16-Year-Old Hong Kong Player Wins Pokémon Go Championship Against Dutch Rival

A Pokémon GO player from Hong Kong has just made history by taking home first place at the World Championships.

16-year-old Yekai Yekai (Yekai0904) faced off against Netherlands’ Martijn Versteeg (Inadequance) in the Pokémon Worlds Finals in Honolulu, Hawaii. Inadequance’s team was made up of Giratina, Lanturn, Clodsire, Skarmory, Wigglytuff, and Poliwrath while Yekai0904’s team of six consisted of Altaria, Skarmory, Lickitung, Charjabug, Shadow Quagsire, and Annihiape.

While both players seemed to have a similar team composition, with both having the Skarmory overlap, Yekai0904 got the edge early on when he shielded an Aqua Tail before landing a Stone Edge. Yekai0904 just seemed to have a better match-up against Inadequance who took a risk with the Charjabug while Inadequance relied heavily on his Poliwrath.

In an intense third round, Inadequance was down 0-2 and seemed like he was going to flip the momentum of the game when he took it to 1-2, but ultimately lost to Yekai0904 1-3. With this win, Yekai0904 went from a relatively unknown player to one of the most talked about Pokémon GO players after beating one of the best and taking home the HKD $156,000 ($20,000) prize money.

Check out the full final match-up from the Official Pokémon YouTube channel above.

(Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong