I don’t know what it is about card games that make people act out, but one particular Pokémon TGC player has managed to get themselves disqualified from one of the biggest TCG tournaments in history after making a rude gesture towards their opponent.
As seemingly first noticed by Comicbook.com’s Christian Hoffer, the Pokémon TGC player Ian Robb was disqualified from the quarter finals of the Pokémon Worlds Masters tournament this week.
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Ian Robb was up against Fernando Cifuentes in the Top 8 match, a match that Robb actually won… until he was disqualified immediately after claiming victory.
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Although the official Pokémon channel still has the entire match up on YouTube, it seems they’ve edited out the gesture in question that Robb made towards the end of the match.
It seems someone caught it during the live stream however, and uploaded footage of it on Twitter.
I don’t think there’s much leeway here, as unfortunately, it’s pretty clear exactly which gesture Robb is making towards his opponent.
To make things even worse, even though Fernando Cifuentes lost this match initially he would later go on to win the entire tournament after Robb’s disqualification put him through to the semi-finals.
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It also apparently means that Robb will miss out on a $20,000 cash prize that he otherwise would have been eligible for, even if he’d lost in the semi-final match. Damn, he could have probably afforded like one shiny Charizard with that kind of money.
In their statement towards Comicbook.com, The Pokémon Company International specified that Robb was disqualified for “inappropriate conduct” but didn’t specify whether or not it will affect his ability to enter into any future tournaments.
Funnily enough, the event mirrors a recent drama at a Yu-Gi-Oh YCS tournament. The player TeamSamuraiX1 was given a game loss the finals for saying “goddamn” at one point in a match prior.
The judges behind these games really, really want to hammer it home that these games are supposed to be for children.