Tom Bean, TX: Pokemon Center of the Universe?

Three times a year, participants gather at the community room in the Tom Bean City Hall to test their skills in the game—or is it the art?—of Pokémon.

(Editor’s Note: This seems a good spot for a time out to explain what Pokémon is for those who don’t know, but we will pass. There is a detailed explanation on the Web from Wikipedia that is so simple a ten-year-old can understand it. After reading it, we suggest you find a ten-year old to translate and then move on.)

Spring and fall tournaments are called “Battle Roads,” but the December games are “City Championships.” The word “city” is misleading, as it applies to a large region, the next step above local contests on a player’s road to the nationals. This year on December 12, twenty-six contestants from Fort Worth to Oklahoma showed up in Tom Bean, trying to win enough points to move forward to state-wide competitions. Others, including contestant’s family members were there to play for fun.

Justin Burch, 10, the newest player in the mix, came with his mother from McKinney. Jacob Tamm, a middle school student from Frisco, came with his dad. Jacob is an expert, having won fourth place among four hundred entrants in his level at the nationals in St. Louis last summer. Beth Copeland, from Mustang, Oklahoma, came with her boyfriend. She was the only girl competing. Each of the above players represents a different game level: junior—age ten and under, senior—eleven to fifteen, master— sixteen and up. Their points and ranks, along with those of all the other players across the nation are recorded in a data base in Washington D.C..

See more photos from the tournament.

So how is it that the Tom Bean City Championship is one of the best known and best-rated tournaments in the area? Randy Blades, a parent from McKinney, explained. “Tom Bean is one the best run, best attended in the state. Because it is close to Oklahoma, we get people from there, as well as people from Dallas, plus all of North Texas, so the competition is really good.”

“Tom Bean is our favorite place to go,” said Darryl Tamm. “You get off the freeway and go through rolling hills. The [community center] room is nice—clean with good bathrooms. The yard outside is a plus because the kids can play football and let off steam in between rounds, and there’s this little market [KC Food] that is also a restaurant that has pizza better than you can get any place else.”

Shane Potter, a Pokémon judge from Dallas, has no doubt who is responsible for Tom Bean’s Pokémon success. “You have to give the person who runs it the credit and that’s Boyd Highlander.”

Highlander started playing the game to have something to do with his son Josh. “I think that’s how most dads get into it. At first I read while he played. Then I started to play in pre-release tournaments so Josh could get more cards. Finally, I entered a premier tournament so lesser players could have someone to beat. Then three years ago, Richard Collingsworth asked me to start a city level tournament here in Tom Bean. This is our eleventh one. Our average tournament hosts forty players.”

The next question is what makes Pokémon so appealing that parents or players will drive long distances, buy expensive cards and spend hours playing? It’s a surprisingly challenging game. Just watching the long rows of tables with heads from young to old bent over brightly colored cards won’t provide enough information to figure it out. It is clear that the trading cards are everything. But it is also clear that each card has a plethora of information that must be assimilated and acted upon with long-term consequences in mind.

Jayna Burch said she was happy when her son, Jason, started playing Pokémon. She thought it helped build strategic skills, and it was nice that “he enjoyed something that is completely harmless. I don’t have to edit it.”

“I like to use strategy and math,” said ten-year-old Christopher Jordan. “I like that it uses your brain.”

Alec Noah, a teenager from Plano with a notebook full of plastic-protected cards explained a gold-hologram card. “Claydol’s a staple. It is played in nearly every deck even though it has no attack points. It has eight hit points, and it has Cosmic Power. It will allow you to renew your deck by putting current cards on the bottom and taking new cards from the top.”

Got that? No. Don’t try reading it again, it won’t do any good. (See the editor’s note in the first paragraph and find yourself a ten-year-old.)

Each of thousands of cards in various suits has a different attribute, making Pokémon a complicated, thought-provoking game, a game that parents and children can play together and not have to go any farther than Tom Bean, Texas, to learn how.

Learn more about Pokémon competition by visiting the Official Website.

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