online league - I"ve found the team format very frustrating this year, due to not being able to get players to play. I"ve even pulled out tonight for the sake of an early night (and to write this post LOL). A lot of people like this the way it is so no real reason to change it. However when the online league was created it was with a view to it evolving into a live concept. Cant see that happening now so would like to see something different here. Still keep it low buyin but with a format that rewards individuals rather than the teams with the most players in. My suggestion would be an individual monthly league with 2 games a week. Top 10 play off for the place in an annual final for packages etc. Not really thought too much about this because I know most people prefer the current format....
betfair - top sponsorship deal this. Would like to see APAT players give a bit more back and maybe have something in place that would have players using the site more.
payout structure - surely time for a more conventional structure. I think day 1 should run until players are ITM. Alternates for 3 levels and money added to the payouts please
online nationals - sundays would be better, but could be a few bleary eyes at work the next day given the structure. I think 500BBs is too big a starting stack. keep it at 200BBs (4K starting stack) which is the same as live nationals and make the levels longer (20 mins maybe)
venues - I played Luton, DTD and Swansea this year
Luton - top venue - top dealers (when they got there)
DTD - just a superb venue. Wouldn"t change anything about this
swansea - apart from being in Swansea, this was a great venue - the dealers were inexperienced but did their best, were cheerful and listened to advice, so cant ask for any more there (apart from practice a bit more
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As much as it is convenient - I"m glad Manchester was canned this year. (terrible venue for poker). I would like to see Newcastle get a tourney next year. I didn"t play it in season 1, but those that did spoke very highly of Aspers (It also holds 200+ I think)
Would be interesting to see if APAT would make the move to hiring conference venues and putting on much bigger tournaments. This would also involve them having their own chips/tables/dealers (and security I suppose) so may not be a goer. Possibly get the sponsors to stump up here.
euro stops - There has been a general lack of interest in these from UK players. This is completely understandable as it invariably involves a day or 2 off work and the coast of travel / accommodation means you need a deep run in the comp for it to be profitable. Whilst profit is not the main reason people play APAT competitions, it is still a pretty big financial and time commitment to go to a another country and simply stay in a casino the majority of the time. Having said all that, the euro stops were extra tourneys on top of the usual schedule so again there is no reason to can them. I"m sure betfair enjoy the publicity in these other stops
pro league - Its not really taken off. I thought it was a great idea when it was conceived and was convinced it would grow to be a success. The 20K overall reward for the winner has seen the last few games play out as games within games with seemingly less interest in winning individual comps and single packages. Either increase the buyin or can it. I"d go for the latter. If it is canned then there may be an opportunity for another pro-am event like there was in S2.
buyins - I think $10 for the online league is fine and $50 for online nationals is pretty spot on. I think Inflation means that all live Nationals should now be £100 (same as the world champs).
I think thats it for now. I"m off to bed.
PS - Many thanks to Des, Rich and Leigh and everyone else who gives up their time to provide such great poker experiences for us all
PPS - My campaign for what I really mostly want for S5 starts here
