Official TPCI Pokemon Tournament 2009 | Congrats to all who participated!!

[POKEMONBATTLEBRAIN]

So...I'm 24...and I want to go to the qualifiers...but...I'm 24...

#1- Is there an age limit, like say 18 or something? I haven't seen anything explicitly stating yeah, or nay.
#2- Ior those of you who have actually been to the qualifiers in the past, if there is no age limit, are there actually adults who will show up, or am I going to look like some weirdo stalking some kiddie event?

Thanks!!!!

Age doesn't matter. You will find a surprising amount of older than expected players there at qualifiers.

1 = Assuming you mean an age cap, no. There are different divisions for competition(12 and under as asll as 13 and up), but you can be 9000 years old and still compete.

2 = You will fit in fine. I know 30 year olds who go and no one ever gives them a second thought. I myself am older than your average pokemon fan and I have a great time, so you will not be out of place unless you dress up or something. Then it might be a little weird. :P

 

[mattj]

thanks :O)

Thanks guys. I've never been to one of these AND MY WIFE GIVES ME ALL KIND OF FLACK FOR PLAYING A "KIDS GAME"!!! :P She's just kidding though! She loves me! ^.^

But what do you guys think about fighting against 13 and 14 year olds at the tournament? Isn't that kind of unfair? It kind of makes me feel bad...most of them probably REALLY like playing pokemon, but don't know ANYTHING about EVs and IVs and Egg Moves and what not. I never did at that age.

What do the rest of you think about being in the same bracket as teenagers?

 

[Fatality]

I would fall into the catagory of teenagers, but if I am put into a bracket with a 30-year-old, it's not like I didn't alreay know. They come knowing there will be people older than them.

 

[ultimatedra]

I recently asked the orgonizers the following question:

With Platinum now released in the USA, there are 85 days betwen now and Nationals.
Thats is just a little over 2 months to hold VGC regional tournaments and TCG/VGC National championships.
There are many people who are wondering when the regional dates are, and the specifics on the rules.
Any time we can expect any of this info?

Soon™

My guess is that they are still trying to get the locations worked out.

 

[mattj]

AAAAACKKKK!!!!!

NOT KNOWING THE DATES OR LOCATIONS OF THE QUALIFIERS IS DRIVING ME BATTY!!!!! :P I mean come on, did I buy Platinum for nothing or what? I still don't know?!?!

 

[TTS]

What do the rest of you think about being in the same bracket as teenagers?

Uh.. a good portion of the people HERE are teenagers. Age doesn't really limit someone being able to grasp the mechanics of the game. I know at JAA both age divisions ended up being pretty competitive after the first round or so. For the most part the clueless fanboy type opponents are confined to the first round, where they obviously get weeded out.

If I interpret your question a bit differently, as something along the lines of "What do you think about playing against people who don't know what they're doing," I'd have to say that it's part of being competitive at anything. What's the difference if your opponent is 13 or 30? Throwing a match or not playing just to make some kid happy won't really do much, since they'll just lose to someone else if you don't play.

Also uh.. yeah.. chill out.

 

[Voltron]

Seriously though, what TTS said

The younger the better. I loved demolishing little kids at the Gamestop tournament almost two years ago. In no way did the fact that two of them started crying cheapen my sense of accomplishment.

 

[TTS]

I haven't made any kids cry, although at JAA they sent some guy over to "talk to me" and give me the stink eye because I was lightly laughing while talking to GP and my friend since my opponent took about 15 minutes to get his shit together and be able to fight me. First his gameboy's batteries were dead, so he swapped with a cousin.. then he wasn't saved in a Pokemon center.. then his team violated item clause, and thus couldn't be loaded.. and then he finally loaded his team, and the highest level pokemon was a level 77 Kyogre ~_~ I wasn't really laughing to be mean, it was just the fact that the second round was being held up for absolutely nothing. In the first round they had people battle in two groups, since they had like 16 gamecubes, and could thus only fit 32 of the 64 people. I was in the first group, and my battle was STILL the last one to start.

Ahh.. JAA.. brings back memories. Was my first real near-death experience, what with Nightmare falling off of the stage -- and on to me -- after beating me.

The first qualifier is like 99% likely going to be online, and completely unrelated to actual gameplay. JAA had some trivia thing where the first 64 people to score above 80% were admitted, the Seattle thing had a timed qualifier where the people with the fastest times for answering all the questions correctly won..

 

[Mosquito]

But what do you guys think about fighting against 13 and 14 year olds at the tournament? Isn't that kind of unfair? It kind of makes me feel bad...most of them probably REALLY like playing pokemon, but don't know ANYTHING about EVs and IVs and Egg Moves and what not. I never did at that age.

What do the rest of you think about being in the same bracket as teenagers?

Most of us are either teens or in our 20s. It's actually fair since if you want to win at pokemon, you have to learn the game mechanics. I actually learned the Effort Value system when I was 11 :} If you feel bad about beating 13 years olds, then you are completely different from me. I think i will feel bad if I, a 13 year old, defeats adults. Basically, you should not feel bad about winning, as you were the one to bother to learn how the game was designed and built.

 

[False [old]]

After hearing about the JAA Champ who won with a Rayquaza that knew Fly and Hyper Beam, I stopped feeling bad about things like that.

 

[Voltron]

After hearing about the JAA Champ who won with a Rayquaza that knew Fly and Hyper Beam, I stopped feeling bad about things like that.

That was the Seattle tournament. The JAA winner had an Imprison Explosion team if I recall correctly. I could be wrong about that though.

 

[Phizzlax]

IIRC the imprison player lost in the semifinals or something.

My first round in JAA I beat a player with no level 100s, didn't feel bad though.

In a gamestop tournament once a player thought I was cheating because I one shotted his rhyperior with a Kyogre Water Spout. He was like "HOW, I have such high defense!!!"

I miss playing in tourneys and I hope there isn't a dumb "online qualifier" =/

 

[False [old]]

How many different teams are you guys gonna be training? I'd say how many Pokemon, but in Doubles you really have to train them as a group.

As for the weather glitch, switching isn't quite as common in doubles, so I'm not horribly concerned about that.

 

[Gritt]

I haven't made any kids cry, although at JAA they sent some guy over to "talk to me" and give me the stink eye because I was lightly laughing while talking to GP and my friend since my opponent took about 15 minutes to get his shit together and be able to fight me.

Lol. When I went to JAA (King of Prussia) there were tons of adults there. Of course back then I was in the 12 and younger division. Right now I'm 15, and I wouldn't mind playing an adult.

Just look at it this way, you always have a chance of outsmarting them. Their stats can go up to max just like yours. You've probably played adults before on Smogon, like on Wifi.

And didn't a 30 year old win a JAA tournament? I remember seeing him somewhere.

And I had to go up against a girl in JAA (younger than me) and I beat her and she cried. I had to apologize to her parents and of course they video taped it... I don't think I've felt worse in my life lol.

 

[TTS]

Yeah, I was at King of Prussia too, made it to the semifinals where I made a really stupid mistake by picking Groudon/Shiftry as my leads when Nightmare was clearly running an Imprison team. Groudon without access to EQ = :[

The kid I beat in R1, who I'm not even sure was old enough to be in the "Senior" division, also was being video taped >_> He had like his entire family there.. grandmother, the works. I outsped and OHKO'd all of his pokemon, so that must've been an awesome video.

On the upside, even though I didn't win, on the bus ride home one of the guys who worked the KoP JAA event was on my bus, recognized me, and gave me his JAA Staff jacket since that was his last gig with Nintendo.

 

[Lightsabre]

I'm guessing there's no UBERs clause on this tourney? good luck to whoever is entering

 

[Jibaku]

JAA...>_>
Quick Claw...

All I can say about it. I am sentenced to a neverending grudge against Quick Claw's existence.

Back at the JAA, all but one of my opponents are older than me (first at 15, second at 40ish, third at 16 and fourth, Minh Ba Le a.k.a JAA winner was at 22 iirc). I wouldn't be surprised if the same still happens now. Though I'd be 17 if I were to enter the VGS. I'm still going to expect people older than me.

Age shouldn't intimidate you at all. If you do get intimidated by age, well good luck. If you're old, don't feel bad about your age (unless you're worried about little kids making fun of you, but bring on the pride!). Play like you'd normally would, and don't look at the younger people as inferior, because they can beat you. Against the notably older Minh Ba Le, I was able to go neck to neck against him until the very end (though he got me on the first turn real good)

In regards to JAA, the winner used a Clefable + Groudon combo.

 

[Mosquito]

Ahhhh, JAA. I was 10 when it came to Roosevelt Field Mall, and I cried when they told me I had to sign up online for the tournament T.T Anyways, age is no problem at all. It's based more on knowledge. I guess I'm so cold about winning agaisnt people of a different age because I "conditioned" myself to be a Seniors player. If I were a year younger, I wouldn't have learned all the stuff about doubles that I do now.

Now for the tournament itself, the Nationals are on June 27th/28th. My guess is that the four? qualifiers will take place on the weekends of May 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th. That leaves four weeks between the last qualifier and Nationals. If the tournament follows this schedule, the quiz will have to be released on April 25th at the least to give 2 weeks for the quiz. That means the siging up would be 2 weeks before that, which means we should get the official announcement in a week or two.

 

[viperGTS]

Yes, imprison affects both opposing pokemon.

 

[Wichu]

I'm guessing there's no UBERs clause on this tourney? good luck to whoever is entering

Aren't the rules in the first post? And there is an ubers clause, same as in the Battle Tower (with Rotom added for good measure).

 

[Donutt]

Hey are the tourney's region locked? Like would I be able to compete with my japanese version of platinum?

 

[TDS]

No you cannot, you may only use american games

 

[Donutt]

Oh really, I remember Japanese and English version games being useable in last year's tornument. Could I have the link to the rule?

 

[Mosquito]

Oh really, I remember Japanese and English version games being useable in last year's tornument. Could I have the link to the rule?

The Showdown 2008 site doesn't exist anymore, but I remember it saying that you needed a North American version of Diamond or Pearl from before 5/22/08 (that was the date of the announcement. This means that Japanese games and r4's are banned)

 

[Donutt]

Thanks