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Sam Winburn and Ashley Kendall would be the envy of anyone who ever wanted to "go pro" in their childhood hobby.
The Tasmanians are both certified, high-level judges in the international Pokemon trading card game, and they have been paid to fly around the world to adjudicate huge competitions.
Mr Winburn estimated he and his friend were two of about half a dozen people in Australia who are qualified "Pokemon Professors".
"I've judged nine national championships, and this year I've had the opportunity to judge three international championships — two so far and I'm off to a third one next month," he said.
That competition, the Pokemon Europe International Championships, will feature hundreds of players and include a combined prize pool of up to $250,000.
The Japanese animation — focused on a group of fantasy creatures — has been through many iterations since it first appeared as video game in 1996.
It has spawned a cartoon series and, more recently, the flash-in-the-pan smartphone phenomenon Pokemon GO.
The most low-tech option is the trading card game where players collect cards featuring different Pokemon and then "battle" them against each other.
Both Mr Winburn and Mr Kendall had to take a written test to become Professor-level judges of the game.
"You need a knowledge of the rules. You need a good disposition to be able to work with other people, work through conflict — you need to mediate between players when they've got a disagreement," Mr Kendall said.
Living the Pokemon dream
Earlier this year the pair travelled to the United States to judge.
Mr Winburn, who will be off to the UK in a few weeks, is living the dream for someone who has loved Pokemon since they were a kid.
"When I got to about 15 or 16 I thought, 'I'd love to learn how to play with these cards properly — not just my Charizard beats your basic Pikachu — because its big and powerful," he said.
Next year he plans to judge at a big competition interstate and hopefully travel to North America again.
"If I'm really lucky and I work really hard I might well make the World Championships to judge in August next year," he said
Pokemon GO spawned card revival
Mr Kendall and co-owner Emma Pinferi run Pokemon trading games out of their games shop just south of Hobart.
They have created a small community of fellow enthusiasts.
"Pokemon GO has really revitalised the game," Mr Mr Kendall said.
"There's so many more people playing now — people who used to play it back when they were a kid are like, 'Yes, I remember this; this is great'.
"Then they're really excited to find that, hey, it's still going on.
"You just see the passion people had as kids just transforming them as adults.
"I've seen entire family generations playing together — people who played as kids playing with their own kids."
Topics: games, kids-games-and-links, board-and-card-games, games-on-the-web, arts-and-entertainment, hobart-7000, tas