Game champ makes history
 | | Fares Sekkoum |
POKEMON champ Fares Sekkoum is beaming with pride after making Trading Card Game history as the first ever UK player to make it to a world championship.
Pokémon is a popular Japanese cartoon and the trading cards, featuring characters from the programme, are a playground craze. The game requires logical thinking and winning strategies.
Fares, 10, from Ashbrook Road, Archway, went through months of qualifying rounds at city and regional championships before a tense day at the UK National Finals in June when he took the title of Pokemon Trading Card Game Under-10s National Champion.
He won an all-expenses paid trip to the World Championship held in Anaheim, California.
Competing against more than 400 other hopefuls from 30 countries around the globe, Fares beat a Canadian player in the last eight, only to be knocked out of the title race by Spencer Duncan from the USA.
Fares, who started playing Pokemon Trading Card games when he was seven, said: "It was really cool and I can't wait to go again next year. I was really nervous at the start but when I heard I'd made it into the top 35 I was really glad.
"It was very hard, compared to the UK national and city championships."
Fares' brothers Yacine, 15, and Sami, 16, also qualified for the World Championships, with Yacine finishing 15th in the world.
Fares' mother Fatima Sekkoum said: "He was very nervous in the beginning but he got more confidence as the days passed because he was doing very well."
Fares has won a free trip to next year's World Championships in Hawaii as well as dozens of other Pokemon goodies.
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