Play! Pokémon

Pokémon Organized Play

Company type	Gaming
Founded	2003
Headquarters	Redmond, Washington

Pokémon Organized Play (or POP in short) is a division of The Pokémon Company. This division is for the Pokémon Trading Card Game and was formed by Pokémon USA in 2003 after Wizards of the Coast lost its license to the Trading Card Game, they created new league, tournament, and prize systems, as well as an improved professor program.

Pokémon TCG Leagues

Unlike the Wizards leagues, POP utilizes a hybrid system, in which one can earn points for playing the Game Boy Advance and/or the Trading Card Game. After the "Hoenn" league era, they stopped doing this and brought back League books. During the Sevii Islands League era, they also introduced POP packs for players to earn. Currently, the leagues are up to the Battle Frontier theme, and will be ending soon to make way for the new Kanto Leagues, paying homage to the original Wizards of the Coast Pokémon League era.

There are over 300 leagues, worldwide, about 2/3 of which are in the United States.

Registration

To enter tournaments, you need to have a POP-ID with you at all times, unless you know it by heart. A POP-ID is something you use to enter tournaments. It is required to make a My Pokémon account, where you can view your rankings, your Tournaments if you are a Tournament Organizer, or your Leagues if you are a League Leader.

Local Tournaments

Tournaments in which are meant for both fun and practice. They are usually held every week by your local Tournament Organizer. Prizes vary depending on the people. The price to enter is usually between free - $5.

POP-sanctioned tournaments are either single elimination, swiss, or Swiss followed by single elimination rounds. Some POP events use "Age Modified Swiss", (a variation of Swiss invented by POP) in which a player's age takes priority over the player's record when the organizer pairs players.

After sanctioned tournaments are completed, the Tournament Organizer uploads the results of each match to POP. The results of each match are used to calculate a player's rating. POP Ratings are based on the Elo rating system.

Prerelease Tournaments

Tournaments in which you get to play with cards that will be released in stores in weeks prior to the event. The fee is $20 and each player gets 6 Packs. Each player builds a 40-card deck using the cards opened out of the 6 packs (not including basic Energy cards, which are provided at the event). At the end of each prerelease, players receive 2 extra packs, a Pre-Release exclusive pin, a Pre-Release exclusive promo card, and a deck box all featuring the new set.

Premier Tournaments

  Tournaments meant for competition. There are 6 different types of Premier Tournaments:

City Championships: When players from a specific city come together to determine who is the City champion. Prizes for first place are: 18 packs of the latest set, a Tote bag with goodies and a Medal.

State Championships: Players from all over a state come together to play and become the State Champ. Prizes for first place are : 36 packs of the latest set, a tote bag with goodies, and a trophy. They also get $300 travel allowance from Origins during the National Championships.

Regional Championships: Players from a specific Region come together to battle it out so he or she can become the Regional champion. Gym Challenge: Prizes for first place are : 36 packs of the latest set, a tote bag with goodies, a trophy, $2000 scholorship and a Travel Award with Hotel Stay for the National Championships (not available in the 2006-2007 tournament season)

Gym Challenge: Everyone from many states come together to play for a Worlds invite. Winner gets: Invite to play in the World Championships of that year, a Travel Award/hotel stay for Worlds, and 36 Booster packs of the latest set. (not available in the 2006-2007 tournament season)

Battle Road Tournaments: Battle Road Tournaments give players another opportunity to work on their premier ratings, potentially earning an invite and trip to Worlds.

National Championships- This is a big event where players from all over the country come together to determine who are the top players of their respective countries.

World Championships - An invite only event where players around the world come together and play.

-Current list of World Champions under POP:

2004: Tsuguyoshi Yamato (15+), Takuya Yoneda (11-14; citation needed), Hayato Sato (10-; citation needed)

2005: Jeremy Maron (15+), Stuart Benson (11-14), Curran Hill (10-)

2006: Jason Klaczynski (15+), Miska Saari (11-14), Hiroki Yano (10-)

Standard Premier Event Schedules

(Based off of the 2006/2007tournament season):

City championships: November 2006 - January 2007

State Championships: March 2007

Battle Road Tournaments: April 2007

National Championships: Spring through July 2007

World Championships: August 2007

Professor Program

A special program in which people become Pokémon Professors to help promote the game in many ways, such as Judging, Volunteering, Advertising and more importantly, Spirit of the Game. To become a Pokémon Professor, you have to take the Professor Test in the Professor section of the Organized Play website. You must be at least 18 years or older to become a Professor. (Was previously 15 from 2003 - Late 2005).

Tournament Organizers/Premier Tournament Organizers

A Tournament Organizer (TO) is someone who runs tournaments for their local community. Usually, he or she runs them within a weekly or monthly basis at a local store. However, a Premier Tournament Organizer (PTO) has the ability to run major tournaments and Prereleases as well in any major place at a particular time. Like Pokémon Professors, TOs and PTOs have to be 18 or Older.

Controversy

While the Pokémon Organized Play program has made astounding success in the three years it has controlled the Pokémon Trading Card Game, there are still several issues facing the organization, as well as its community of gamers. Below are some of the bigger controversies during the POP era.

Growing audience: with the ever-increasing player attendance worldwide, there is concern that the company and its respective Premier Tournament Organizers may not be able to keep up with the numbers, specifically on the national level. However, it's more likely that the events not run directly by the staff of Organized Play will suffer from overcrowding, and not OP-directed events (usually the larger events, where odds of a large attendance are greater).

Player/member bannings: while some individuals have become infamous for their bans, numerous others still go unexplained. Organized Play, while having its right to disallow business with any individual for legitimate reasons (i. e. lying about tournament attendance, harassing players verbally/physically, defacing or stealing property, etc), is still under question whenever banned individuals claim to lack full knowledge as to why they earned the ban. Sometimes, when the community catches wind of a ban, there is heated debate as to whether or not the penalty was fitting for the crime, but very rarely does POP reverse a ban. Only one person to this day is known to get a full reverse suspension.

External links

• Official POP website

• Tournament Info

• PokeGym Massively popular forum for Pokémon Organized Play tournaments and players (includes staff from POP as members)
• Pokémon TCG Rulings Compendium Comprehensive official rulings compilation for Organized Play.