I have been a Pokémon fan for three years and enjoy trading Pokémon with my friends. I was excited to attend the Pokémon Video Game Championships for First News and so was my cousin, Rory, who came with me.

By Sam Bariball

We were looking forward to playing in the championships and the whole idea of a competition was very exciting.

We arrived at the contest at the Birmingham NEC early and there were already crowds gathered with some people having queued for over an hour before we had even got there. While we queued amid the growing excitement we completed our registration form on which we had to list the names and abilities of our Pokémon. When that was all checked, we were ready to begin the competition. I was feeling so nervous, as everyone else seemed to be much more of a Pokémon expert than I was!

So Round one began and my first opponent was a boy from Brighton. I couldn’t believe it – I won with one Pokémon left. As you progressed through each round you moved to a new area, which had a different coloured carpet. When my next opponent arrived we battled to the end and I came out on top. It was very close because my last Pokémon only had 1hp so I only just won. Then I entered the next zone and got ready to battle. This time it was very close as well but he just won by a short bit, which meant that my time in the competition was up.

The junior heat was finally won by an 11-year-old boy called Christopher from West Sussex, who now gets to go to Hawaii to compete in the World Video Game Championships final.

The best bit of the day was when I started the competition. I worked really hard and I had found it really hard to train my Pokémon, but I really enjoyed myself and that’s what counts.