More Than a Card Game

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When Nathan Osterkatz and Caleb Rogerson started meeting at Amante Gourmet Pizza in Carrboro to play Pokémon in the fall of 2019, they couldn’t have imagined where the trading card game would take them. Nathan, a 15-year-old who lives just outside of Durham, is currently ranked second in his division, while Caleb, who is 18 and lives in Apex, is third in his. And that’s not just in North Carolina or even the United States. That’s in the world.

As accomplished as they’ve become, Nathan and Caleb didn’t know anything about Pokemon’s trading card game not that long ago. Caleb collected the cards when he was little, but didn’t know how to play the game until his father, Kevin, taught him. Caleb learned about Pokémon Leagues—informal weekly events where players can battle, trade, and earn booster packs—from YouTube. At the league that met at Event Horizon Games in Raleigh, he found experienced gamers who taught him how to build a competitive deck, and he soon started entering local competitions.

Nathan learned about Pokémon when his neighbor gave him a handful of cards and taught him how to play, but their games resembled War more than an actual game of Pokémon.

The neighbor’s gift also created a dilemma for Nathan’s parents, Sandi and Sol Osterkatz.

“He had just come off five solid years of intense obsession with steam engines,” said Sandi, who set aside her doctorate in political science from UNC to start a farm in 2020. “We’d learned that if he got his teeth into something, it was going to be 500 percent. So I did some research about the game, making sure it felt ethical, playful, and positive.”

She also spoke with another mom, Erica Alexander, who said that playing Pokémon competitively had been an amazing experience for her son, Ben. Sandi and Sol paid Ben to coach Nathan, but wanted to make sure it didn’t feel like a formal lesson. “We told Nathan we were paying Ben to babysit,” said Sandi.

Like other games in the collectible card genre, Pokémon rewards players who build the strongest decks, predict their opponent’s moves, and adapt on the fly. Because many cards feature cute characters, people often mistake it for a kid’s game. But in terms of strategy and critical thinking, it’s more like a combination of chess and poker.

As Nathan’s interest grew, Erica advised the Osterkatzes to check out the league that meets at Durham’s Atomic Empire.

During their first visit, the father of one of the players walked up to Sandi and said, “New mom?” The Pokédad attended the league nearly every week, and had become an ambassador and mentor for new families.

Caleb and Kevin Rogerson had a similar experience at East Coast Gaming in Cary, where a long-haired Pokédad taught them how the championship points structure works. At tournaments, competitors are divided into three age groups: juniors, seniors, and masters. To get invited to Pokémon’s World Championships, which take place every August and award as much as $50,000 to the winners, players need to earn a certain number of points in their division. Regional Championships awarded far more points than local tournaments, and—perfect timing!—there was one coming up in Roanoke, Virginia.

Regionals typically draw thousands of players from around the country—a huge step up from local events that might only attract a few dozen. The level of play also tends to be much higher; the cost of travel usually weeds out the less serious.

Caleb finished in the Top 32 in the senior division in Roanoke that year. He also had fun checking out the vendors and hanging out with kids he knew from back home. One of them was Nathan, then 7, and also playing in his first regional. “Nathan did terribly,” said his father, “but had this amazing experience connecting with people.”

After getting eliminated from the tournament, Nathan approached an adult and confidently challenged him to a side game, even though he was still making rookie mistakes. “He had done what all 7-year-olds do, which is play a deck of all the prettiest cards,” his mother recalled, “and this guy very gently and helpfully asked him questions and gave him advice.” 

Nathan had inadvertently picked the perfect person to approach: Brent Halliburton, whose son Liam won the 2022 World Championships as a senior, is one of the game’s best-known Pokédads.

It’s hard to imagine the parent of a young chess player or soccer player taking the time to advise one of his child’s rivals. 

But what I’ve come to find while shepherding my 11-year-old from one tournament to the next is that in the world of Pokémon, such kindness isn’t an anomaly but the norm. In a world where safe spaces are becoming increasingly rare, my son Fisher has found one in Pokémon.

Boosters and Bonding

Caleb left Roanoke stoked. “That’s where my love for Pokémon exploded,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I want to play in more regionals because they’re kind of crazy.”

And even though he hadn’t played very well, Nathan still earned a prize that left him equally excited. “When he found out he was getting half a booster box,” said Sol, “it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.”

A booster box contains 36 packs of 10 cards. These cards serve as a form of currency for players who are constantly trading them to create the most powerful 60-card decks. “It gives kids a lot of autonomy for building the decks they want,” said Sandi. “You can be 7 and not have any money, but if you have cards and packs, you can get the things you need.”

When they weren’t trading with each other, Nathan, Caleb, and the rest of the kids who met weekly at Amante Gourmet Pizza started traveling together to regionals in places like Greensboro and Knoxville, Tennessee. While their kids were playing Pokémon for as much as 10 hours a day, their parents found comfort in each other’s company.

“We have friends from home who we almost never see because life is so busy,” said Sol, who works in the tech industry. “Then we come to these things, and everyone is in the same place all weekend.”

Regionals take place every three to four weeks in drab convention centers that somehow exude a welcoming atmosphere. The Poképarents deserve much of the credit.

“The type of parents that support their kids doing this are parents who are really interested in letting their kids follow their passions and care a lot about their kids having a good experience,” said Sol. “There’s a lot of community support and taking care of each other and checking in with each other.”

Parents will look after each other’s children while they run to the bathroom or grab a bite to eat. They also carpool and escort each other’s kids to and from events.

As the crew from Amante Pizza started improving, their parents agreed to take them farther from home. In January 2020, Caleb and Nathan traveled to an event by plane for the first time. On the night before the Dallas Regional, they gathered on the floor in Caleb’s hotel room to strategize. 

By critiquing his deck and suggesting changes, the “testing group” helped Caleb win his first regional. For young players, winning a regional is almost inconceivable. Kevin Rogerson compared it to a more mainstream activity: “You’ve got guys that win golf tournaments, and they never win another one the rest of their career. That could easily happen to a Pokémon player.”

Nathan also made some last-minute changes to his deck and cruised into the finals of the juniors division in Dallas. After overcoming a case of nerves, he looked over at his dad in the middle of the final round and mouthed the words, “I’m winning.”

“The funny part is I probably wasn’t even winning,” Nathan later reflected. “I probably just thought I was winning.” 

His victory surprised no one more than his parents, who were still so new to the game that they didn’t realize their son had won $1,500 to go along with the gold medal he’d earned.

The two kids from North Carolina had simultaneously achieved two of the game’s greatest accomplishments: winning a regional and earning a bid to the World Championships. But then the pandemic hit, shutting down all live Pokémon events for two years.

Catching ‘em All

Like Nathan and Caleb, my 11-year-old son Fisher started playing Pokémon competitively at local game shops, first at Morgan’s Comics in Asheville and Tokyo Toybox in Hendersonville, then Atomic Empire and East Coast Gaming. 

For much of his childhood, Fisher, who is autistic, has struggled to find a hobby where his eccentricities and occasional emotional outbursts are tolerated. Pokémon is the one activity I can take him to where I don’t have to worry about him having a bad time. Pokémon’s creator, Satoshi Tajiri, is rumored to be autistic, and the way Fisher is drawn to the game I like to believe the speculation is true. 

In April, I took Fisher to his first regional in Atlanta.

“You’ll look like a deer in the headlights, and everyone will know it’s your first time,” Sandi Osterkatz warned me, “but they’ll be really nice to you.”

Her words were prophetic. I struggled to get my bearings walking into the two-and-a-half-acre wing of the Georgia World Congress Center, which was packed with excited players and fans. Sol Osterkatz served as a beacon. He said he knew 200 people there, but given the number of folks who stopped to chat with him, that estimate felt conservative.

The first regional Caleb and Nathan entered in 2019 attracted 566 players. Since then, regionals have grown into beasts of a different magnitude; 3,244 players showed up to play in Atlanta.

I worried that Fisher would get overwhelmed. He hates loud noises, crowded spaces, and cavernous rooms. This place had all three.

Caleb’s dad, who often works the door at events, assured me that there would be space for my son within the broad spectrum of humanity that attends these tournaments. “I’ve talked to cool people, dorky people, white people, Black people, brown people, gay people, and trans people,” said Kevin Rogerson. “There’s people that play competitively and there’s people that just come because they’re accepted. It’s definitely a safe space.”

His observation matched mine, and to my relief, Fisher quickly fell into the rhythm of the day, playing rounds that lasted as long as an hour with only short breaks in between. He emerged from his first three matches with a tie and two losses. Sol promised me Fisher would eventually win; as the day progresses, players are matched up against others with similar records, making it easier for those who lose early to win later.

Fisher finally won his first match in the fourth round. Then he won another in the next. More importantly, he remained focused and resilient throughout the long day. Juniors can play as many as 21 matches during the first day of a regional, and the most my son had ever played in a single day before then was four or five.

By the late afternoon, it began to feel like the longest playdate ever. I found comfort talking with Monique DuPlessis, a Pokémom from Poughkeepsie, New York, whose 10-year-old son, Noah, qualified for Worlds in 2024 as a junior. He’d come to Atlanta hoping to earn enough points to return. 

She told me that Noah has ADHD and has to walk the perimeter of the room alone to recover from losses, so she knew firsthand how challenging regionals can be for neurodivergent kids. “At first, you’re just trying to get through the day,” she said.

While Noah and Fisher had uneven success in Atlanta, Nathan and Caleb cruised. Nathan only lost one game on the first day, and Caleb went 7-1-1. 

Such stellar results have become the norm for them since live events restarted in 2022. 

The pandemic created a line of demarcation for competitive Pokémon players. Before, the majority of the game’s most successful players only played in person because an online equivalent hadn’t been fully developed yet. Nathan’s lack of experience playing online had an entirely different origin: His parents strictly limited his screen time. 

“But desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Sol.

Throughout the pandemic, Caleb and Nathan played tournaments on the online platform Limitless. Unlike live events, these tournaments weren’t divided into age groups. That meant Nathan and Caleb often played against older, more experienced players, which has now given them a leg up on their peers. 

At the Salt Lake City Regional in March 2022, Caleb and Nathan both won their divisions. At the European International Championships in Germany the following month, they did it again.

“They were both in their final year of their age divisions,” said Chip Richey, who lives in Raleigh, analyzes matches on Pokémon’s live streams, and has coached both Caleb and Nathan, “and they both dominated.” 

The Poképarent

The role parents play in the lives of the most successful young Pokémon players cannot be overstated. “Nathan was 11 years old, and his dad was taking him all over the world,” said Richey. “Not a lot of parents are willing to do that.”

Having to take your Pokémon-obsessed child to an event that eats up an entire weekend is one thing. Having to foot the bill is another. The typical entry fee ranges from $40 to $70. Adding the price of travel—plane fare, hotel rooms, food—makes it prohibitive for many families. 

To help offset the expenses, Sol Osterkatz has mastered the use of travel miles. “I often tell people, ‘My kids play Pokémon, and I play credit cards,’” he said.

The travel awards that Pokémon gives to the highest-ranking players also help. Awards for a single tournament range from $2,000 to $5,000, depending upon factors such as the type and location of the event and the nationality and age of the recipient. So far, Caleb has earned $21,500 in travel awards, while Nathan has received $30,000. 

As much traveling as the best players do, snafus inevitably arise. Right before a regional in New Jersey in May 2022, Caleb and his dad’s flight got cancelled, forcing them to drive. When the flight home that Sol, Nathan, and Nathan’s brother Jaime had booked also got cancelled, they all squeezed into the Rogersons’ car for a 12-hour drive. 

As challenging as flying around the world for Pokémon events can be, it provides many teachable moments for parents. “You can learn with all this travel how to deal with life,” Kevin said. 

It’s not the only thing the game teaches young players.

“They learn to read,” said Sandi. “They learn fast math and statistics. They learn to lose with grace. They learn social skills.”

The game has also helped Nathan become more independent. When he was 13, his parents let him travel to a regional in Milwaukee with the Rogersons. It was the first time he’d gone to one without either of his parents, and he has since done it several more times.

But of all the things Nathan has gained from playing Pokémon, the most important might be emotional maturity. In a world where coaches and athletes aren’t above throwing tantrums during press conferences, he exhibits a sagacity beyond his years.

“There’s no point dwelling on things that you can’t control,” he told me, “because it’s not going to make any difference.”

Math and Misfortune

Before COVID, juniors and seniors were typically the most populous divisions at regionals. But since 2022, they have shrunk while the masters division has ballooned. This has made winning events much harder for Caleb, who transitioned to masters in 2023, than it has been for Nathan, who won three regionals and two internationals in his last season as a junior.

Nathan had a rocky transition to seniors in 2023, bearing the burden of his high expectations. “He really struggled to enjoy himself,” said Sandi, “so we sat him down and said, ‘If this isn’t fun when you lose, then you’re doing the wrong thing.’”

He took the message to heart, but continued to wrestle with one of the hardest aspects of the game. “He used to get very frustrated about the luck factor, feeling like he lost because he got unlucky,” said Sol. “I was like, ‘If you could do it again, would you do anything differently? If there is, learn from that and make sure you do that next time. If there isn’t, well, that’s life.’”

When he stopped blaming losses on misfortune and started to understand that math played a bigger role, his development took a giant step forward. “I decided that I was going to stop thinking about it as being good luck, bad luck,” Nathan said. “It’s just probability.”

Turning an individual game into a team one helps reduce the role of chance even further. Two years ago, Nathan formed a testing group that meets on Discord nearly every day to fine-tune each other’s decks and offer feedback on strategy. 

“If you can’t find your mistakes, let someone better than you do it for you,” he said. “You’ll get better that way and then you can eventually get good enough to find them yourself.”

The group has also helped take the sting out of losses. Now, when he fails to make it to the final stage of a tournament, he’ll help his friends prepare for their upcoming matches. “Whoever makes it the farthest, everybody gets together to help get them across the finish line,” said Sandi.

The group also provides Nathan, who is homeschooled, with a social outlet. He often spends three or four hours a night on Discord, talking about Pokémon with his friends.

The social aspect of Pokémon has also been good for Caleb, who describes himself as “naturally introverted.” I wouldn’t have known it as I observed him in Atlanta. “That’s one of the driving factors for me wanting to go to these tournaments,” he said. “All my best friends I met through Pokémon.”

First Regionals, Then the World

As fate would have it, my son’s last match at the Atlanta Regional came against Monique DuPlessis’ son, Noah. Two neurodivergent kids battling each other after already playing Pokémon for seven hours—what could go wrong?

Adding to the drama, she told me that Noah had nearly quit after the last round. Fisher was equally exhausted. “They are two tired children,” she said, scanning the room. “We have a sea of tired children.”

Neither Noah nor Fisher had accumulated enough points to advance to the second day, so, as far as the final standings went, their match meant nothing. To me, it meant everything. Would Fisher display the resilience he’d become increasingly adept at using in social situations? Or would he have a meltdown in front of thousands of people?

A positive outcome looked increasingly unlikely as I watched Fisher strip off his bright orange Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups sweatshirt that he wears daily like a suit of armor. He hadn’t drunk enough water or eaten enough food. I could tell from his body language that he was past done.

In the end, Noah won, but Fisher still emerged from a very long day with a smile on his face.

Caleb returned the next day to play four more matches, finishing 102nd out of 2,684 masters, his worst finish since January. The following weekend, he finished fourth at a tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, winning $5,000 to increase his lifetime tournament earnings to $54,000. Now 18 and a senior at Green Level High School, he plans to study engineering at UNC Charlotte in the fall—and, of course, continue to play as much Pokémon as he can.

Nathan finished in seventh place in Atlanta, a disappointing outing by his standards. But after taking a minute to shake off the loss in his final match, he started cheering for a friend who was still in the running.

In Milwaukee in early May, Nathan won his eighth regional to go along with the three internationals he’s won. He’s won so many Pokémon tournaments that when I asked him which year he won the Indianapolis Regional and the North American International Championship (NAIC), he hesitated before telling me, as modestly as he could, that he’s actually won the Indianapolis Regional and the NAIC in two different seasons. The $2,500 he won in Milwaukee pushed his lifetime earnings to $47,000.

“My second year farming was Nathan’s last year in juniors,” said Sandi, trying to put it in perspective, “and that year Nathan made more money than I did on the farm, and I was like, ‘I really got to up my game.’”

The most exciting story in Atlanta, however, didn’t involve the two top-ranked players from the Triangle but Nathan’s 10-year-old brother, Jaime, who, with his Dragonite stuffie beside him on the table, finished seventh in juniors. He earned $750 as well as 280 championship points—enough to qualify him for the World Championships in Anaheim, California in August.

To celebrate the accomplishment, Nathan and a friend hoisted Jaime up and carried him around the room.

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Storms Reback has written five nonfiction books, including Ship It Holla Ballas!: How a Bunch of 19-Year-Old College Dropouts Used the Internet to Become the Loudest, Craziest, and Richest Crew and In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World. He lives in Durham with his wife and son.