The last few years, Nintendo has held tournaments for the Pokemon games. These are usually pretty big events that I would love to go to and partake in. The problem is that they are almost always held in cities too far away for me to get to.
This year's tournament is trying to fix that. Instead of one big event there are regionals being held in different parts of the country. This helps spread out the events so that more people are able to attend. The closest one for me? Philadelphia. At best it's a 5-6 hour drive.
Sorry, won't be able to do it this year. I just can't see myself taking a day off to drive down and paying huge amounts of money for a tournament that I’ll probably lose in anyway. The real nail in the coffin is that once you register at the event, 128 random people are chosen to actually enter. There are going to be thousands of people trying to get in so even if I did make it, the chance of me getting picked is far too slim.
They really should have used some type of online registration to weed out the final registrants. They did it last year so why not this year? I guess they want more people to show up and buy all the stuff the vendors are going to be selling.
It's probably just as well. To be truthful, I'm not much of a battler in the Pokemon world. I enjoy collecting them instead. I've got a few well trained monsters in my games but they're nothing against the stuff the real serious trainers have. Plus, there's the threat of hackers, which has unfortunately polluted the community and has made trading with strangers suspect. That will be a post for another day.
So the events are getting closer but not close enough. Maybe next year I'll get my chance. Until then, I've got to fill up my Pokedex for Platinum, an undertaking all by itself.