Last year for example 2 places were picked by a random draw by Leigh's girlfriend
Strange way to pick a team. May be how I got in, for all I know, but can"t see a justification for allocating such otherwise hotly-contested team places on this basis.
I hope no one would consider that I just gave away seats to anyone in last years team. I laid out what I hoped was a clear a fair method for my selection of the team, and bearing in mind the team was representing APAT, I always stated that at least one of the seats would be a random selection from everyone that showed an interest in playing, so irrelevant of APAT experience, success, involvement in the APAT community, anyone who was interested at least had a chance of being in the team.
Originally this was going to be for two seats, but when we had to reduce the teams from 10 to 8 players, that simply wasn"t possible, whoever, I stuck to my commitment as best I could and did one random pick.
To this day that person doesn"t know they were a random pick, and they never will. Everyone in the team deserved to be there, and I would say that about any of the 50+ members that showed an interest.
At one point last year, I even talked about being a non-playing captain so that I could fit someone else into the team, but had that one batted away by Des. (He clearly knows nothignn of my poker abilities, but we won anyway
)
Whoever we invite to captain the APAT Forum team has got a very tough job on their hands. They want to pick a team to retain the title, but at the same time I think it is important to have a team that fully represents APAT. I don"t mean regarding age, gender or geographical location. I refer to what APAT is about, and that is more than just winners, it"s the community, the friendships and the general good nature that is present in our structure.
But an even harder job than picking a team or retaining the title could be in then getting the trophy from Des.