Yu-Gi-Oh-mania at Malpensafiere

Long tables with about a hundred players per side, a pavilion in the Malpensafiere Exhibition Centre full of 14 to 20-year-olds, who share a passion for Yu-Gi-Ho trading cards. The exhibition area in Busto Arsizio is housing the biggest European card tournament ever to be organised in Italy, the second biggest event of this kind in Europe. One thousand people are taking part, after travelling from a few dozen to thousands of kilometres, to sit at one of the tables, and play for the final victory, where there are valuable prizes, including extremely rare playing cards that may be worth up to €700. The tournament started this morning, Saturday, and will end tomorrow evening. Many of the young people present, a good 40% of whom are foreigners, are accompanied by their parents who have brought them all the way to Busto Arsizio, even from such faraway countries as Mexico and Bolivia. However, among the one thousand people taking part in the event organised by Konami, there are also Spaniards, French and Swiss people, Germans, and Italians from the south of Italy.