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Rule Clarifications

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Des:
A brand new day; and it"s a Friday!  I hope everyone is happy and healthy today :)

I will be making two brief announcements over issues that cropped up following the announcement of the National Online League on Wednesday.  Namely clarifying the position on 1) the breakdown of the Regions and 2) eligibility to play for Regions.

I had some very constructive discussions and feedback from Rich Baker, Stuart Oliver, John Murray and Rich Prew over the course of yesterday evening and I thank them for their input - which in all cases was constructive and well reasoned.  Prior to those discussions, I led discussions with a group that included Rich Prew, Ian Burnett, James Barber and Leigh Wiltshire before we announced the League on Wednesday.  Needless to say nobody identified the potential emotive reaction that having country wide Regions would bring.  Being a proud Irishman I love the passion that comes with participating in something that you really care about.  That said, we (that means all of us) cannot allow the discussion to become too emotive or nationalistic, if it starts to take away from the greater community spirit that has always existed here on APAT.  To do so would have consequences.

So back to business.  as a community, many APAT members had their say on the Regional and Eligibility questions yesterday.  Your say has led to a good deal of additional discussion as above and thought and ultimately the decisions I"m about to post.  I would hope that everybody will be accepting of those decisions so that we can positively look forward to what promises to be the very best and most competitive APAT National Online Leagues ever.

Des:
Regional Breakdown Of Teams.

There was a degree of confusion with regards the borders of certain regions so I am going to publish a map to represent the thirteen Regions that will be participating for the National Online League.

We have made one significant change to what was originally announced.  The London team will no longer include the Home Counties.  They have been absorbed into the other Regions as per the map below. 



This may require some of you to remove your PokerStars ID from the London and Home Counties Region and join another Region.  Apologies for any inconvenience that this causes, but at least everyone now has a clear geographical breakdown of the APAT Regions to refer to.

One other caveat that I would add.  The League doesn"t start for a couple of weeks and within this time period APAT retains the right to alter, remove or merge Regions within the APAT National Online League.  Once the League has commenced no changes will be made.

Des:
Player Eligibility For Regions

A lot of discussion was had on this topic.  Several options were discussed including those where players should be eligible to play for a) their region of current residence b) their region of birth c) their region of residence OR birth d) any region.  Further options were discussed.  Methods of final decision making were discussed, but ultimately the decision must rest with APAT.

Our decision is that players are allowed to choose their region based on where they currently reside OR where they were born.

Some of the reasons for making this decision are as follows:-

1)  It clearly means a lot to players to play for the Region within which they were born.   I can identify with that and am sympathetic to the view that all players should have that choice.

2)  There wasn"t a clear regional eligibility criteria in place prior to the announcement and there is now.  It is the same for every player.

3)  Passionate teams will lead to greater competition and excitement, and it looks like this League will have plenty of that. 

4)  APAT is a community organisation.  Where possible we should not act as a barrier to players wanting to be part of their own communities, particularly when there are very obvious alignments. 

5)  Context.  This is a $11 weekly online poker tournament, not the London Olympics.  I"d rather we all had some fun as opposed to being wholly focused on winning. 

Now I believe we are all big enough to accept this decision and I look forward with some glee to the first set of league results coming in on March 11th.

Thanks,

Des.

Des:
A number of queries have been raised with regards the start time of the League.

League matches will now start at 7pm on a Sunday night and will feature a 1 hour late registration period.  

I believe this offers the best of both worlds to members.  Players joining the event closer to 8.00pm will still enjoy the excellent structure while players needing to be up early for work on Monday morning should get to bed an hour earlier than envisaged.

bhoywonder70:
Well wrote des....and in my opinion a terrific resolution....

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