The Amateur Poker Association and Tour (APAT) will be holding its annual poker festival this month, as the 2016 World Championship of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) kicks off on the 19th of March for nine days of amateur poker action. The WCOAP is considered to be a World Series of Poker-style competition for recreational players and is one of the top events on the world poker calendar each year. The 2016 series is set to be the biggest in the tour’s history so far.
One of the most eagerly anticipated poker festivals of the year, the WCOAP attracts hundreds of poker players from right across the world. It’s now in its eighth season and has grown from a relatively small festival to a huge event with big prizes. Buy-ins for WCOAP events range from £55 to £220 so are broadly affordable for recreational poker fans. The games are competitive but a friendly, convivial atmosphere always reigns over the tournaments due to its amateur nature.
The APAT was formed in 2006 and launched the UK’s first national amateur poker tour which then graduated into a series of poker tours across countries like Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Austria and the USA. They hold weekly tournaments and have over fifty national tournaments every year as well as a number of online poker tournaments.
The 2016 WCOAP festival will have a number of events on its schedule. There will be 22 bracelet prizes up for grabs over the ten days, with the main event having a gold bracelet. Each event will count towards APAT’s “All Stars” international amateur ranking system, so players who win can work their way up the rankings. The overall top player over the course of the festival will win a WCOAP Passport for next year’s tournament. As well as this, the World Amateur Poker Champion (winner of the main event) will win a free trip to Las Vegas in June 2016.
The events will be taking place at the Aspers Casino in Stratford, London and satellites for the WCOAP will begin with APAT/Coral on the 28th of January and run every Thursday and Sunday evening until Day 1 of the tournament.
The standard buy-in price for most of the championship events is £55. There are a few tournaments commanding larger buy-ins, such as the £110 buy-in for the No-Limit Hold’em Team Championship and the World Amateur Poker Championship, and a £220 buy-in for the High Roller Championship. The first event of the poker festival will be the No-Limit Hold’em Championship and the inaugural 8-Game Players Championship, which takes place over the course of the first two days.
The tournament schedule has several no-limit hold’em events, including six-max, ante-only and a one-rebuy event. There’s also a range of poker variants going on such as open-face Chinese, pot-limit Omaha, seven-card stud, razz, H.O.R.S.E, Irish poker and an event just for cash-game players.
The big event of the tournament will certainly be the £110 World Amateur Poker Championship, which every APAT player wants to win. Whoever manages to scoop the prize will also win a trip to Las Vegas during June 2016.
Last year’s WCOAP winner, the Welsh player Daniel Lewis claimed the title after beating out a field of almost 400 other players. He won a trip to Las Vegas and £8,500 in prize money. As well as a similar cash prize and a free trip to Las Vegas, this year’s winner will also be awarded with a WCOAP Passport for 2017, which comes with a £110 Main Event seat and entry to two £55 buy-in side events.
