For the past year, Zack and his friends have gathered in Collector's Corner II, a sports card and memorabilia store, where they trade cards under the watchful eye of their parents and storeowner Mike Wasserman.

They are after all, only elementary school students. Their game is Yu-Gi-Oh!, a trading card game with rules similar to bridge, yet involving complex characters and storylines.

But after 14 years at 481 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Collector's Corner II will shut its doors permanently at the end of the month. While it looks like the weekly Yu-Gi-Oh! games will go on elsewhere, players and their parents are still sad to see the store go.

"I've been going there for a long time, and I don't want it to close," said Leo Callahan, a player who has been participating in Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments at the store for the past year.

Zack echoed that sentiment but said that he wouldn't just miss the store, but its owner as well. "I don't want Collector's Corner to close because I won't get to see Mike as much," he said.

Parents of Yu-Gi-Oh! players credit Wasserman for creating a safe environment, where they could feel comfortable allowing their children to go.

"It has just become part of their lives. Every Sunday, that's where they are going," said Leslie Holms, Zack's mother. "Mike treats the kids like they are adults."

Wasserman, who has owned the store off and on during the last decade, reluctantly decided to call it quits because of time constraints.

"I thought I could do everything, and it was just too much to do," he said. Wasserman runs another full-time business and also serves as the town's vice mayor. "Between [council] and property management, the thing to go was the store."

He started the store in 1990 after he ran across the original Collector's Corner in Santa Cruz. When Wasserman expressed an interest in running his own store, the owner suggested that the two go into business together.

The partnership fell through only four months later, but Wasserman's branch—Collector's Corner II—thrived.

From the start, Wasserman ran the store like a nonprofit organization, living off his other business and donating the store's revenues to various community agencies.

"Mike has a huge sense of community," said Sue Sermone, who works at EMQ Children & Family Services in Santa Clara, a longtime recipient of the store's charity. "Ever since his beginning there, he has had a soft spot for our kids."

Children who were a part of EMQ's residential program were allowed to visit the store as an incentive for good behavior and always looked forward to those trips eagerly, Sermone said.

"That was a real big deal for them, they had to earn that privilege," she said.

Over the 14 years, Wasserman has met a number of sports figures through the business, once even spending three days with former basketball player Michael Jordan. But he said that the best things about the store are the children who have passed through.

"Kids come in here with their kids," he said. "Closing the store is the smart thing for me to do, but it's the sad thing for me to do."

The weekly Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament tradition will continue at Mountain Mike's Pizza at 430 N. Santa Cruz Ave., starting March 28. Co-owner Jim Johnson said he had never heard of Yu-Gi-Oh! before, but decided to let the group use a spare banquet room at his pizza parlor after Wasserman told him about the store's closure.

"I've known Mike for a long time, and he's done so many good things for the kids. I just wanted to help him and help the kids," he said.

For more information about the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments, call Mountain Mike's Pizza at 408.354.5208.