The Pokémon World Championships (or Worlds) kicked off in Hawaii last week, and since then, we’ve seen the best TCG players in the world duke it out for the top spot. The competition’s winners have already been announced, but I think we’ve found the prize for the most controversial decision.
One competitor, Ian Robb, sat down opposite Fernando Cifuentes in the masters quarter-finals. After a hard-fought battle, Robb came out on top, so it looked like he would progress to the next stage of the tournament. However, when the next battle began, fans in the audience were confused to see Cifuentes, not Robb, sitting in the challenger’s seat.
It turns out that The Pokémon Company’s international global esports and events director, Chris Brown, had to step in between matches after the Championship judges decided to hand out a penalty to Robb. “It was an unsporting conduct penalty,” Brown says in a follow-up interview with IGN. “We applied it to the match that had just occurred and the standard penalty for that’s a match loss.”
The poor conduct that Brown was referring to seems to be a rude hand gesture that Robb made just after his win against Cifuentes. Blink, and you’ll miss it, but just after the handshake, it looks like Robb turns to the crowd (or someone in it) and makes a lewd gesture.
One fan shared the moment this happened on Twitter: “I thought Ian Robb had acted ungentlemanly, but it seems it was just a masturbation gesture he made at the end of the quarter-finals.”
The disqualification has since caused quite a stir, as fans seem to be split down the middle as to whether or not this gesture deserves disqualification. “Are they stupid? This is not a lewd gesture,” one fan says on Twitter. And while this gesture certainly isn’t particularly shocking, The Pokémon Company has to be very strict when it comes to enforcing good behaviour.
Almost half of all the players attending Worlds fall under the junior bracket, which is ages 12 and under, or the senior bracket, which is ages 13-15, and plenty of the audience will be children. Pokémon TCG has a sizable young audience, so it makes sense that The Pokémon Company polices things a bit differently than other esports tournaments. I mean, come on, this isn’t Tekken.
Alongside being strict about conduct, The Pokémon Company is also pretty rigid when it comes to what constitutes match conduct in particular. “Generally, the match is not considered to be over until you’ve actually signed your match slip… And so that’s sort of a key moment,” Brown says. So Robb was disqualified as his actions technically still fell under match conduct rules. Despite winning the round, it wasn’t over yet—it’s finicky and annoying, but them’s the rules.
The Play! Pokémon Standards of Conduct also makes The Pokémon Company’s feelings on conduct glaringly obvious: “Players should act with empathy and grace and remember to treat those around them as they would expect to be treated themselves.” This sentiment is repeated throughout the document.
But to be fair, Robb has taken the ruling like a champ. “I’m cheering for [Cifuentes] today,” Robb says. “After meeting him and his dad, I could tell how much making the cut at Worlds meant. He’s a deserving champion.” And the tournament is finished now, so there’s not much else to do. Worlds concluded last Sunday, with Cifuentes snagging the top spot after beating Seinosuke Shiokawa in the Masters bracket.