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Amateur Poker Association & Tour Announces Irish Amateur Poker Championship

London, April 27th, 2007 –   The Amateur Poker Association & Tour (“APAT”), in association with PokerStars.com, today 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. 

150 seats are available and will be allocated in the following way:

•   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 www.apat.com.

•   Twenty Seven seats will be available in total, via three online satellites at PokerStars.com, taking place on Sunday 29th & Monday 30th of April and Tuesday 1st May at 8pm sharp.  These events will feature a $20 + $2 entry fee.

•   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 www.apat.com 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.

Sweet

great i will be at bB4 on sunday i will be traveling home on monday so i get 1 chance to win a seat

then its a guess the time bingo for the email

see you all at APAT europe

sorry just seen a time was given for the email

i might get in after all

Can I ask why the APAT have gone down the route of posting an Email address on the site to reply too, instead of what has happened in the past where the seats are allocated still on a 1st come 1st served basis via the payment method link?

That will be hard... What happens if emails are sent at similar times? Do we have to enable date and time/read reciepts? Will it be down to the seconds...If so how will it be judges and who by?

Jim read the other link...APAT Ireland!!! We'll have to start posting on this one

How come the change then guys.....we all know you like to see us moan and moan about another new and untried entry process!!?!?!?! Then end up on the reserve list!!!

The payment method link caused us problems in reliability, it has crashed in mid registration period for example, this is in effect a first come first served method another way

We have always said that we would work through a variety of methods in Season One before firming up in Season Two, with the strong possiblity of a broader online and (possibly regional) live qualifying process to lessen the impact of the "luck/draw" element in our situation which is a huge excess of demand for seats over supply of them.

Des will be overseeing the allocation, according to the time the emails are received

to quote the man himself on t'other thread

"The email entry route is being used on this occasion as we believe there is a real danger of overselling this tournament.  That could occur if a large number of players were at an early stage of the payment process on Metacharge as the 103rd player completed his transaction.

APAT do not envisage needing to use this method again, as we hope to move to regional qualifying for the domestic tournaments in season two.  APAT did not feel it appropriate to run a consecutive member draw either. 

The next phase of the APAT website developement will remove the potential to oversell.

The 103 seats will be allocated in strict order of receipt by APAT, ie order within inbox.  That can easily be independently verified.

Please work with us everyone.  We are doing our best to work with the tools at our disposal in season one.

Cheers,

Des"

Would that be a 100% qualifying or would APAT still anticipate some direct buy in?

I could guarantee that with a clickfest I can get a seat - but with even a 50 player qualifier, I couldn't guarantee that I could qualify because of the luck element. This means that those who can't afford to play a number of qualifiers will get priced out of going to APAT events unless some direct buy ins are retained.

What if someone forges the header on the email to show an earlier time?

Will be in Canada, so another event missed.
 :(

Which is why I suggested a form on the APAT website to send the entry email in.

I guess there are probably technical issues with this as well, with hundreds of users attempting to send the form in at the same time.

:dontask:

I have found a fool proof solution ....   





















Forget the poker, just book a flight now for those dates and go on the piss in Dublin instead ... if you get a place in the comp GREAT ...if not..shame, but Dublin is the bestest city in the world and the craic is good :)

Might well be a plan!  You going?

I'm going, regardless of entry, plan can be discussed this weekend.

Geo

 :cheers:

This does spring to mind....and it is quite easy to do.....There is also the possibility that the first one sent may not arrive due to servers and all the different doo-daa that can go wrong. What happens if it gets posted at 9 oclock on the website, but one arrives in the inbox at 8.58? Hmmm, lots of possibility's for error and judgement calls. No one way is right I know, but IMO this is joint worst along with drawn out of a hat.

E-bay with the 'buy it now' at the price with the quantity. That way you could not of oversold, there would of been plenty of different payment options. The only thing is you have to become a memeber of E-bay....

Not that anyone is doing any wrong, its trial and error, and I understand it must be hard for the people who have to make the decisions.

ebay wont do it flying pig as its entryto a gaming event and ebay/paypal don't approve

mind you with paypal not supporting betfair and ladbrookes it could be an optiion in the future

Yeah,,, i know it was half in jest... anyone could buy one then and have entry into the event....

is it just me or is the apat site not working?

Just you I think, or it could be a temporary issue.  It's fine for me at the moment...

site works again ... Ireland could be fun - I am considering to have my first APAT offline appearance (if I get a ticket)

See you there (hopefully) :)up

Hotel....Booked!
Flight...Booked!
Euros..Bought!
Poker...well, as I'm there anyway...there's loads of other cardrooms in town!

 7c 2h

Awesome, cant wait never been to Ireland so really wanna go, then again i'd never been to Scotland and ive been on this planet almost 22 years... :o

I just read this on the same thread on THMF...


I'll bet that's the first time tikay has been described as 'brand new' in a long while!!  ;hide;

 ;D

APA guys, say for instance there was one big online qualifier, how many people do you think would reasonbaly log on and play....then the amount for the tourney qualify for the live event?????

Any one managed to find these on PokerStars yet?

Cant find them any where

Ah good (I think?)... I thought it was just me.

I have been assured by PokerStars UK office that the sats will be up for our appointed dates.  However, seeing as they are not up yet, I've just sent an email to PokerStars support to confirm that the first sat is scheduled to go live later today.  Apologies for the confusion!

Des.

It's up..under Private. Panic over

What is the password for the internet qualifier tonight?

Same as normal

Please forgive my ignorance but what is 'same as normal'

I played in a live qualifier for APAT Cardiff, where i was told i automatically became a member of APAT.   Do APAT send out e-mails to members with the password?

send email to customer@apat.com.

Thanks Des. Will do

Now sorted.

Many thanks to Des for his speedy help with this.
 :)up

Rather uniquely, the three satellites are now listed within Tourney / Special and Tourney / Private, and hopefully easy to find for those intending to play.  Unfortunately we cannot offer double the seats  :)