APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championship

APAT · 02-05-2007 9:55pm #1

The Amateur Poker Association & Tour (“APAT”), in association with PokerStars.com, has announced details of the fifth live event in its critically acclaimed tour for non professional players.

APAT is the world’s first combined Poker Association and Tour, and will hold the Irish Amateur Poker Championship, at the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin, on June 2nd & 3rd, 2007.

The entry fee will be £75.00 and the winner will take home an expenses paid entry to a season four European Poker Tour event, in addition to the Irish Amateur title and a substantial cash prize. Players will not be required to pay a registration fee for the event and APAT standardised rules will be in operation at the Fitzwilliam.

Players will start the event with 10,000 in chips, and a structure designed to encourage creative play throughout.

Twenty seats will be available via a series of live satellites at the Fitzwilliam, from May 5th. Further details will be available from the venue and full contact details are available at APAT - Home.

Due to expected overwhelming demand, the remaining seats will be allocated via an email entry process on Friday 4th May at 9pm. The process for the email entry will be as follows:

An entry email address will be posted at www.apat.com at 9pm on May 4th.

APAT members wishing to enter the Irish Amateur Poker Championship should send an email, containing their full name and telephone number to the entry email address.

Seats will be allocated to the first 103 member emails received.

A listing of the 103 successful applicants and a 20 member reserve list will be posted at APAT - Home at 9pm on May 5th.

Successful members will be contacted via email or phone to process payment for the event on May 6th.

In season one, APAT features seven national and international events culminating in European and World Amateur Poker Championship events. Each APAT event winner will receive a cash prize, an engraved Championship Cup and an expenses paid European Poker Tour or World Series of Poker main event entry.

Tony Kendall, APAT Chairman, stated: “APAT are delighted to partner with PokerStars and the Fitzwilliam in bringing the inaugural Irish Amateur Championship to Dublin. APAT is ‘the’ affordable proving ground for players wanting to realise their potential in high quality live events, and a guaranteed added value prize pool is great news for our players. I look forward to welcoming existing and new APAT members to Dublin and am confident of giving you an outstanding experience.”

APAT Membership can be obtained online at www.apat.com. Individual Membership of the Association costs £10.

Further Information For Editors

Daniel Phillips won the inaugural APAT event, the English Amateur Championship in September 2006 and played in the EPT Copenhagen event as part of his winner’s prize.

Max Ward was the winner of the UK Amateur Championship in December 2006 and will play in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event as part of his winner’s prize.

Lee Mulligan won the Welsh Amateur Poker Championship in February 2007 and played in the EPT Dortmund event as part of his winner’s prize.

Phil Starrs was the winner of the Scottish Amateur Championship in April 2007 and will play in a season four EPT event as part of his winner’s prize.

For images or additional information on the Amateur Poker Association & Tour, contact Richard Prew on 07887 987044 or via media@apat.com, or visit the Press section at www.apat.com.

The Fitzwilliam Card Club

Clifton Hall
Lower Fitzwilliam Street,
Dublin 2,
Ireland

Tel: +353-1-611-4677
Fax: +353-1-611-4678
Email: info@fitzwilliamcardclub.com

Mellor · 02-05-2007 10:08pm

Can you pay without joining APAT, as most of the events will be in the UK we will not have access to them, a reduced entry fee should at least apply

phantom_lord · 02-05-2007 10:12pm

it's only a tenner stg!

LuckyLloyd · 02-05-2007 10:15pm

I travelled to Edinburgh for the last event on this tour. The structure allows a lot of play at the start though it skips key levels later on. That said, there was a fantastic atmosphere and a big tournament feel to the event. The standard is extremely mixed, ranging from bery good players to really bad tight weakies.

I would recommend this to any of the lower stakes players - a good experience and a shot at a really great prize. I will be in attendance in any case!!

shoutman · 02-05-2007 10:28pm

This looks great, I am definately playing this one as I presume a great deal of the younger generation will.... any word on the live sats in the fitz?

Goodluck2me · 03-05-2007 12:04am

do you have to e-mail them to enter or what? do you have to join up aswell?what was the clock lloyd?

insafehands · 03-05-2007 12:14am

£75?

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 12:19am

goodluck2me wrote:

do you have to e-mail them to enter or what? do you have to join up aswell?what was the clock lloyd?

You need to log onto www.apat.com and register. Then you need to send an email after nine o clock on Friday to secure a place (:( )

Total cost will be £85.

Structure in Edinburgh:

10,000 starting chips // 40 Minute levels

25 / 50
50 / 100
75 / 150
100 / 200
200 / 400
300 / 600
400 / 800
600 / 1200
800 / 1600
1000 / 2000
1500 / 3000
2000 / 4000 (at which point I was knocked out in 21st

)

Two big level skips. But there are no antes. They definately should include the 150 / 300 level. I shall send an email on the subject to them tomorrow.

EDIT: Bear in mind that there is an overlay as the EPT seat is added by Pokerstars to the prizepool. Prizepool will be £11250 with 15 paid so a top two finish would also be a nice enough cash touch.

DEmeant0r · 03-05-2007 12:34am

Can you pay the buy in by bank lodgement? My CC is maxed out atm

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 12:39am

DEmeant0r wrote:

Can you pay the buy in by bank lodgement? My CC is maxed out atm

I'm not sure mate. Check out the website and send an email to their support team to ask the question. You should receive an answer within 24 hrs.

DeadMoney · 03-05-2007 10:38am

I just received an email back from their support team. I also asked if it would be possible to send them the registration fee through cheque but they recommended that i use a family member or friends CC or stars account. Looks like this is the only way you can register.

5starpool · 03-05-2007 10:42am

Lloyd, are you saying that the seat is fully added to the prizepool, and that there will be cash prizes as well for all entry fees?

Ste05 · 03-05-2007 10:44am

5starpool wrote:

Lloyd, are you saying that the seat is fully added to the prizepool, and that there will be cash prizes as well for all entry fees?

That would be pretty sweet, I think even I'd play if that were the case... :eek:

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 10:48am

5starpool wrote:

Lloyd, are you saying that the seat is fully added to the prizepool, and that there will be cash prizes as well for all entry fees?

Yes. If nobody paid any money and the tournament went ahead with a £0 entry from each player - the first prize would be an all - expenses paid trip to an EPT event.

As such, the £75 entry fee will be divided in the normal fashion, with between 10 and 15% of the filed getting paid. Bear in mind that the Fitz will probably not be responsible for dividing the money. So expect a payout that is divided in gradual increments. The pay escalation in Edinburgh was very reasonable.

phantom_lord · 03-05-2007 10:52am

DeadMoney wrote:

I just received an email back from their support team. I also asked if it would be possible to send them the registration fee through cheque but they recommended that i use a family member or friends CC or stars account. Looks like this is the only way you can register.

did they give any details of paying via stars?

Ste05 · 03-05-2007 10:55am

So is this what happens:

1: You join APAT today for STG£10
2: They post up an e-mail address tomorrow @ 9PM,
3: The first 103 people that e-mail that address get to play??

5starpool · 03-05-2007 10:57am

I must have a word with my contacts at the Fitz to see if there is a shortcut into this. Unlikely though.

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 10:58am

Ste05 wrote:

So is this what happens:

1: You join APAT today for STG£10
2: They post up an e-mail address tomorrow @ 9PM,
3: The first 103 people that e-mail that address get to play??

Yup. 27 have already qualified online. And I presume the other 20 places are to be filled by the Fitz.

ollyk1 · 03-05-2007 11:09am

5starpool wrote:

I must have a word with my contacts at the Fitz to see if there is a shortcut into this. Unlikely though.

Dom,

As my Fitz contact anyway you can get me in on a shortcut to this??

5starpool · 03-05-2007 11:14am

If you pay for my trip to Athens I will

shrapnel222 · 03-05-2007 11:25am

will there be any online qualifiers for this, or only the fitz ones?

eoghan104 · 03-05-2007 11:28am

5starpool wrote:

If you pay for my trip to Athens I will

I payed for most of that last night Dom.....

Lloyd, I just joined that site there does that mean I still have to mail on Friday night? I wont be around would you say Saturday morning would be too late?

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 11:33am

eoghan104 wrote:

Lloyd, I just joined that site there does that mean I still have to mail on Friday night? I wont be around would you say Saturday morning would be too late?

I have no idea mate.

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 11:34am

shrapnel222 wrote:

will there be any online qualifiers for this, or only the fitz ones?

Online qualifiers are over. There were three qualifiers on Stars last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday - each of which put through nine players.

stevire · 03-05-2007 11:36am

any word on when there will be fitz sats??

Also if ur signing up with APAT, enter the promo code: Player51
get it at half price....

shoutman · 03-05-2007 11:39am

Just paid my fifteen spids to join APAT

5starpool · 03-05-2007 12:17pm

9pm on Friday is a horrendous time to have to register. Ironically I probably be be able to as I will be in the Fitz!!!

Ste05 · 03-05-2007 12:27pm

I signed up and just realised I'll be at Des Bishop tomorrow night, bollux, hopefully it won't fill up and I can sign up when I get home....

5starpool · 03-05-2007 1:00pm

Can you email on your phone? Get someone to text you the email address and then email from your phone maybe?

Ste05 · 03-05-2007 1:03pm

Clever thinking Dom, I might just look into that, I'm sure I'll find a way...

MickL · 03-05-2007 2:16pm

5starpool wrote:

If you pay for my trip to Athens I will

is athens nice this time of year wouldn fancy a holiday there mind you

Dub13 · 03-05-2007 2:53pm

MickL wrote:

is athens nice this time of year wouldn fancy a holiday there mind you

Going by your siganture I would say you would love to be going to Athens in a couple of weeks.;)

ollyk1 · 03-05-2007 3:00pm

It's been suggested to me that this thing is a bit of a sting to get people to register and that the number of new members will far outweigh the number of tickets on sale.

Can the poster "Apat" confirm how many tickets they have to sell and how many new members they normally get in these circumstances?

Can LLoyd confirm if he won his ticket online or just paid to go to Scotland?

Can I sign up for the tournie and membership at the same time?

I personally have met Tony Kendall ("Tikay" on Blonde poker) and I do trust him so I want to believe this is all above board but I wouldn't be adverse to some assurances to that effect....

MickL · 03-05-2007 3:15pm

Dub13 wrote:

Going by your siganture I would say you would love to be going to Athens in a couple of weeks.;)

thats irellevent i wouldn be anywhere else otrher than a dublin casino on may the 23rd dunno what othere sportin events that matter is on that day!!! :L:L

LuckyLloyd · 03-05-2007 3:25pm

ollyk1 wrote:

Can LLoyd confirm if he won his ticket online or just paid to go to Scotland?

Online Olly. And I was a member of the APAT for some time before the Edinburgh tournament.

ollyk1 · 03-05-2007 3:29pm

UnLuckyLloyd wrote:

Online Olly. And I was a member of the APAT for some time before the Edinburgh tournament.

Cheers Lloyd. That's what I thought. I'll probably still sign up but I was just voicing some concerns - I'm a cynical poker player when it comes to "value" I guess....:rolleyes:

Ste05 · 03-05-2007 3:36pm

Yeah, I kinda did the maths before I signed up, if the ticket is worth say 10k then they need 1,000 new members to break even, and then only 103 of them get tickets so I'd imagine 90% of people who sign up won't get a ticket, I also presume they make a profit on the enterprise so I presume it's probably a little more than 90% don't get to play.

APAT · 03-05-2007 6:00pm

Ste05 wrote:

Yeah, I kinda did the maths before I signed up, if the ticket is worth say 10k then they need 1,000 new members to break even, and then only 103 of them get tickets so I'd imagine 90% of people who sign up won't get a ticket, I also presume they make a profit on the enterprise so I presume it's probably a little more than 90% don't get to play.

Hi All,

No sting. This is the fifth major tournament that we have ran this season and the deal is this:-

Entry fee is £75. Sterling because the payment system is UK based. It is also extremely likely that we will pay in Sterling.

There is no rake or casino entry fee. APAT has negotiated that with the Fitz.

There will be a lot more entries than seats available. 99% of that demand will be from existing members. We sold the APAT Welsh Amateur Poker Championship at Grosvenor Cardiff out in six minutes. Over 220 seats.

The membership fee is completely incidental. I see someone posted the half price code from PokerPlayer magazine. I'm happy for you to use it.

The Fitzwilliam will run satellites and allocate 20 seats. Every one who enters a satellite for this event at the Fitz is eligible for a free membership.

First prize will be around £3,500 plus an expenses paid trip to a season 4 EPT event. The top 15 players will cash. The top 18 players will earn APAT ranking points. The top ranking player at the end of the season, in online and live play, will win an expenses paid entry to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure WPT event.

APAT is sponsored by PokerStars.com and PokerPlayer magazine. Both market leaders.

This month alone, we have had two page reviews of our last event in PokerPlayer and Bluff magazine, a half page in Poker Europa and been the major part of a 4 page article in WPT magazine on the state of poker in the UK. A tournament report on our last event, the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship, held at Gala Edinburgh, appeared on Sky Sports last week. A camera crew will be in attendance at the Fitzwilliam also.

No, we are not after your fiver!

Hope some of you guys get in.

Cheers,

Des Duffy
MD, APAT.

fl&sh · 03-05-2007 8:43pm

just tried the promo code and its coming up as invalid.

APAT · 03-05-2007 9:02pm

fl&sh wrote:

just tried the promo code and its coming up as invalid.

Works fine for me....make sure you have a capital P and no spaces...Player51

Goodluck2me · 03-05-2007 9:29pm

this is guna be great!

BHW · 04-05-2007 8:12am

joe are you not working that day!

In the fitz as a dealer!!!!!!!

ollyk1 · 04-05-2007 9:40am

APAT wrote:

Hi All,

No sting. This is the fifth major tournament that we have ran this season and the deal is this:-

Entry fee is £75. Sterling because the payment system is UK based. It is also extremely likely that we will pay in Sterling.

There is no rake or casino entry fee. APAT has negotiated that with the Fitz.

There will be a lot more entries than seats available. 99% of that demand will be from existing members. We sold the APAT Welsh Amateur Poker Championship at Grosvenor Cardiff out in six minutes. Over 220 seats.

The membership fee is completely incidental. I see someone posted the half price code from PokerPlayer magazine. I'm happy for you to use it.

The Fitzwilliam will run satellites and allocate 20 seats. Every one who enters a satellite for this event at the Fitz is eligible for a free membership.

First prize will be around £3,500 plus an expenses paid trip to a season 4 EPT event. The top 15 players will cash. The top 18 players will earn APAT ranking points. The top ranking player at the end of the season, in online and live play, will win an expenses paid entry to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure WPT event.

APAT is sponsored by PokerStars.com and PokerPlayer magazine. Both market leaders.

This month alone, we have had two page reviews of our last event in PokerPlayer and Bluff magazine, a half page in Poker Europa and been the major part of a 4 page article in WPT magazine on the state of poker in the UK. A tournament report on our last event, the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship, held at Gala Edinburgh, appeared on Sky Sports last week. A camera crew will be in attendance at the Fitzwilliam also.

No, we are not after your fiver!

Hope some of you guys get in.

Cheers,

Des Duffy
MD, APAT.

Cheers Des for the update.

I guess I could have gone away and done some more research myself but its better to get some clarification on boards straight from the horses mouth so to speak.

I'll be happy to hand over my £5 and take my chances

I hope to see you at the event in the Fitz.

Olly

shoutman · 04-05-2007 9:51am

Is it possible to guarantee your ticket by reserving one tonight paying for it etc and then if you win a sat in the fitz sell your ticket on? Albeit for face value of course.

cheers
Luke

connie147 · 04-05-2007 12:52pm

If you sold a 220 runner event in 6 minutes for the welsh tournament, why is the Irish leg being held where only half that can enter? Specially when you expect "expected overwhelming demand" for the seats available? Why limit it?

PS: not that i've anything against the Fitzwilliam. Just wondering why the tourneys being limited

shoutman · 04-05-2007 4:12pm

Feck just found out i've a prior engagement on the evening/night of the 2nd of June. Any idea what time play would finish at on the first day?

APAT · 04-05-2007 5:08pm

shoutman wrote:

Is it possible to guarantee your ticket by reserving one tonight paying for it etc and then if you win a sat in the fitz sell your ticket on? Albeit for face value of course.

cheers
Luke

The first challenge is to secure a seat tonight Luke....which is far from a given! However, if you do and then go on to win one in a satellite, then APAT will rellocate your purchased seat and refund you.

APAT · 04-05-2007 5:13pm

connie147 wrote:

If you sold a 220 runner event in 6 minutes for the welsh tournament, why is the Irish leg being held where only half that can enter? Specially when you expect "expected overwhelming demand" for the seats available? Why limit it?

PS: not that i've anything against the Fitzwilliam. Just wondering why the tourneys being limited

In reality, APAT could run the largest tournament ever seen in Europe tomorrow, if we could find the venue. We are guarding against running 3 or 4 days tournaments. Our events are for amateur players and asking you guys to take additional days off work is not on our agenda.

Next season, the vision is to offer regional qualifying into each national event. So for example, we might hold 7 deepstack qualifying tournaments in Ireland with the top twenty getting expenses paid entries to all of our events.

That will enable thousands of players to participate.

In doing this, it is worth remembering that every APAT event is run under our rules, with a player focussed tournament and payout structure. This is unique in poker today, where many casino chains have different rules from venue to venue. So we are looking to positively change many things in the game also. The APAT tour is a model of how we believe our members would want to regularly play poker.

connie147 · 04-05-2007 5:27pm

APAT wrote:

In reality, APAT could run the largest tournament ever seen in Europe tomorrow, if we could find the venue. We are guarding against running 3 or 4 days tournaments. Our events are for amateur players and asking you guys to take additional days off work is not on our agenda.

Next season, the vision is to offer regional qualifying into each national event. So for example, we might hold 7 deepstack qualifying tournaments in Ireland with the top twenty getting expenses paid entries to all of our events.

That will enable thousands of players to participate.

In doing this, it is worth remembering that every APAT event is run under our rules, with a player focussed tournament and payout structure. This is unique in poker today, where many casino chains have different rules from venue to venue. So we are looking to positively change many things in the game also. The APAT tour is a model of how we believe our members would want to regularly play poker.

I like your ambitions and I wish you the best of luck with the tournament.But I still dont understand how your not running the tournament in a way to allow more players into it. Is it that you want the tournament to be a definate sell-out with people disappointed that they didnt get in?
Is there a specific reason this tournament wasnt held in a bigger venue?

APAT · 04-05-2007 5:46pm

connie147 wrote:

I like your ambitions and I wish you the best of luck with the tournament.But I still dont understand how your not running the tournament in a way to allow more players into it. Is it that you want the tournament to be a definate sell-out with people disappointed that they didnt get in?
Is there a specific reason this tournament wasnt held in a bigger venue?

No, we had hoped that the Fitz could accomodate more than the 150 runners that we will start with on June 2nd. However, having spoken to Luke and the team, it is a challenge to find that many dealers for a 2.30pm kick off on a Saturday.

That said, we will bring 100+ players over from the UK for this event, and they will start to arrive on Friday. Bigger venue = more players = the need to go to 3 or 4 days. Unfortunatley it is not a bank holiday in the UK, so the work issues and additional hotel costs, means a really big event starts to move us into GUKPT and EPT territory.

One of the things that APAT offers is a 2.30pm on time start on day one, and play will stop around midnight, where players can go and have a few beers and really enjoy the whole experience. We don't want these guys playing at 4am in the morning.

I'm not saying we are right in all of our assumptions or decisions, but we have been exceptionally pleased by the reaction of our members to the tour so far. We will review all of these elements at the end of the season and change anything that sticks out as an issue.

ollyk1 · 04-05-2007 8:11pm

for anyone who's interested

apatireland@yahoo.co.uk

APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championship

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