All ages gather for Pokémon tourney

HUNTLEY – Mark Pedersen of Crystal Lake started playing the Pokémon trading card game when he was about 5 years old, he said. Now he’s 11 and a member of a Pokémon league that meets weekly to play and trade cards.

“It’s fun and it’s just a really good thing to get into,” Pedersen said.

“The educational ramifications are incredible,” said Pedersen’s mother, June Pedersen. “There’s math, there’s memory, there’s social interaction. There’s just so much in this one complex game.”

Pedersen joined 88 other players, ages 7 to 52, at the Huntley REC Center to compete Sunday in the last Pokémon City Championship tournament of the year, and the first one in McHenry County.

Organizer Jimmy Ballard of Plainfield said the turnout was one of the largest in the country.

“We have a group of die-hards who are really into it,” said Ballard, who won second place at the Pokémon World Championships in 2006. “I can look around the room and say that I know 60 of these players from just playing in my area. And the 30 I don’t know are going to tell their friends.”

Ballard chose to put on the event in Huntley to coincide with another Pokémon tournament in Rockford the day before, he said.

The two events attracted players from as far away as Missouri and Minnesota.

In the two-person card game, players use character cards and energy cards to take action against their opponent and earn points.

The players with the most points at the end each season of tournaments can compete for state, regional and international titles.

Each player comes to the table with a 60-card deck, but most players have many more than 60 cards. Pedersen had brought a binder of cards, plus a box full of loose cards. And he had more at home, his mother said.

Jonathan Noska, 21, of Poplar Grove estimated that he had about 1,000 Pokémon cards. He said he enjoyed the strategy of the game and the fact that he could play it with his friends.

“It makes me act like a little kid,” he said. “And it’s a mental challenge.”

Parents also played while their sons and daughters competed at another table. The tournament was a first for Mark Theodore of Buffalo Grove and his 10-year-old son, Joey.

“[Joey] got started in it, and I got tired of watching on the sidelines,” said Mark Theodore. “It’s something that we can do together ... a little father-son time.”