The March issue focusses on the launch of Season 4, and carries interviews with Season 4 National & Online Ranking Winners Steve Redfern and Brian Yates, and an interview with APAT tv hostess Maylis Boardman.

In addition there are tournament reports on the European Individual & Team Championships, the UK Team Championship and last weekend’s Welsh Online Championship.

APAT are also pleased to announce a tie up with the uk arm of PokerNews.com under editor Barry Carter; who will provide general poker news to APAT members from the UK Poker Circuit.

So for your chance to win one of two seats on offer to the DTD leg of the UKIPT, and to catch up on our Season 4 schedule for Amateur Championship, Professional League and Specialist Series tournaments, click to read!

APAT Magazine

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Bayliff: APAT Welsh Online Champion

The first Online Championship event of APAT’s fourth season featured a high quality field and provided a final table packed with some long standing APAT members.

One hundred and forty four players entered the APAT Welsh Online Poker Championship. The $50 buy in gave them all a shot at a $2,500 first prize, Championship title, Gold Medal and an entry to a £1,070 buy in Grosvenor UK Poker Tour event. As normal in Championship events, players started with a 10,000 chip deep-stack and 15 minute blinds.

Within fifteen minutes of the start we had already lost one player as ‘Robmc01’ had fallen foul to the kings full of jacks of ‘Miiiiiikeee’ and after four and a half hours of play, ’Roscopiko’ burst the final table bubble and exited in tenth place. This left the final table line up as follows:

Ayendell (256k)
Adidap (249k)
Squirrel69 (204k)
Marmite3465 (200k)
Bobyrabit (137k)
Suzy666 (131k)
Thinker28 (129k)
CH3LS3A (68k)
SJW1970 (53k)

The first exit on the final table saw ‘SJW1970’ depart in 9th place. Short stacked to start with, the rivered straight of ‘adidap’ won the all-in pre-flop pot, moving ‘adidap’ to over 300k.

‘Bobyrabit’ finished in 8th place as the action continued, with most three-bets were enough to take down the early pots. ‘Squirrel69’ then doubled through off of ‘adidap’ when pocket jacks won the coin-flip against AQ. Those chips didn’t last long for ‘Squirrel69’ as next hand ‘CH3LS3A’ got the same result when 77 came up against AQ of ‘Squirrel69’.

Out in 7th place was ‘Ayendell’ who had lost over half their stack on an earlier coin-flip and was now the short-stack. ‘CH3LS3A’ raised it to 25k, ‘Ayendell’ shoved all-in from the big blind and ‘CH3LS3A’ made the call. A flopped straight was more than enough for ‘CH3LS3A’, leaving ‘Ayendell’ drawing dead.

Down to six players, and by far the quietest player on the table had been ‘Thinker28’. He had played aggressively leading up to the final table and made the most of the bubble situation to build his short stack. He got his double up when his AK came up against the AJ of ‘Squirrel69’ and the flop of TKK sent him up to 240k.

The short-stacked ‘Squirrel69’ then calls the 30k bet of ‘marmite3465’ from the big blind and finds their AQ in good shape against the K2 of ‘marmite3465’. However a deuce on the flop is enough to finish ‘Squirrel69’s game in 6th place.

With five players left, the chipleader was ‘marmite3465’, who had 650k of the 1.4m of chips in play. Quietly going about his business, he had built up the stack gradually. With the blinds at 10k/20k/2k, the action was becoming quick. ‘CH3LS3A’ min raised and was called by ‘adidap’ in the big blind. On a flop of QAJ, ‘adidap’ goes all-in and eventually gets called by ‘CH3LS3A’. The A3 of ‘adidap’ was enough to knock out ‘CH3LS3A’ and his Q9 in 5th place.

A few hands later and ‘marmite3465’ is raising up the pot with a 4 and a 5. The King Ten of ‘Thinker28’ was looking good until the river card completes a straight for ‘marmite3465’ and ‘Thinker28’ departed in 4th place.

The three way battle saw chip stacks fluctuate dramatically, eventually ‘suzy666’ who had been chipleader earlier in the tournament, went all-in with King Jack and got a caller in ‘marmite3465’ with Ace Eight. An ace on the flop meant that ‘suzy666’ finished in 3rd place, collecting the bronze medal.

Heads Up, ‘marmite3465’ had a 2:1 chiplead over ‘adidap’. Both players had gone all-in a few times before a hand where ‘adidap’ raised from the small blind. ‘marmite3465’ went all-in, putting ‘adidap’s tournament live on the line and after a short pause, he makes the call.

‘marmite3465’ showed A3, whilst ‘adidap’ showed A2. The hand had split pot written all over it, but it wasn’t to be for ‘adidap’, as the three on the flop meant that he finished in 2nd place and picks up the silver medal.

That meant ‘marmite3465’ took the APAT Welsh Online title for this season, along with the gold medal and GUKPT added value seat.

Peers: Welsh Online Omaha Champion

The final prize allocation was as follows:-

1st – marmite3465 – $2,160 – Gold Medal – APAT Welsh Online Title
2nd – adidap – $1,440 – Silver Medal
3rd – suzy666 – $857 – Bronze Medal
4th – Thinker28 – $576
5th – CH3LS3A – $468
6th – Squirrel69 – $360
7th – Ayendell – $252
8th – bobyrabit – $187
9th – SJW1970 – $122

The top three players were Season 2 Online Rankings winner Steve Bayliff (‘marmite3465’), from Liverpool, Paul Haycock (‘adidap’), from Kenilworth and Suzanne Hayward (‘suzy666’), from Bristol.

Elsewhere, the Pot Limit Omaha Championship had 82 competitors and was won by Chris Peers (‘gomarrahh’), with Linda Iwaniak (‘linsiwan1’) taking Silver and Pete Rodgers (‘Buck Pete’) taking Bronze. In addition to the Welsh PLO title & Gold medal, Chris won $492 and an APAT Professional League seat.

February 18th, London:

Seasonal highlights include:-

New Tour Sponsor: Betfair.com will become the headline sponsor of APAT in Season 4; in a partnership that will bring a tremendous amount of additional value and opportunity for APAT members. Betfair.com will exclusively host all APAT National Championship and National League fixtures online, and satellites for APAT’s live schedule of tournaments.

Added Value: The tour will offer APAT members the chance to win thirty three seats to GUKPT main events and twenty three seats to APAT Professional League tournaments. In addition, each of the season’s seventy five amateur, professional and online tournaments will be run completely registration free for players.

APAT live tournament events will now typically comprise three events.

Amateur Championship: APAT’s core schedule will feature seventeen international amateur ranking events including three stops in continental Europe; in Austria, Estonia and Spain, with the undoubted highlight being the seven event World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) at Dusk Till Dawn in August, which will feature the debut of the sixteen country World Amateur Team Championship, plus Heads Up, Six Max, Stud, Omaha and HORSE Championship events, in addition to the 414 runner World Amateur Poker Championship main event.

Professional League: The PL will feature seven events capped at fifty players utilising a deep Pot Limit Hold’em structure, which will bring skill to the fore. Featuring a registration free buy in of £250, each event will have a GUKPT main event seat added for the winner and be open to APAT amateur and professional members. Played on a Saturday alongside the Amateur Championship event.

Specialist Series: A six event series in mixed poker disciplines, capped at 50 players. Featuring a registration free buy in of £25 with added value seats to APAT Professional League events for the winners of each leg. Played on a Sunday alongside Amateur Championship event.

Online Championship: Ten Championship events with a $50 buy in, each with added GUKPT seats for the winners, plus ten Omaha side events with a $20 buy in; each with added value seats to the APAT Professional League.

National Online League: Three divisions featuring thirty poker clubs from cities across the United Kingdom and Ireland offering fantastic prizes including seats to GUKPT, APAT Professional and APAT Amateur Championship events for winning teams.

Sponsorship Packages: The winner of the Professional League will win a £20,000 APAT sponsorship package for 2011. In addition, the winners of the Online and National Amateur Rankings will join the 17 Amateur Champions from season four and the player with the most points finishes across Amateur and Online events, to compete in the APAT Champions Final, to play for a second APAT £20,000 sponsorship package in 2011. This event will be held in February 2011 and venue details will be announced closer to that time.

Increased Profile: A number of APAT Amateur and Professional Championship events will be streamed live through APAT tv during season 4 while reports from APAT live and online events will appear in APAT Magazine, which will be launched this month and distributed to over 20,000 APAT members online.

Discussion & Schedule

Team APAT: UK Team Champions 2010

The APAT United Kingdom Team Championship was held at the G Casino in Manchester on January 23rd and 24th, 2010.

The format saw 20 poker communities from all over the United Kingdom and Ireland compete for the prestigious title in a 10,000 chip, 160 runner, multi-table freeze-out, with a 45 minute clock.  As with all APAT events, the UK Team Championship was registration free for members and this event had a £50 buy in per player.  Points were awarded to the top forty finishers to determine the Team Championship.

The prize money was split equally between the Team and Individual Championship.  In addition, the owner of the winning Team received an added prize of £1,000 and the Championship Cup, while the winner of the Individual Championship received an entry to a GUKPT main event and the Championship Gold Medal.  These added value prizes were courtesy of tour sponsor Blue Square Poker.

The seat draw was made so as to ensure team-mates were kept apart at the outset and by mid evening on the first day the team best placed, with six out of their team of eight remaining, was Newcastle Poker Forum whilst the first team to see all of its team exit was ChezGer. Remarkably, the first player out of this year’s event was the individual winner of the 2009 Team Championship, Mary Martin.

The end of day one chip leaders, with 31 players remaining, were:

Billy Wallace (Punters Lounge) 114000
Wayne Parker (APAT) 106300
Patrick Kelly (Bristol & South West Poker Meetup) 103000
Johnel Bracey (London Poker Meetup) 89800
Dominic Marley (NI Poker) 84400

The end of day one team leaders were:

NI Poker  41
APAT 33
Newcastle Poker Forum 26

The key hand that led to Johnel Bracey from London entering the final table as a huge chip leader occurred on the final table bubble when his button Ace-King out-flopped Stuart Oliver’s Pocket Queens.

Final table chip counts were as follows:

Chris Baylis EatMyStack 202,900
David Thompson Sky 139,000
Wayne Parker APAT 114,800
Billy Wallace Punters Lounge 121,400
Johnel Bracey London Poker MeetUp 487,500
Ed DeBaes The Hendon Mob 211,400
Andy Ducrose UKPoker Info 155,800
David Stephenson Newcastle Poker 89,000
Gary Peniket The Hendon Mob 79,000

The overall team result was resolved before the final table with a victory by Team APAT captained by Leigh Wiltshire, with top twenty finishes for Stuart Oliver and Steve Redfern adding to Parker’s final table, to secure the points required for victory. Second were The Hendon Mob while Newcastle Poker Forum were third.

First out on the final table was Andy Ducrose after nearly ninety minutes play when his push with pocket twos met the pocket Kings of Ed DeBaes. In eighth was Wayne Parker, his Ace-Jack outdrawn by Johnel Bracey’s King-Nine.

Sky Poker’s David Thompson was next to depart, shoving seven-eight in the small blind when folded to him only for Billy Wallace to find Aces in the big blind. Wallace then took out Chris Baylis in sixth, King-Queen versus Ace-Eight and by now had moved into the chip-lead.

Johnel Bracey eliminated Gary Peniket in fifth, pocket Sevens against Ace-Five before he also knocked out Ed DeBaes in fourth, Queen-Jack suited against King-Queen, a Jack falling on the flop.

Bracey himself left in third. pocket sevens against Wallace’s Queen-Jack. Wallace flopped a straight and Bracey turned a set to ensure the chips found their way into the middle.

Billy Wallace: Individual Winner; UK Team Championship

Billy Wallace and David Stephenson began Heads-Up even in chips. However the conclusion was swift. Wallace pushed with King-ten suited, Stephenson called with Queen-Jack suited, Wallace flopped a King to take the individual honour.

Billy Wallace representing Punters Lounge thus won the individual portion of the APAT UK Team Champiopnship ahead of Newcastle Poker Forum’s David Stephenson.

The final result of the Team Championship was as follows:

1  Team APAT  83
2  The Hendon Mob  73
3  Newcastle Poker Forum 71
4  NI Poker  68
5  Eat My Stack 57
6  Bristol & South West Poker Meetup 54
7  London Poker Meetup 50
8  UK Poker Info 47
9  Raise The River 46
10  Punters Lounge 40
11  Black Country Poker Club 39
12  Sky Poker  37
13  FISO  29
13  Voyage In Poker 29
15  Furness Poker 25
16  Ace Of Clubs 23
17  Blonde Poker 19
18  A World Of Poker 16
19  PokerPlayer 14
20  Chezger 0

The APAT UK Team Championships concluded APAT’s successful third season. In the near future news of APAT’s fourth season will be announced on www.apat.com.