Getting your priorities right: this 13-year old finalist at the Tekken Global Championship knows how

Meet Alexandre “AK” Laverez, the 13-year old Filipino boy who won bronze in the recently concluded Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Global Championship in Korea. Now I don’t know about you, but I had zero championships under my belt when I was thirteen.

According to an article by Mineski, AK is by far the youngest competitive player in the country. And for his age, he has done rather impressively, beating top players such as Nobi from Japan and Help-Me!! from Korea. The Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Global Championship 2013 is the second global championship after the Tekken 6 Global Championship Final.

A total of 20 players coming from a total of 13 countries participated in the tournament. AK, the sole Philippine representative, was able to emerge with a third place finish after Saint and JDCR from South Korea took first and second place respectively. You would think that such a big tournament would be an overwhelming event for a young boy like AK. Although he told me about how proud and honored he was to have won bronze, he was more interested in talking about the memories and the experience instead of the prestige.

It’s never too early to start learning Tekken

“Thirteen!?” I exclaimed when my colleague told me about AK. Little did I know that I would also later be surprised by how early he learned Tekken. Four year old AK was introduced to Tekken when his uncle Joshua took him to the mall and showed him Tekken Tag 1, and he has been playing ever since. Five years later, at the tender age of nine, AK found in himself a competitive streak, and entered his very first tournament, the Timezone Tekken 6 Tournament. Although AK did not win his first tournament, the experience became his first step into the world of competitive gaming. Rather than disheartening him, his first loss taught him about defeat.

It was challenging, but after a while, I learned how to accept defeat and realized that it’s part of the game.

AK continued playing and competing until he achieved his first win in last year’s Pinoy Gaming Festival (PGF) 2012. Instead of talking about his win, AK told me about how he clearly remembered the roaring crowd of PGF 2012, and how the community was very friendly.

Age does not matter, but school does.

While there are many casual Tekken players as young or even younger than AK, the competitive scene is far more diverse. It is dominated an older, largely male demographic, and made me wonder: how overwhelming must it have been for a thirteen-year old boy? Was he underestimated or not taken seriously? Was he intimidated by their age? And what about the trash talking common among players?

No, I think in Tekken, age does not matter. The Tekken community is very friendly. They would say nasty words, but that’s all a joke.

True enough, AK considers age to be just another number. To him, it is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. I like how this kid has his priorities straight, and choose not to care about insignificant things. And speaking of priorities, what about AK’s schooling? After all, at the age of thirteen, how many of us had a competitive career of any sort? This is where AK’s parents play a role in helping him juggle competitive gaming and his education. Rather than enforce a strict, disciplined regime, AK’s parents have given him more of a generic condition to follow or break at his own risk.

[My parents] told me that as long as I pass in school, I can play. […][There are] no specific grades required, but of course, I have good grades.