Brian Yates Wins 2009 APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championship

Last weekend the (Amateur Poker Association and Tour) APAT hosted the APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championships at the Fitzwilliam Club in Dublin. As always it was a £75 buy-in event with a generous 10,000 starting stack and slow structure, and once again it was a sell out, with 144 players in total including alternates.

It was a noticeably faster tournament than usual, with plenty of early bust outs as one would expect in Ireland. 29 players made it to day 2 with a healthy mix of UK and Irish players at the final (With APAT UK ChampSteve Redfern being the final table bubble boy. Eventually it would be Brian Yates of Walsall who walked away with the title, as well as €3400 and perhaps most desirably a seat in the prestigious GUKPT Grand Final at the end of the year, courtesy of Blue Square. This is a unique double for Brian, who also is the 2008 APAT online champion and the first player to win a live and online APAT major.

Another fantastically organised and good value event courtesy of APAT, the next event is the Scottish Championships at the Maybury Casino, Edinburgh on the 18th and 19th of July.