Yet another EPT Berlin update
The eventful EPT Berlin Main Event final table came to a conclusion Sunday afternoon, and it would be American Kevin MacPhee taking down the first prize of 1 million Euros, defeating Ilari Tahkakollio heads-up. MacPhee also had the chance to do this brief interview Monday about his weekend:
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.
jon says:
March 8th, 2010 at 9:27pm
Glad to hear that Tahkakollio made good money. I was impressed that he allowed the river to be dealt in a hand where many would have taken their chips back.
Great story Kevmath!
Gav says:
March 9th, 2010 at 4:15am
I agree, a great example of good poker etiquette right there
Kevin Mathers says:
March 9th, 2010 at 5:20am
Credit for the story should go to the people who originally reported it, which is why I added those details at the end.
Johnny Hughes says:
March 9th, 2010 at 5:58am
Great video. Neat guy. He is the great face of poker the world has all seen, and that is good. I did notice the final table were less likely to run.
One table poker games in West Texas have better security than casinos in Europe. TV camera on the door and parking lots. Steel reinforced doors, two doors to go through. Shot guns inside. Pistols hidden. We went thirty-five years at the Shop without a robbery there. A lookout with a shot gun puts the quietous to Slim and Shorty.
h says:
March 9th, 2010 at 8:18am
once again kevmath u are the greatest and copy and paste
Kevin Mathers says:
March 9th, 2010 at 8:22am
You should learn to copy and paste your retorts about me, they’d make much more sense.
Also, the reporting of the hand over at pokerstarsblog.com was much longer than what I noted.
Short-Stacked Shamus says:
March 10th, 2010 at 5:37am
MacPhee does very well here. Kind of like his talking about getting back to “work” on Sunday afternoon.
Article in NY Times yesterday reports the four masked men ended up “with about 240,000 euros ($320,000)” all told, and that police are searching for an additional suspect (a fifth) who tipped them off “that the money was briefly unsecured.”
DanM says:
March 10th, 2010 at 6:42am
I know everyone is heralding Roman the security guard as a “hero” but can that really be true when it’s his job to protect the money and ultimately his company failed at doing so?
I respect the headlock he put one robber in, but still wonder what woulda happened had he just pulled off the mask.
Kevin Mathers says:
March 10th, 2010 at 7:11am
The German version of America’s Most Wanted is airing a story on the heist tonight, we’ll see if that gets any results.