APAT

At the weekend I managed to get myself a seat at the UK Amateur Poker Championship which is being held at The Aspers Casino in Newcastle at the start of December. It’s Part of the APAT (Amateur Poker Association & Tour) which has already staged one event so far this year in Birmingham.

The idea behind the APAT is to give amateur players the chance to play a deep stacked live tournament for a nominal buy-in, and bring players away from the shot stack rebuy tournaments which are typically offered in casinos. Most of the live games I play follow a structure of a 800 starting chip rebuy tournament where the blinds reach 200/400 after an hour and a half. It’s a brutal structure and the rebuy period is typically (for me anyway) an expensive one.

Other than that it’s just excuse to go on a night out in Newcastle, which I hear can be a gloriously messy affair, and meet a few players from ITH who are also attending the event. There is a WSOP package up for grabs for the two day event. A field of just 210 runners should make for some interesting and creative play and if I get knocked out early I have a few people to rail.

I’m really looking forward to it now. I hope this will be the first of many trips to live events outside of my normal haunts. Reports from the previous event in Birmingham suggest that there aren’t really any bad players and that the field is generally quite good. Hopefully it will give me some valuable experience of more structured live play, which will help if I ever decide to frequent the WSOP or any EPT events.