LOCAL YOUTH HEADED TO POKEMON CONTEST

Some boys collect baseball cards as a hobby, trading them back and forth with their friends and neighbors.

Cole Bradley, 11, of Cape Girardeau collects cards too, but not of baseball players. His hobby -- collecting Pokemon cards -- has led him to national competition where he will do battle with fellow Pokemon lovers throughout the United States and Canada.

Cole recently finished second in regional Pokemon competition at Nashville, Tenn. With that finish, he won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Trainer Showdown at Meadowlands Convention Center in Secaucus, N.J., June 23 and 24.

Cole said he's going to New Jersey to have fun but hopes he does well. "I'm kind of confident," he said. "I made it this far."

Pokemon battles are played between two people using a deck of 60 Pokemon cards of their own choosing. Players may choose up to four of any kind of Pokemon characters, up to four special energy cards and any combination of basic energy or trainer cards. They draw cards and attack each other by playing different cards until one competitor's Pokemon characters are killed off.

Sally Bradley, Cole's mother, said the game was too complicated for her to understand. "He's asked me to play before and I never could," she said.

Cole said his interest in the little Japanese characters began two years ago while playing a video game with a friend. Part of the game featured the Pokemon characters, which Cole said he thought were "really cool."

He collected cards for a while and began battling a year ago in Pokemon leagues at Toys R Us and Hastings in Cape Girardeau. His interest started him on the road to national competition.

"He got on the Internet and did some research into tournaments through that and his Pokemon magazines, and he began to find out about all these tournaments," his mother said. "He did it all on his own."

Cole and his family were surprised by his second-place finish at Nashville May 12.

"He wanted to go, and we wanted him to have the opportunity to go," his mother said. "We never thought he'd get this far."

Cole said he saw cards at Nashville that he had never seen, including some from Japan that are rare.

Cole said competition involves many strategies, and he didn't use a particular one at Nashville. The national competition will be tougher because certain Pokemon characters that were allowed in Nashville won't be allowed there, he said.

"I have to rework my deck," he said. "I won't be able to use the same one I did in Nashville."

Cole is trying to figure out strategies others might use and put cards in his deck to counter them. He enjoys testing his skills against better players.

"It's more fun that way," he said.