EASTHAMPTON — Sebastian Enriquez, 8, guesses there might be a correlation between knowing his multiplication tables and his deftness at the Pokémon card game.
“If you’re really good at Pokémon, you’re probably good at math,” he said.
And Sebastian happens to be good at both — very good. After racking up points at tournaments across the East Coast over the last year, he’s set to try his skills at the Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco in August.
That global competition is what countless players from countries across the world dream of as they play in smaller local, statewide and regional tournaments throughout the year. Earning a trophy at one of the smaller competitions comes not just with bragging rights, but points that add up to the 200 needed to enter into the world competition. Sebastian has 202.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game is part of the global franchise launched in 1996 that also includes video games, TV series, movies and books.
Despite the universe’s colorful animal-like creatures that battle each other with their extraordinary powers, Sebastian and his parents will be the first to say that the card game, though fun, takes a lot of brainpower.
“Pokémon is kind of tame but it actually involves a lot of strategy,” said Sebastian’s mother, Celeste, on Wednesday as Sebastian and his dad, Ivan, played a game at the living room coffee table with his younger sister, Adriana, 6, nearby. “The reason we really like it is because we can play, he can play and she can play.”
The game is played by two people. The goal is to draw the right combination of cards featuring different characters — all of which have different strengths and weaknesses — in order to “knock out” the other player’s Pokémon.
“You need to know your cards,” Ivan explained as he and Sebastian were in the midst of battling. “You don’t know what you’re going to get — but you’ve got to make it work.”
As the two played, it was evident that Sebastian did indeed know his cards. As he was readying one move against his dad, Sebastian did the mental math needed to calculate the damage done to Ivan’s Pokémon by his Pokémon’s attack.
“This is going to be 70,” Sebastian said.
After Sebastian won the game, Ivan offered another test of Sebastian’s abilities.
“If you ask him about a Pokémon’s attacks or ability, he’ll tell you,” Ivan said.
And he was able to do it, sometimes offering a verbatim recitation of what is printed on a card.
Sebastian chalks it up to having a good memory.
Beginnings
“First I just liked collecting cards,” Sebastian said. Then “me and my friend made up this way to play because we didn’t know how to play.”
But at Christmas 2014, Santa brought Sebastian a trainer kit that included everything needed to start playing the game by the book.
Over the next year, Sebastian began playing with his dad and at shops such as X9 Games in Hadley before moving on to tournaments in Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.
In January he took first place in the junior division at the Pokémon City Championships in West Bridgewater, where he beat 10 other children his age.
“When I won the city championship, I won this mat — which everybody wants,” he said, referring to the mat he was drawing cards on top of Wednesday.
He was also awarded 50 points, which allowed him to qualify for entry at the world championships.
And now that his parents are planning to bring the family to San Francisco in August, Sebastian has reached his initial goal.
“My goal was to go to worlds,” he said.
As he anticipates going up against hundreds of other top-notch Pokémon players, Sebastian keeps it modest: He wants to place in the top three at the worldwide competition.
Celeste said at their Easthampton household and at competitions, Pokémon is an accessible game that seems to reap big benefits.
She said the game is all about anticipating what the opponent is going to do as well as your own next step and “being a good loser.”
And Sebastian’s recent interest in another game of skill seems to prove that.
“When we play chess, I lose all the time,” Celeste said. “He’ll see things that I didn’t see.”
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.