How to Play: A Judge’s Story

When Alberto asked me to write articles for this blog, I accepted without thought; writing about things that I enjoy is an idea I’ve always found cool and I’ve never really had an opportunity to do it. I soon came to realise that I didn’t really know what to write about. I’ve played quite a few trading card games, the most notable ones being Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, but I’m not actively playing any at the minute.

I spent quite a while thinking about how I could write about games that I don’t really play. I eventually arrived at the idea of writing about being a judge, I’ve judged the Chesterfield Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament for about 4 years now and around 2 years ago I stopped playing the game in order to judge as the player base got too large to do both. I also judged the first few Pokémon tournaments that Gaming Galore held.

While I’m far from the most experienced judge in the world, I thought it would be interesting to share how I started judging and the way it made me see the games I play in a different light.

Thanks for taking the time to read this introduction, I’ll try and post once a week from now.

-Luke