BLOG – Playing under the gun – PokerStars EPT Berlin robbery.

BLOG – Playing under the gun – PokerStars EPT Berlin robbery.

Monday, 8 March 2010

Well, as you’ve probably heard, Day 3 of the European Poker Tour’s inaugural Berlin stop was unfortunately interrupted as masked men staged a daring daylight robbery at the Hyatt Hotel.

Witnesses claimed the “group of 5-6 men” were armed with automatic rifles, machetes and hand grenades. They forced cashiers to hand over money before escaping with an unconfirmed sum – I’ve read €800,000 in a number of places, but given that the total prize pool for the tournament was €4.8m I would suspect more.


Well, who didn’t see this coming? These sorts of events regularly have millions of dollars in play – I don’t know what security is like in Berlin but at the WSOPE, which had a total prize pool of over £3.3m, the only things I saw stopping a group of armed robbers would have been some grumpy large Eastern European men on the door.


PokerStars said: "An armed robbery by 5-6 men took place today at EPT Berlin. Nobody was seriously injured. We hope to restart all events at 4pm local time. A police investigation is underway. If you have video footage or photographs that could help the police, please contact the EPT organizers as soon as possible."


The video feed was running at the time of the attack – it can be viewed on YouTube here.


I’ve seen talks that this could be bad for poker, but I doubt it will receive a demotion back to an outlaws’ game played on upturned barrels in seedy bars. If anything this generates sympathy. Maybe. Discuss the robbery in the Bluff Europe forums.


All I can say is if you have millions in a single building, this sort of shit isn't entirely unexpected.



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