Hear for yourself about the man police are seeking:

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Sound like anyone you know?

Dude … I’m actually pretty sure I’ve seen him at the tables somewhere.

Police tell local Channel 13 they have a “vague description” of the suspect and are looking for him now.

Pic: Rex (2009)

Probably shouldn’t be laughing about violent crime FAILs, but LOL … just realized I wrote “walked into the Stratosphere” … so clearly the wannabe robber must be Criss Angel. OK, I jest … but what do you think the odds are that this amateur thief could be an online poker player who just lost his roll and is considering new career options? I’ll bet … either that or a neighborhood crackhead.

More tales of the Stratosphere poker room from a local low-stakes grinder here.

What looks to have been a rookie armed robbery of a min-stakes poker game in Michigan caught on video … just like EPT Berlin … you know, if PokerStars ran live events in the $30 to $40 buy-in range that start at 7 and have 15-minute levels.

At about 1 am Wednesday night/Thursday morning, two armed men entered “The Tilt Room” at the Bob-Hi Lanes near Muskegon, Michigan (a small port town of about 174,000). Upon being laughed at by players and managers, one of the robbers pistol-whipped a room employee as the duo grabbed cash on the bar, then stuffed their pockets with the rest of the money on hand. No one was seriously injured. Police say they are looking for two black males, one about 6’4″ the other 5’9″.

No word on how much money the “blue-hoodied bandits” got away with. By law, Michigan poker rooms are allowed to sell up to $15,000 in chips each day.

News reports say it was a Red Cross charity event — but just to be clear, unless I am seriously underestimating the size of the Wednesday evening tourney by a few hundred, this was not like the red-carpet charity events many of us no well. Michigan law allows for small-stakes poker rooms akin to many underground games around the country — so long as they pay the state a daily license fee and give a small portion of their rake and entry fees to charity. That charity can change by the week.

Recently publicized events at The Tilt Room benefitted, for example, an athletic booster club to buy new uniforms for a local baseball team, and the West Michigan Spay & Neuter Clinic, as listed in the current issue of West Michigan Cats and Dogs Magazine.

Michigan poker rooms have apparently been hit recently by a rash of robberies and parking lot muggings.

This time it was player-on-player violence … leaving one man dead and another injured after a gunfight broke out early morning at a warehouse poker game in Anderson County, SC.

Jermaine LeCorey Scott, 34, supposedly was losing in the wee hours of a game last week, and at some point pulled a gun on five other players. Though not clear whether or not the triggering incident had anything to do with a bad beat or involved accusations of cheating, police contend Scott was attempting to rob his opponents … even though he was not wearing a mask like most (99 percent?) armed poker robbers.

From local news reports: Channel 4 (with video), more Channel 4, Channel 7

Players supposedly called flagged down police at a nearby intersection around 7 am on Tuesday to report the shooting, and deputies arrived to find two men shot, lying on the ground in the empty warehouse, which may or may not have been cleared of poker supplies before their arrival. Scott died at the hospital from multiple gunshot wounds a few hours later. The other player, unnamed, had bullet wounds to his hand and a concealed weapon permit. Police investigators have ruled the deadly shooting a matter of self-defense — justifiable homicide — and say they have no plans to press any charges.

This fatal player-on-player shootout comes on the heels of poker-related violence in neighboring Greenville County, where an alleged underground poker-room operator shot at police officers believing he was being robbed — leaving one cop wounded and 72-year-old Aaron Awtry in jail facing charges ranging from unlawful gambling to attempted murder.

The South Carolina Supreme Court is currently considering a case out of Charleston County that questions whether or not certain poker rooms are even illegal, and could draw new lines between friendly real-money home games and illegal for-profit gambling operations. The Poker Players Alliance provided legal assistance in this case, in which attorneys representing poker player interests argued before the high court, which should return with a decision next year.

Legislators in South Carolina have been pushing measures to revise the state’s gambling laws — with proponents looking for laws that would allow more poker in safer environments, and opponents saying no, that would be bad. A Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on the issue just last week — the same day as the fatal shooting — where groups such as the South Carolina Council of Catholic Women found themselves on the same side as poker players seeking more permissive gaming laws. Opposition came from the Southern Baptist Association of South Carolina, which argues charitable bingo and church raffles present a moral slippery slope leading to numerous social ills.

The Senate committee plans to have a new gaming bill drafted before the end of this month, and a separate bill for church raffles, both of which are finding widespread public support.

We could find no information available about funeral services for Jermaine Scott, nor anything indicating whether he was a good guy or bad guy, other than authorities’ contention that his death by gunfire was justifiable.

Though still doing a little fact-check on this … I’m fairly certain that 2010 has been the most violent and deadly year of poker in recent memory, if not recorded history.

A vice squad in SWAT gear returned fire, hitting Awtry with multiple rounds in his arm and thumb … which was followed by a 20-minute standoff between cops and players, according to a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department. Both shooting victims were taken to the hospital where they are in stable condition.

There were 12 people and Awtry in the house at 502 Pine Knoll Drive when police arrived at about 9:20 pm last night. According to frontline witnesses, they had just finished a small buy-in dinnertime tourney … and a 1/2 cash game was just getting underway when someone saw 5-0 approaching on a security monitor. Before he could clearly vocalize an alert, a battery ram begin slamming the front door and players froze. Awtry, who players say has notoriously bad hearing in his senior years and presumably believed the game was being robbed, began shooting at the door with his pistol, firing “at least once” according to a player, “multiple shots” according to police. At least four officers returned fire at the door with at least 20 bullets from their higher-powered assault weapons.

As Awtry fell back into the poker room entryway, he balked, “Why didn’t you tell me it was the cops?”

click to enlarge

Police supposedly pulled backed after the exchange of gunfire to secure the perimeter while players inside called 911 to report that people were hurt, they needed an ambulance, and they meant no harm. Eventually they all had to remove their shirts as they came out of the house one by one to be handcuffed and transported downtown for questioning and gunshot residue tests. All were eventually released and received $100 gambling citations except for the Awtry, who is still in police custody at the hospital, charged with attempted murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. He could face additional charges related to the allegedly illegal gambling operation.

72-year-old Aaron Awtry could spend the rest of his life in prison for shooting a cop while hosting a 1/2 game that South Carolina’s highest court isn’t yet sure is all that illegal.

A Greenville County Sheriff’s Office press release says deputies seized $4,785, two poker machines, two poker tables, three surveillance cameras, 3.7 grams of cocaine and about $2,000 worth of gambling paraphernalia such as cards and chips. A copy of the search warrant left behind reveals the house had been under police surveillance for months … and the raid netted about $2,500 in cash.

Less than three weeks ago, the South Carolina Supreme Court was hearing arguments from a PPA-backed legal team about a similar but less injurious poker raid in 2006 — and will be considering whether or not such a game is even a crime under South Carolina gambling laws written in 1802. A ruling is expected by mid-2011.

The poker house shot up last night was in a relatively rundown semi-residential, semi-industrial nook on the edges of suburban Greenville — about a mile from a high school and a mile from an underground room that the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office raided in January, arresting 27 players and seizing about $64,000 in cash.

As is often the case in underground poker scenes nationwide, a string of armed poker robberies followed a string of armed police raids this year in Greenville, a longtime hotbed of good poker that many players affectionately refer to as G-Vegas.

Since 2009, South Carolina lawmakers have been pushing legislation to revise and clarify state gambling laws, and potentially legalize raked home games and/or charity tournaments.

According to the tweet of a player who was at this latest Greenville raid gone awry:

Un-fucking-real.To my surprise, Im alive. So is everyone else. Going to sleep… i hope…

With all due respect to Montgomery’s 5th place WSOP main-event finish and his donkament bracelet this summer, he’s clearly no Greg Raymer. Montgomery declined his assailant’s implied invitation to brawl for money, and instead simply handed him $2,000 in cash (mo chips?) … yeow, what does it say about the economy when Bellagio doesn’t have armed shoe-shine guys on duty?

From the Cake Poker blog:

Montgomery was at Bellagio to play in a Festa al Lago preliminary event and went to the bathroom on a break from the tournament. As he described it on his Twitter account, “Got mugged today at Bellagio. Black guy pulled a knife on me in the restroom. I gave him the $2k in my wallet and he left.”

“I called security, but they took like 15 mins so they didn’t catch him. They are useless twits. Didn’t even ask me to look at camera footage,” Montgomery continued. “Security pretty much just said oh well, life sucks, have a nice day. I’m pretty annoyed.”

Bellagio Poker ≈ Binion’s Self Park?

Though two instances (that we heard about) over the span of nearly 6 years hardly constitute a trend, you just don’t expect certain kinds of violence in luxe resorts with multiple guards outside the parking garage looking for casually waving through possible Al Qaeda terrorists. I mean what is center-Strip, not dark-alley downtown Vegas or daytime Berlin!

But it was indeed at Bellagio — during the 5-diamond — where armed robbers discovered not all bracelet-winning poker players were easy marks. In that situation, December 2004, Greg Raymer, poker’s newest big world champ, fought off two attackers with guns. According to reports, they got away, too (as security let them pass) … however, were caught some five months later in California, and brought back to Las Vegas for trial. (I believe sentenced to something like 3 years, not sure though …)

Pokerati PSA: Remember, next time you’re being attacked in the Bellagio or anywhere in Vegas really, you can tweet for help @LVMPD, hashtag #911.

According to Fox 4 and Mesquite police, Tracey Moore, 35, apparently the game’s host, was shot and killed while scuffling with the armed intruder at an apartment in the 5900 block of Northwest Dr, shortly after midnight yesterday.

Another player, Jerome Johnson, 34, carrying a licensed concealed handgun, shot back, killing the suspect, too. Police have not yet released the alleged robber’s identity. And though they say it appears to be a case of self-defense, a grand jury will decide whether or not Johnson will face any charges.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2010/03/29/police_investigate_card_game_r.html

The Travis County Sheriff’s Dept. (woking with APD) has caught at least one of the suspected bandits after tracking down a (coincidentally German-made) possible getaway car. Osaro Osagie, 22, is currently in custody on felony charges of credit card abuse, for possessing one of the poker player’s stolen cards.

An investigation on the aggravated robbery is still ongoing, and thus police are saying little else at the moment.

This all shook down at a game in near West Anderson Lane and Mopac.

UPDATE: More on the heavily armed robbery from KXAN here.

Here’s an email from one of the players there, with names redacted for now …

HORRIBLE Robbery at *****’s tonight, around 1:40am. I was there 3-4 black guys w/ AK 40′s, shot their way in back door. **** was running game, 24 people there. Amazingly, No one hurt. ***** was downtown, **** and ***** hid in laundry.

They specifically asked for ***** by name. Must have known back yard had no cameras. Climbed fence from mopac.

Made us all go face down, empty pockets, took most wallets, phones keys. My wallet was found by cop, amazingly a mile down feeder laying in road, all intact except $1000 in cash (i had won $600 last night and forgot to remove it before going to *****’s).

Gunshots were fired Inside. they kept yelling at us not to look up or move, so we didn’t know if people were shot.

****** saved our lives. he obeyed them, rationalized w/ them, showed them closet w/ money, but had no key, they harassed him, they shot or kicked doors in,

Over 9 cops were arriving as we drove away. They stopped us and interviewed us individually, were very concerned for our safety and catching criminals, not even a question of poker game. Helecopters, forensics, detectives and K9 were all there lining the street.

unbelievable.

UPDATE: Unconfirmed word is that Austin police caught at least one of the robbers, when he used a stolen credit card at a “club” either later that night or the next day.

The cops seem to have arrived in force pretty quickly albeit after the fact here. Let’s see if Austin authorities do as well as police in Berlin, where they seem to capture their casino bandits right away: Two weeks, arrest five to get four … let the innocent guy go and put pictures out to capture the ones you don’t yet have. That seems to be the way it works in Germany. But In Texas cops have a much spotter record when it comes to solving poker crimes.

In more than a dozen armed robberies over the past three years … from Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio to places out in the sticks … We’ve had one trio of bandits caught in the act after the host successfully dialed 911 and hid an open phone; and in another case two high school football stars now face major-serious prison time … but only after the senior citizens they were robbing chased them down through a wet, muddy pasture and held them at gunpoint until police arrived.

Nothing else in all the other cases — including one where robbers shot and killed a dealer, and one where a player shot and killed a robber. (His mom stopped by Pokerati a few days ago to say hi, btw.)

Earlier this week one member of the group of alleged thieves — a 21-year-old man of Turkish origin — turned himself in and identified his three accomplices. One, 20-year-old Ahmad el-Awayti, was arrested on Wednesday. The fourth member of the group, Jihad Chetwie (aged 19), remains at large.

Bild.de (translated from German) and Bluff Magazine (in English) are reporting that one of the suspects in the EPT Berlin robbery from two weeks ago turned himself in on Monday to German authorities. The police in Berlin released names and photographs of the three other suspected bandits: Mustafa Ucarakus, Jihad Chetwie and Ahmad El Awayti. The article in the German newspaper notes that the suspect mentioned they did receive help from someone on the inside as to where the money was stored and that the security staff was unarmed. More details to come as more news is available.

UPDATE: Bild.de reports that that German police have arrested Ahmad El Awayti.

A spokeswoman for Berlin police — who did not give her name in keeping with department policy — said the suspect had been set free due to a lack of evidence. The suspect, who was detained late Friday, denied throughout several hours in questioning having taken part in the heist at the Grand Hyatt hotel in the capital.

Hmm. While it briefly seemed like the case might be unravelling for the robbers, maybe not so much … apparently just because a guy robbed one casino in Germany doesn’t mean he committed all casino robberies in Germany.

Police have arrested a man in connection with last weekend’s armed robbery at the Grand Hyatt during EPT Berlin:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35849559/ns/world_news-europe/

Few details on the suspect himself, other than that his arrest has something to do with info police received about a black Mercedes getaway car … and that he may have been a guy convicted and sent to prison for a casino robbery in 2004.

The thugs made off with $331,000 in the daytime heist, pulled off as cameras rolled at the biggest poker tournament in German history.

Supposedly, we’re also hearing, the robbers left behind a lot of clues, and more arrests are likely to follow. Police don’t think it was an inside job, but are looking into whether or not there was an accomplice who entered one of the events.

UPDATE: A little more news from Germany … the heist took place while guards were on break and the money was being prepared for transfer to the casino’s main cage. Also, from TheLocal.de:

The arrested man was thought to have taken part in another high-profile robbery in 2004. That January four armed masked men stormed the casino at the top of the Park Inn on Alexanderplatz in central Berlin. They were later arrested and convicted, receiving jail terms of between two and four years.

An interesting footnote to the excitement from Saturday was a decision Tahkakollio made when play eventually resumed. With 21 players remaining, he was involved in a hand with Luca Canielli, who was all-in for his last 600,000 with As-Qd, against Tahkakollio’s Ad-10h, with the board showing 3c-Kc-8s-4c. At that moment, the armed robbery took place, scattering players and chips leaving this for the players to return to about four hours later (picture from pokerolymp.de):

As the players and tournament staff came back to their seats, and exact chip counts impossible to determine, tournament director met with the remaining players in the main event. It was decided that the players would go by the honor system to determine each player’s chip stack.

Next was to decide how to handle the Tahkakollio-Canielli hand. Since it was impossible to know if the deck had been tampered with amongst the confusion, Kremser ruled that the hand be ruled dead. However, Cainelli was unhappy with this decision as he was in need of doubling up. Kremser then ruled that the deck could be reshuffled so the river could be dealt, but would also need the approval of Tahkakollio, who could have decided to have the hand ruled dead and the two get their chips back. After thinking for several minutes, Tahkakollio decided to allow the river to be dealt, and when the 5h came on the river, Cainelli received his double up, while Tahkakollio had lost about a third of his chips. Tahkakollio recovered from that setback to make the final table third in chips, and after a tense back and forth battle with MacPhee when play got to heads-up, eventually collecting 600,000 Euros for finishing 2nd.

The original reporting of the hand was done by the PokerStarsblog.com team.

PokerStars has just released a statement with an update on Saturday’s robbery at EPT Berlin along with clearing up various rumors:

“Yesterday at approximately 2.15pm, an armed robbery took place at the European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Berlin. Nobody was seriously injured. Four armed men were involved in the robbery which targeted the tournament registration desk outside the tournament area.

No shots were fired and the suspects quickly fled after a security guard intervened. The police investigation so far has shown that the suspects had a handgun and a machete. Contrary to tabloid reports, no Kalashnikov assault rifles or hand grenades were used. The suspects did not enter the tournament area and the money taken was substantially less than what has been reported.

The tournament resumed after a few hours and a police investigation is now under way. The tournament is taking place on the first floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz and is being held by SPIELBANK Berlin Casino.

The police are working closely with the EPT and SPIELBANK Berlin. Police are asking anyone who has information, video footage or photographs that might aid the investigation to contact them.”

Micon over at DonkDown had a Skype-chat with an eye-witness — brings up some more details from the robbery itself about how the action played out at the Hyatt and the cash situation on hand.

JUST HAD THIS CHAT W/ONE OF THE REPORTERS THAT WAS @ EPT BERLIN

[4:30:46 PM] Bryan Micon: did u see this shit?
[4:31:00 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS:Yeah. I was down the hallway when that happened. When the dude in black runs to the right off screen he runs towards us and we ran the other way.
[4:31:06 PM] Bryan Micon: what is the word? inside job?
[4:31:11 PM] Bryan Micon: did they make off w/the $?
[4:31:31 PM] Bryan Micon: also will u be on radio on Wed?
[4:32:00 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Just rumors right now. But we heard one of the staff members actually knew who it was or at least recognized them because she said they were players.
[4:32:13 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Wearing the same clothes they wore when they played in some events.
[4:32:39 PM] Bryan Micon: wowsers
[4:32:45 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: And we’ve heard anywhere from $0 to $700k stolen.
[4:34:30 PM] Bryan Micon: check this vid
[4:34:54 PM] Bryan Micon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu2e7yiX … r_embedded
[4:35:11 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Haha, yeah, saw it.
[4:35:18 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Lived it, hha.
[4:35:52 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Here’s what happened in the video.
[4:36:13 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Right at the beginning you see Noah Boeken walk back into the tournament ballroom through the door.
[4:36:25 PM] Bryan Micon: y
[4:37:26 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: It’s because there was some commotion outside and he ran out to see if there ws a fight as did a lot of people. Turns out, nothing was going on when they went outside so they started coming back in, hence his smile and laughter.
[4:37:49 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: But the guy with the camera kept going and stayed in the doorway.
[4:38:00 PM] Bryan Micon: then all hell broke loose
[4:38:19 PM] Bryan Micon: dude is THROWING THE BOOK AT HIM
[4:38:23 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: While the security guard fought two of the guys. The one in red had a gun and the other guy had a machete.
[4:38:34 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: The guy in black had the machete, you can see it in the video.
[4:38:51 PM] OTHER GUY IN CHAT: lol machetements
[4:39:01 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: About 20 secs into the video you see the guy in black take off to the right and go down the hallway.
[4:39:06 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: That’s where we were.
[4:39:25 PM] Bryan Micon: omg
[4:39:33 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: I was walking back to the media room which is down that long hallway when there was some yelling behind me and some guys running towards me.
[4:40:07 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: They were yelling in German so we didn’t really understand them, but it sounded like they were saying “rough, rough!” So I thought a “rough” was a fight.
[4:40:22 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: So we turned back and started walking back to see the fight and possibly report on it or whatever.
[4:40:50 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: We got about halfway down the hallway when the guy came running down it towards us as you see him in the video when he darts to the right off screen.
[4:41:27 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: I saw what I thought was a big knife and a guy in a mask and yelled oh my god and just turned and booked it back to the media room.
[4:41:45 PM] Bryan Micon: jesus
[4:41:54 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: We all got in, like the four or five of us that ran back and there was about 20 others already in the room.
[4:42:01 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: We shut the doors and barricaded it with some chairs.
[4:42:17 PM] Bryan Micon: :good decision
[4:42:52 PM] Bryan Micon: 1 of the vids shows chips everywhere on 1 tbl
[4:43:06 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Meanwhile, Noah was in the tournament room hiding behind these wooden window shade things.
[4:43:14 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: As were a lot of people.
[4:43:55 PM] Bryan Micon: and the dude that was tackled?
[4:44:04 PM] Bryan Micon: him and the others all got awaay?
[4:44:15 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Well, you see him get tackled and the guard holds him.
[4:44:21 PM] Bryan Micon: y
[4:44:23 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: And the gun is on the ground right next to him.
[4:44:37 PM] Bryan Micon: then homeboy comes in video game style
[4:44:53 PM] Bryan Micon: the guard is throwing something at red guy
[4:45:18 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Then the guy with the machete comes running back at him and a third guy grabs one of the rope poles like a bat and goes after the guard as well to free his friend.
[4:45:26 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: So the guard let him go and they took off.
[4:45:41 PM] Bryan Micon: they got out?
[4:45:44 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Yeah.
[4:45:48 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Haven’t been caught.
[4:45:55 PM] Bryan Micon: damn
[4:45:59 PM] Bryan Micon: and they got
$?
[4:46:19 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Supposedly some but no one knows for sure.
[4:47:04 PM] Bryan Micon: then they restarted the event after this shit?
[4:47:12 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Sam Chartier recalled Johannes Strassmann bursting through the doors back into the room leap frogging chairs and tables and yelling in German. Although Chartier said he couldn’t understand what Strassmann was saying because of the language barrier, he noticed that everyone who did understand him was panicking. Tables were flipped so people could hunker behind them while chips flew all over the floor.
[4:47:34 PM] Bryan Micon: wowsers
[4:47:37 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Yeah, I mean given the circumstances I think the tournment staff handled is as best they could.
[4:47:43 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Even better than everyone expected,
[4:47:53 PM] Bryan Micon: like, put the table right side up
[4:47:57 PM] Bryan Micon: everyone how much chips did u have?
[4:48:13 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Well, the Main Event tables didn’t get flipped.
[4:48:20 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: The chip stacks just got knocked over on those.
[4:48:44 PM] Bryan Micon: lolz how do u make a ruling on that!?
[4:49:00 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: So the players, TDs, and dealers all worked together to figure out how many each person had and they made sure everyone voted on each chip stack basically and agreed on it.
[4:49:12 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: If someone argued, they went over it again,
[4:49:16 PM] Bryan Micon: tough but fair
[4:49:23 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: That took like 45 minutes.
[4:49:36 PM] Bryan Micon: lolz that’s pretty good imo / obv avg chips stack off by 2%
[4:50:14 PM] Bryan Micon: and that place @ the beginning of video where red is (and where German guard throws the book at him) is that the cashier or buy-in area?)
[4:52:05 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Yeah. There was no money kept there until today because today the High Roller event was held. 10k Euro for the buy in and you had to pay cash, you couldn’t buy in with Stars money or anything.
[4:52:12 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: So they just had all that money from those guys there on site.
[4:52:22 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: Obv not thinking this would hppen.
[4:53:01 PM] Bryan Micon: wow
[4:53:24 PM] ANON EYE WITNESS: It was crazy scary.

14 clock in Berlin’s luxury hotel “Grand Hyatt”: The European Poker elite has the honor. It is the biggest tournament in Germany. Prize money: one million euros! Even Boris Becker was as an advertising face of Pokerstars.de at the table there – until he is rausflogen on Thursday. In addition, author Charlotte Roche ( “Wetlands”). Today I want to photograph the friend of Poker Europe champion Sandra “Black Mamba” Naujoks (28). He had lost a bet, now disguised as a woman sitting at the table. So far, so ordinary.

While so much can get lost in Google translation, sometimes it spits out pure poetry. The robbers haven’t even gotten there yet, and it would be Theater of the Absurd if it weren’t about to become so real.

For a firsthand account via second-hand language filter, the translated version of Benjo’s blog also becomes must-read, obv:

And that’s exactly what it is: a story that I tell surely in abundance in my back, emphasizing the amusing details. But on the stroke during the two minutes that lasted the confusion, I fear the belly.

Seat 1: Marko Neumann – 2,185,000
Seat 2: Marc Inizan – 3,655,000
Seat 3: Kevin MacPhee – 6,070,000
Seat 4: Artur Wasek -3,530,000
Seat 5: Marcel Koller – 3,590,000
Seat 6: Nico Behling – 960,000
Seat 7: Ketul Nathwani – 4,685,000
Seat 8: Ilari Tahkokallio – 3,940,000

How they got to that final table on Saturday took an approximate 5-hour detour when a group of masked robbers stormed the Grand Hyatt Hotel around 2:30pm local time. You can check out my previous two posts from Saturday for some clips here and here.

Various mainstream media reports have said that up to 1 million Euros have been stolen, or as some called it, a “jackpot“. While the EPT Berlin event did boast a 1 million Euro first prize, it’s expected that the amount the robbers were able to pocket is expected to be far less than that.

While there have been numerous eyewitness accounts, most of them are German, which can make some interesting translations for those looking for something in English. Here’s a few foreign reports (translated through Google Translate):

Bild newspaper photographer

Report on what happened in the cashier area

BZ-Berlin article, showing pictures of two of the thieves

Here’s a couple of interviews (in English), first from the cameraman who filmed the robbery in progress:

The other from another eyewitness:

Here’s a clip of an interview from German TV news:

A translation from 2+2 poster “B4RT3K” from the interview between the reporter and “Roman” the security guard in the video above:

Reporter: “We got one witness with us, Roman, you are from the security Team (Security-Kuhr), you were involved in this conflict, how can u describe what happened there ?”

Roman: “It was really scary, with how much brutality the gangsters were acting, I was just standing there minding my own business and securing the money, happy about the fact that the day was calm and nothing happened, suddenly there is shouting and screaming coming from the hallway and the people (gangsters) rush the cashier floor with huge brutality and even armed… it was really scary.”

Reporter: “You are injured, but you got to get hold of one of the gangsters, you were trying to get the money back from him… were you successful ?”

Roman: “Yeah, thank god, we were successful… we got a huge amount of the money back from the gangsters, one of the employees of the hotel helped me there, but we couldn’t secure the gangster because he got rescued by his friends.”

Reporter: “Which weapons were used ? We saw a machete, there were rumours about grenades, kalashnikovs, guns, pump-guns etc.?”

Roman: “I can only verify the machete and a hand-held gun.”

Reporter: “So you really tried to get hold of the gangsters even though u were unarmed and they were armed with guns?”

Roman: “Yeah, in the first moment I didn’t think of the fact that they will use the guns against me, and I just wanted to stop them from what they were doing in that particular moment.”

Reporter: “Brave.”

UPDATE: Here’s another PokerNews update with audio from a police spokesman:

Here’s video someone recorded off the live stream as people frantically leave the area:

3:35pm Berlin time update from Pokerstarsblog.com :

“An armed robbery by six men took place today at EPT Berlin. Nobody was seriously injured. We hope to re-start all events at 4pm local time. A police investigation is under way. If you have video footage or photographs that could help the police, please contact the EPT organizers as soon as possible.”

UPDATE #2, make that 5pm local time for a possible restart.

UPDATE #3, the 1,000 Euro event that started today was canceled, while the main event finally resumed around 6:00pm local time, but the EPT Live webcast has been canceled. Also, here’s a breaking news article from Pokernews along with a video update:

Page 2 has some pictures during the incident: