posting here because people on other ares of the forum don't like the idea
I was thinking here, pokemon and poker have a lot of things in common,
the climbup, you leveling your pokemons(leveling yourself as a poker player), using strategy, going into the world, and even the big live MTTs(which may be compared to the pokemon league)
also i was looking at the ZOOM tables: there are exact 8 stakes there(NL2, NL5, NL10, NL25, NL50, NL100, NL200, NL500)
so there are exact 8 badges that as had to get to go into the pokemon league.
also Ash has the typical thinking of the LAG that want to climb into the poker world, "i wanna be the very best, like no one ever was!"
The irony is pretty strong. Wifi-battles have a lot in common with poker. "Pokemon'' does not.
Anyone who has or does play pokemon(wifi-battles/PO) and Poker, decently, can vouch they're extremely similar. Pokemon is just a fun version of Poker with no gambling involved.