Proud parenting moments

My twelve-year-old son entered a local Pokemon tournament this week. The last one he entered didn’t go so well, and though he kept a positive outlook, he was clearly disappointed. Undaunted, he has been working hard since then to build a better deck and improve his playing. At our weekly Pokemon club he’s even gone so far as to befriend an older player who has been to the National Championships and challenge him to a few games.

This week there was another local tournament. He didn’t feel his deck was quite ready, but he wanted to enter anyway for the experience. I don’t know if he was nervous, but I was plenty nervous for him, especially when they began matching him up with older players (next higher division). Sure enough, he lost his first two games to upper-division players. But he seemed fine with it. Then his last three games were against players in his own and the lower division, and he won those. (It was the younger player that gave him the most trouble, to her credit. She took him right to the wire, which was probably the single most important experience of the night for him.)

It turns out that, while they didn’t have enough entrants to arrange matches within each division, they still awarded rankings within each division. He took first place in his age group.

Meanwhile I got to watch some of the matches and most of the players. My one experience with card game tournaments at games stores was not a positive one. But this group seems like a good bunch of people. The older players are generous and kind to the younger players, and even amongst themselves the older players seemed to take it well. Granted, it was an early-season tournament and not part of the “road to World”, so the stakes weren’t as high, but still. I’ve seen plenty of people take even friendly games way too seriously.

Anyway, my son handled himself well, and has a lot more courage and endurance for such things than I did at his age. Perhaps even now. And, as a parent, I’m glad to find a supportive player base that welcomes him in. I hope the future holds many more such experiences for him.