Pokemon: Texas State Championships

After much anticipation, the Texas States finally arrived!

The kids got little swag bags with Poke Balls, with a Black Kyurem inside, wristbands and play mats.


Lex is super happy.  Look at all those players behind him.  There were 43 kids in their age group, 80 some in the next age group, and then 200+ in the oldest group. 


Connor in green.  With his cards in green sleeves.  It was St. Patrick's Day weekend after all.

Oh, and green is his favorite color.

Official State Championship Photo of Lex

Official State Championship Photo of Connor

Connor and Lex played in eight rounds on Saturday.  Each round was 50 minutes plus three turns.  Plus time in between for the computer to calculate their rankings and come up with the next pairings.  It was a long, long day.

 

I don't know if the tournament was larger than expected, or if this was the only ballroom available, but it wasn't big enough.  There were tables for all the players, but there was no place for the parents to sit or be during the competition.  Kevin and I spent the first part of the day sitting on the floor in the vestibule by the bathrooms with some other Houston area parents.  It was awful and uncomfortable.

After lunch, however, I found the kids' arts and crafts table.  It wasn't set up yet, and all the supplies were still in a box on top of it.  I opened it up so that Lex would have something to do, and we ended up sitting at the table for the rest of the day.  Everyone thought we were in charge of the arts and crafts, so basically we just encouraged all the little kids to grab whatever they wanted out of the box, and to make whatever they wanted.  It was nice because Connor and Lex had all the arts and crafts they needed to keep occupied between rounds, and Kevin and I finally had a place to sit.

 

By Lex

This was so much better than sitting on the floor next to the bathrooms. 


Connor made a Zapados EX Pokemon Card

Sticker art by Lex

In the end, Connor just barely missed the top 8 in his age group, which was the cut-off for participation in the final rounds that took place on Sunday morning.  But he and Lex both had a fun day, got all the swag and some new cards from the vendors.  Lex even pulled a Genesect EX card out of a booster pack, so he was thrilled!

After the competition, Connor made a plan to disassemble his deck and build something completely new for next time.

The End