The world’s best amateur poker tour is back for its seventh outing and this season it’s going to be bigger, better and more exciting than ever before. With a total of 32 Championship events lined up all over the globe for this season’s Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT), there are stop-offs planned in UK, Ireland, Europe and the USA.
Here in the UK, Coventry, Cardiff, Nottingham, Glasgow, Stoke, Newcastle and London are all hosting cities. While across the pond Dublin returns as a venue following last seasons huge success. Prague features on the schedule for the first time, and marking the occasion the APAT debutant will host two APAT events, the 16 country European Amateur Team Championship and the 200 runner European Amateur Poker Championship (individual). The final destination sees the APAT head west to the home of poker and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas is once again the location of choice.
Other highlights this time around include the launch of poker’s first ever dedicated Cash Tour with the plan to have seven events which are all due to take place here in the UK. The format will be a type of hybrid between a cash game and tournament and after overwhelmingly positive feedback when it was trialled last season, this time round it’s made its way onto the full schedule. Lasting for a total of five hours each event will take place on various Friday nights but for all the details about this exciting new format go to www.apat.com.
As well as all of this there will be the 7 event UK Championship of Amateur Poker (UKCOAP) which now includes the new Home International Team Championship, featuring England, Scotland, Wales & Ireland.
The regular 15 event World Championship of Amateur Poker which took place this April will again play out at the Dusk Till Dawn poker club in Nottingham but on top of the ten events played last season there will be the addition of a Shootout, 2 Game Mixed, Omaha 8 and Champion of Champions events.
As with previous seasons, all winners will receive an added seat to the WCOAP main event on top of the trophy and prize-money, with the overall winner earning the trip of a lifetime to Las Vegas for the 2014 WSOP. The winner of the WCOAP Champion of Champions event, which is effectively a combined Live and Online Rankings leaderboard, will also win a similar 2014 WSOP package.
And if that wasn’t enough, in an exciting move which has only recently taken place, the APAT has announced that it has taken over the Live Pub Poker League, and as a result the new APAT season will also include the LPPL’s Players Championship and the multi event Festival of Pub Poker both of which are scheduled to take place over several days at Pontins in Southport.
