Pokémon Worlds competitor gets disqualified straight after winning the quarter-finals, thanks to a rude hand gesture

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 and 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 <a data-analytics-id=«inline-link» href=«https://x.com/ikuo_x/status/1825030789651890401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1825030789651890401%7Ctwgr%5Ebe1d3ab5efdebe22004fed7515755cf61ded67e1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ign.com%2Farticles%2Fpokemon-world-championships-boots-competitor-from-semifinals-over-seemingly-lewd-gesture-sparking-controversy» target="_blank" data-url=«https://x.com/ikuo_x/status/1825030789651890401?ref_src=» https: referrerpolicy=«no-referrer-when-downgrade» data-hl-processed=«none»>Twitter

: «I thought Ian Robb had acted ungentlemanly, but it seems it was just a masturbation gesture he made at the end of the