or another.  You could open shove every hand - they"re your chips and you can play them as you deem fit.

I"ve played in tournaments when people don"t care about anything except winning it.  So they"ll play for the win and not consider laddering up the prizes.  Others are quite content to fold their way up the ladder to win a little bit more without risking it for the big prize.  Neither is wrong (it might not be what you"d do, but they can do what they like).

If you"re in a regional, and are using it as a sat to the Nationals, once you have a seat you might want to shove every hand blind.  No one can complain if you do - it"s within the rules and you"ve paid your money to enter.

See you in Walsall!

[londonpokergirl]

I won my seat at the Vic came 3rd great fun see u in walsall

[kinboshi]

Mel runs good!!

[Ken Jude]

Nothing to apologise for.  As long as you weren"t abusive and didn"t break any rules, no one has any right to make you play one way or another.  

I agree also - no apology necessary. I wasn"t complaining or upset, merely outlining why I think, for the good of the the regional championships, that the prize structure of the regionals shouldn"t be flattened and lengthened.

[Slayersboyuk]

Thanks Ken,

I thoroughly Enjoyed it, had fun with some good people on the final table (yourself included) and am counting the days til Walsall.

Good luck to you there, I wish everyone all the best and hope you all come 2nd!  

Daz

td - I"m with Daniel Negreanu on this hand!