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There’s drama brewing at this year’s Pokémon TCG World Championships tournament in Honolulu, Hawaii. The event was “thrown into chaos” when one of the competitors was booted from the event. Ian Robb was in a quarterfinals bout when he was disqualified from the competition for unsportsmanlike conduct, according to a statement given to Comicbook.com by The Pokémon Company International. Robb had beaten Fernando Cifuentes in the Masters bracket. Upon victory, he did the following hand gesture, which you can see in the below X post:
Ian Robb, el competidor contra el que originalmente Fernando Cifuentes perdió fue descalificado por este gesto.
— Centro Pokémon (@CentroPokemon) August 18, 2024
Although The Pokémon Company didn’t get into specifics about what Robb did that was considered unsportsmanlike, many feel that the gesture made by Robb was the reason. It’s… debatable how inappropriate Robb’s reaction to winning was, but apparently it crossed some line that The Pokémon Company wasn’t happy with. Cifuentes was retroactively given the win against Robb, which put Cifuentes into the semifinals match against Jesse Parker. Cifuentes won that and is now going into the finals tomorrow against Seinosuke Shiokawa.
This entire debacle has caused some turmoil about the Pokémon TCG fan community, many of whom are questioning whether the punitive actions taken against Robb were appropriate. We’ll continue to update on this story if we learn more.
Source: Comicbook.com
