A slightly delayed update as I spent last weekend in Liverpool doing what I do when I’m not being a musician – Pokémon Trading Card Game! I’ve been playing casually for about a year and decided to enter my first official tournament, one of the European Regional Championships (the 2022/23 season includes tournaments in Lille, Warsaw, Stuttgart, Liverpool, Bochum and Malmö). Day 1 is open entry and I managed to snag one of the 800 entry tickets for the Masters division (over-16s) along with a couple of friends who I play with at Geek Retreat in Hanley every week.
So what on earth does this have to do with music? It turns out there are a number of transferable skills that I have acquired as a musician that have helped me with competitive play, and lessons to be learned from playing a card game that will serve musicians well.
Practice!
The 2022 Pokémon TCG World Champion (an accolade which comes with a cheque for $25,000 USD in case you were wondering why people take this seriously) said in his post-game interview that he practises 6 hours a day. I did not put in anywhere near that, because I’m not competing at the highest levels, and the two are at least somewhat related. I played in my local tournament each week and many games online with both friends and random opponents.
Everyone who plays an instrument knows how important practising is, but even if you can’t squeeze in 40 hours a day doing something every day is still valuable. It doesn’t always have to be assessed repertoire or really pushing the highest limits of your ability – breadth is frequently ignored but is essential for any musician – but showing up is half the battle.
Focus your energy
I usually play a variety of different decks but in preparation for the tournament I spent about a month playing the same deck, making minor tweaks along the way but focusing exclusively on
Lost Box. Local league and online games were strictly limited to this deck, meaning I learned how to counter a lot of other decks I played against and knew the setup inside out.
Doing well in a competition or exam usually means playing the same pieces (not exclusively but consistently) for weeks, if not months, and putting a lot of energy into them. There is a fine line between being prepared and ending up sick of the sight of it, but you can balance this out by keeping some other music on the go as well as your main ‘competitive’ set list.
Have optimistic but also realistic expectations
I would describe myself as a solid Tier 2 player – I can beat casuals and at least put up a fight against Tier 1 players but I can’t beat the ones who really know what they’re doing. I had no illusions about making it to day 2, which would require at least 6 wins and 1 draw, so I decided that for my first tournament I would be happy with one win and anything else was a bonus. I won my first round which put me in a great mood and picked up 2 more along the way, finishing with 11 points on 3 wins, 4 losses, 2 ties and placing 419th, of 756, putting me in the top 55% for that tournament. It’s not a stunning score but it’s far better than I was expecting to manage for my very first tournament, so I now have a standard to try to beat or at least match in my next competitive event, and I’m now familiar with the structure of the day so I know how to do things like find my seat and fill in the match slip.
For grade exams my violin teacher always told students to aim for a merit – that way you wouldn’t be too disappointed if you ‘only’ got a pass (which is the most common result, and anything you may have seen about a merit being the baseline is false) and it’s a nice bonus if you get a distinction. If you know there’s a part of the exam you really struggle with then do as much as you can to address it, but if everything else is going well then you may have to accept that you’re not likely to get top marks for that section. I was not brilliant at the singing parts of the ABRSM aural tests but I was pretty good at scales, so if 10 extra hours of practice time would hypothetically net me 1 extra mark for aural or 3 for scales it would make more sense to opt for the latter, and accept a mediocre aural mark in exchange for a better result on the exam as a whole.
If you’re entering a competition for the first time then winning is not impossible but there will likely be a lot of contestants who’ve had more experience than you, so again you should aim to do as well as you can but with the intention of setting a standard for you to exceed in the future rather than being disheartened and, in the worst cases, considering giving up if you didn’t come away with a prize. The structure of these events can also be confusing and intimidating the first time, but the second time is a lot easier and hopefully less nerve-wracking now you know how it all works.
Try something you wouldn’t normally do
I am well known at my local Pokémon league for playing decks that fall into the category of rogue (semi-competitive decks that are not part of the current top-tier ‘meta’) and meme (ridiculous decks with some sort of bizarre gimmick which are unlikely to win but fun to play). I don’t try to keep up with the current top-level decks – not least because they are usually very expensive – and I hate using pre-prepared lists found online rather than building my own. I made an exception for the tournament because I wanted to do as well as I could and not be held back by choosing a silly deck, so I opted for one of the cheaper meta setups and my starting point was a list that came 3rd in a Latin America International Championship. Despite my reservations I really enjoyed playing it, especially the potential for last-minute wins by the skin of your teeth, which did happen a couple of times during the tournament.
Everyone has a favourite style of music, but it’s always worth trying new things. Classical instrumentalists can benefit a lot from trying out some jazz, pop, improvisation, experimental modern works, new composers…pretty much anything not written by white European men several centuries ago. If you hate it then at least you gave it a try, and if you love it you’ve found a whole new environment to explore. Look outside the box and you might be surprised what you find.
Don’t give up
A Championship tournament is a marathon, not a sprint. Day 1 has 9 rounds of 50 minutes each, 2-3 games per round, with about 90 minutes for lunch – including around 15 minutes extra time for each round the whole thing takes about 11 hours. Many people drop out at some point during the day, often once they know they can’t score high enough to get to day 2, but I was determined to complete every round and I did, though not without difficulty and a vast quantity of energy drinks. After round 4 I had lost 3 games in a row and could no longer qualify for day 2, but had I dropped then I would have missed out on 8 of my 11 total points. Had I dropped after round 6, which is the point where we were all clearly starting to get tired, I would have lost 4 of my 11 points. Sticking it out to the end meant I did as well as I could overall and I got a lot more experience than if I’d abandoned the tournament while I was on what seemed at the time to be a continuous losing streak.
Almost every musician will get stuck at some point, and may consider giving up through frustration or believing they lack talent. Progress is not linear and sometimes you reach a plataeu where you feel you’re not moving forward, but if you keep trying you will eventually get through this blip, and the next one, and the next one…until you get to where you want to be, and further than you ever thought you could.
Enjoy yourself!
I don’t need to differentiate this section, because the advice is exactly the same. There may be certificates or shiny trophies or cash prizes on the line for some events, but the reason we play is that we enjoy it. Not everything about it is always fun, and there are times when we struggle or things don’t go our way, but when that happens we dust ourselves off and keep trying. We love not just the end result but the process of learning and playing, we make great friends along the way, and we all try to do the best we can.
Now go practise!
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