A legend was born at the EVO 2011 fighting game tournament. Eight-year old Noah Solis made the Top 48 with Marvel vs. Capcom 3 , schooling many adult players in the process and quickly becoming a fan favorite. Those watching cheered his every combo and booed the winning players when he met defeat. It was a Catch-22 for his opponents. They’d be subject to ridicule if they lost to him but hated if they defeated him.

Pro gaming sponsorship group The Traveling Circus knew a very good thing when they saw it. They’ve signed the young man to a sponsorship that will cover his tournament entries and give him his own clothing line.

People who know what they’re doing when it comes to Pokemon will have a chance to show it next month. It’s time for the U.S. National Pokemon Championships. The first match ups will be held at Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 8, 2011, with attendees facing off until July 10, 2011.

If you’re competing for the top spot in the Pokemon Video Game Championship Series, then you already know whether or not you’ll be participating in the U.S. National Championships…

It sure would be great to go to Comicon 2011 for free. But it isn’t like people are lining up to just hand you a free trip. No, if you want one, you’ll have to earn it. Hey, look! Play N Trade stores are holding a Marvel vs Capcom 3 International Tournament. Well, that just solves everything…

Fantasy Flight Games recently announced that the beginning of their 2011 Living Card Game (LCG) Regionals season is about ready to begin and are looking for retailers or tournament organizers to host their Regional Championship Tournaments.

The tournaments will be based on the three LCG games: Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game, Call of Cthulhu LCG and A Game of Thrones LCG. If you’re a player, you’ve got plenty of time to brush up on your game as the season runs from May 2 to June 13, 2011. Computer gaming is fun and all but it still can’t match playing face-to-face, actually meeting people and making friends.

Call it a huge advancement in artificial intelligence or the first step towards the creation of our robot overlords.

The IBM supercomputer Watson, which you may have seen in recent commercials, bested game show legend Ken Jennings in a Jeopardy test run. Jennings is renowned as the best player in that show’s history, piling up an insane 74 game winning streak in 2004-05. Watson also defeated Brad Rutter, a contestant whose Jeopardy winnings exceed $3 million.

There are few things in gaming better than racking up a killing spree in Halo: Reach. One way to make that even better is to rack up head shots while fighting breast cancer.

Kari Toyama and Tasha Pettengill created a way to do that in 2006 with the Fight Like a Girl (FLAG) Halo Tournament. The pair has run the event ever since. The October 23-24, 2010, weekend event will bring gamers from all over the world together to raise money for breast cancer research. One hundred percent of the cash raised goes to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and National Cervical Cancer Coalition.

AJ received a double dose of heartbreak last week on World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer. He got sent home and is out of the running for the $100,000 prize. Also, he’s no longer able to kick back in the cushy Ultimate Gamer pad and hang out with Faye. It was a hard fall from grace, considering he placed first in the “real life” challenge.

Kat and Ryan formed an unlikely alliance. It could be short-lived as…

TV has been doing shows about competitive gaming since capitalized on the arcade craze of the ’80s. The latest TV show to try and capture the competitive fire of high level video gaming is World Cyber Games: Ultimate Gamer on Syfy. It combines gaming challenges with Survivor-style elimination games to eventually award a $100,000 grand prize to the Ultimate Gamer.

The SyFy Channel is bringing back the reality game show Ultimate Gamer for a second season. The premiere episode of WCG Ultimate Gamer 2 will air on SyFy at 11:00 p.m. (ET) on August 19, 2010.

The show, much like other pseudo-reality game shows, pits 12 gamers against each other in trumped up competitions that are somehow related to video games. If it is like the first season of Ultimate Gamer (check out our preview) of the series, contestants will partake in three challenges each episode and hope to not be eliminated so they can compete in the final episode.

Stern Pinball, makers of arcade-quality pinball machines, has announced a series of US pinball tournaments promoting its Iron Man pinball machine.

There are current four locations across the US and the event requires a $5 admission fee. The parties/tourneys all coincide with the movie’s release, May 7, 2010, and Stern promises “4 Grand Prize Winners” (likely one per location). Exact prizes were note indicated.