EPT Berlin: About the Robbery

I can still remember the whole thing as if it only happened last saturday.

The very first thought that came through my mind was: "why are the ladies in the hall playing tag?". Giving a closer look to the face of one of the ladies, the situation changed from playing tag to running for their lives.

She shouted: "There's a raid!"

Yes I was a bit scared but being a journalist and with Steve Irwin in the back of my head I started walking towards were the girls where running from. (He's the: "Over there we see the most dangerous snake in the whole word, one bite will kill you for sure, it looks really mad, let's go pick it up" guy). A few people who were walking in front of me suddenly turned around, and started running back with fear of death in their eyes. Ok, back to the press room it is.

Most of the people in the media room were taking cover or started lying down. I was going to my computer thinking how sick it would be to have some live coverage of this in the ticker. I guess I am kind of brain washed: Something happens, put it in the ticker!

One kazillionth of a second later, cause that's how fast things go in these moments, I thought: Friends and family of the players reading: "Everyone is now Under The Gun and running for their tournament lives"... not a good idea. On top of that: Gangsters storming in the media room and seeing me at the computer being in contact with the outside world -> Here lies EliasVeritas, the first one to report about the robbery at EPT Berlin. His last update ever.

Alright so this wasn't the best idea in the world. So I left my computer for what it was and I was looking at the ground picking out a good spot to fall down in case the gangsters came in and shouted "Everybody down on the ground now!" like they always do in the movies.

The point where I got really scared is when I saw what happened on the live stream (there was a big TV in the media room). Things looked... bad. I really thought people were getting shot and I was thinking how incredibly bad I wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.

After what seemed like half an hour later but probably just took a few minutes, the door of the press media was opened. In came a few guys from the press who told us the most exciting words in tournament poker: "It's all over, noone got hurt"

After that I wrote the first update about the raid. In retrospect I should have immediately included that it looked like everyone was fine. I'm pretty sure people who watched the live stream at home must have expected some pretty bad things. I remember typing was kind of a big issue though since my hands were shaking like they had never done before. By that time a lot of people were coming back up the stairs or were crawling out of whatever place they were hiding in.

They all looked shocked.

A few minutes later, when we were really sure that everyone was fine stories began to be told and jokes were being made up. Here are some stories I heard:

I talked to one of the Tournament Directors at the bar later that night. You can see him on the phone in the video of the robbery. He said it took the police 6 minutes to pick up. Someone else also called the police for 5 minutes without a reply. When the police finally picked up the conversation went like this:
Tournament director: "There's an armed Robbery going on at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin"
Police: "Ok sir, could you please give me the address?"
...

Jan Veit wasn't there to play the Main Event but for whatever reason he just decided to randomly travel to Berlin to play the 1k side event. It was cancelled after the robbery.

Two players were All In in the Main Event. AT vs AQ with no Ten on the board and one card still to be dealt.All hands who were still going on when play resumed were declared dead since there was no way to guarantee the deck was still in the same order. However Tahkokallio holding AT agreed to shuffle the deck and deal one more card, an incredible act of fair play. In the name of epicness I was really hoping for a Ten but the river was a blank. Tahkokallio became second in the tournament though.

This is something one of my colleagues wrote and it still makes me laugh every time I think about it: Everyone was walking behind Alexander Kravchenko who looked like the leader of the pack. In a constant steady walk he marched to the door and explored every corner before we went on. I felt so safe behind this old Russian guy who looked like he had seen this stuff like a thousand times before.

Apparently there was another armed robbery at a poker tournament in Paris a few years ago. I'm not going into details here as it's quite irrelevant. However Josh Arieh wrote the story from his point of view and I thought this part was quite interesting:

In the midst of all the chaos, there is no group of people I would rather be in this situation with than a bunch of poker players. When all the chaos started there had just been a flop in the 800-1600 game that Lindgren, Ivey and Greenstein were playing, so to say the least the robbers interrupted their game. Ivey and the boys have some sort of way of betting on the side if certain hands win each pot. While I was in the fetal position praying for my life, Ivey was under the table calm as can be and, turning to Lindgren and Greenstein said "Boys, I wanna' double up this hand".

To summarize: Sick story! I am one life experience richer and experienced a kind of fear which I never felt before. Props to PokerStars, the tournament directors, all the players, the waitresses and the security people. Impressive how everyone tried to make the best out of this situation.


See you at EPT Snowfest!
My readers I mean...

Elias