The grand final of the 2026 Pokemon Pittsburgh Regional Championships ended in bizarre fashion after Abaan Ahmed forfeited his match against Liam Halliburton.
Regional Pokemon TCG tournaments are grueling two-day marathons, often starting around 8 or 9 a.m. and running through eight best-of-three rounds on the first day before cutting down to a smaller field for Day 2. With no breaks for adult divisions, competitors frequently play for hours without rest.
Ahmed had already won a regional tournament the week before to secure his invite to the Pokemon World Championships, making his appearance in Pittsburg his second straight finals appearance. But the pressure wore on him during Day 2, where he entered into his matchup against Halliburton with 59 cards in his deck instead of 60.
Champion forfeits Pokemon TCG finals
The incident unfolded during the first round of the grand final match when judges paused the match to perform a deck recount and found only 59 cards in Ahmed’s deck. Tournament rules state that an incomplete deck is an automatic game loss, but instead of playing on, Ahmed chose to forfeit the entire match, handing Halliburton the regional title.
Clips from the official PokemonTCG stream later revealed what happened to Ahmed’s missing card. During a pop-off in his previous match, Ahmed threw off his headset, accidentally knocking a card onto his opponent’s play area. Calvin Connor, who was running the same deck as Ahmed, then scooped it up with his own cards, unknowingly creating the short deck situation that ended the final.
Reddit users who shared the clip explained that Ahmed, exhausted after back-to-back marathon weekends, decided not to contest the ruling, noting his poor matchup in the finals and the mental toll of playing since early morning. Top players can usually recognize missing cards by memory, but fatigue made the error harder to catch.
Halliburton was crowned Pittsburgh Regional Champion as a result, while Ahmed leaves the weekend with his Worlds invite secured and another remarkable run on his record.
