On Saturday, 31 March 2012, Johannesburg held its first ever Pokémon Trading Card Game Championships in Sandton. The tournament had players across different age groups battle it out to claim the spot as Johannesburg’s Pokémon TCG Champion.
“Aha, this must be another late April’s Fool prank. Surely no South African cares about Pokémon anymore!” I hear a lot of readers exclaiming.
Au contraire – South Africa has seen a lot of growth in Pokémon Trading Card Game players thanks to the implementation of the Play! Pokémon system through the combined efforts of The Core Group (the local Pokémon distributor) and the Pokémon Company International. The system provides official support for Pokémon leagues, tournaments and other events like the Johannesburg Championships.
The Johannesburg Pokémon Championship was structured according to the Swiss pairing format. In this format players are paired against other opponents with a similar win/loss ratio and no player gets eliminated until the final round of the tournament.
Players are divided into three age groups (Junior, Senior and Master) and by the end of the 4th Round winners in the Junior and Senior divisions had been calculated:
Junior Division (Ages 10 and under)
- 1st Place – Taigue Mitchell
- 2nd Place – Sarah Mitchell
Senior Division (Ages between 11 and 14)
- 1st Place – Robert Power
- 2nd Place – Keean Mitchell
Due to the large number of Master players (aged 15 and up) another two rounds took place for the top players in the division. This allowed the top 4 players to be ranked:
Master Division (Aged 15 and up)
- 1st Place Jaco van der Walt
- 2nd Place Viktor Radermacher
- 3rd Place Raymond Rattey
- 4th Place Ricky Doria
Pokémon tournament in action
Those with a keen eye will notice that a certain Poké-loving MyGaming writer secured the title of Johannesburg’s Pokémon Champion in the Master’s Division. Ladies, please calm yourselves and form an orderly queue.
The Johannesburg Pokémon Trading Card Game Championships was well organized and very successful. The tournament organizer (and head judge) of the event, Brian Murdoch, was prepared to host 32 players, but was delighted about the final turnout of 20 players.
He had the following to say regarding the event: “Each event has its bumps and I’m glad that the Pokémon community are fun and friendly enough to help out where possible (by moving tables around at the start of the event) and still have a blast!”
For more information regarding the Johannesburg Pokémon Championship or Pokémon in general contact Brian Murdoch: [email protected]
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Pokemon -.-
LAME!