When it comes to having fun with your friends or family members, there is something to be said about having a big get-together at Easter. This is something that would have been in the mind of poker players that gathered in Nottingham at the Dusk Till Dawn venue over the Easter weekend. There was a celebration of amateur poker with the 2013 APAT World Championship taking place. The Amateur Poker Association & Tour is a popular body and there was a lot to celebrate over the course of the year.
A number of awards were also handed out on the night including one which saw Dusk Till Dawn being awarded the best poker venue award. It would have been poor form if the host venue was overlooked for another venue so no doubt there was a great sense of contentment with that award.
Suzanne Hayward was acknowledged as the breakthrough player of the year while David Amos was deemed to have made the member performance of the year. The Player of the Year award went to Carl Pilgrim and the hall of fame entrant was Paul Davis.
The teams made it a big celebration of poker
One of the big parts of the event was the Team Championship, which gave players the opportunity to have some national pride in their poker players. There was two days of big match poker action and the final places were fought out between four high quality teams. The third and fourth play-off saw Spain and Canada battling it out for the bronze while the Grand Final took place between Italy and England.
Canada managed to claim the bronze medal by defeating Spain by 3-2 with all attention turning to the big final where the full support was behind England. The noisy crowd got what they wanted as England romped home with a 3-0 win. Stuart Ward was up first and he defeated Guiseppe Maggisano and then the two nil lead was grabbed when Carl Pilgrim defeated Luigi Belleri. The English triumph was clinched when Tony Trippier defeated Gariel Lemmito leading England to a 3-0 whitewash which set the scene for an evening of celebration. The English football team may not be able to get the better of Italy but the amateur poker players showed that they know what it takes to defeat the Azzuri.
The main focus may have been on the Main Event but the Team Championship was a big event for all concerned in Nottingham.