EPT Berlin Was Raided by Gunmen

People often say that it’s the decisions you make in a split second that define you, so yesterday, when I was in one of the scariest situations I’ve ever been in, what did I find out about myself?

I’m the worst ninja ever.

So here’s what happened from my point of view: I was sitting in the media room in the back corner facing the entrance of the room that has wide open double doors. Suddenly, a woman who works at the Grand Hyatt screamed something I couldn’t understand. A bunch of media people got up and gathered at the door.

Someone said, “I think there’s a fight. I think she said fight in German.” A few curious bloggers, including Poker New’s own Remko and Donnie walked out of the room and towards the poker tournament registration area where the “fight” was taking place. A few seconds later, that group sprinted back into the room, falling over each other.

“There’s a gunman! There are guys with guns and ski masks!” I could hear people screaming down the hall. Mad Harper from PokerStars immediately went into emergency mode. She shut the doors, blocked it with chairs, and asked strong boys to hold the doors shut. Only guy volunteered. Everyone else backed away, afraid to get shot through the door.

At this point, I was fully freaked out, but all I’d managed to do was stand up. We all started panicking and trying to figure out what to do. We turned off the lights and quieted down, hoping that that the gunman wouldn’t find out where we were. As we stopped talking we realized that the two TV’s in the room were blaring the EPT Live feed of the featured table. “Turn it off! Someone shut it off!!!” With adrenaline rushing into our brains, we all forgot how to turn off a frickin TV. As we were trying to figure it out, we saw this happen on the screen…

Remembering that the feed is on a short delay, the sight horrified us. Thoughts of getting shot ran through my mind, and for some reason, I started thinking about the fact that Andrew had written me the sweetest message on Facebook that morning. He told me how much he missed me and a bunch of mushy stuff I won’t share, but I got so sick to my stomach because I remembered that I hadn’t written back. What if I died??? FUCK!!!  I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN HIM BACK! I kept thinking the worst. I knew we were in a hotel, so it didn’t dawn on me that this could be a robbery. I just thought that some sick mo fo’s were going on a killing spree or something. A few people considered jumping out of the window, but again, in a panic, no one could figure out how to open it. I’m pretty sure I would have jumped too.

And that was all in a matter of maybe a minute. The whole time, I just stood there, stammering. My mind was racing but I was barely moving… I was literally frozen. After what seemed like ages, someone knocked on the door, and told us it was ok. One of the bloggers opened the door, but some of us were just yelling at him to shut it! Just in case!!

Eventually, we were informed that it was a robbery, and that they were gone. We all took a collective sigh and just kind of dispersed and handled the shock of what had happened in our own ways. I sat back down in my chair and didn’t move for a few minutes. I felt the adrenaline still pumping through my body flow so hard that my extremities were unable to stay still. After awhile, we all looked at each other, and started kind of laughing with relief.

Everyone started talking about what happened as the details slowly started trickling in. Once my brain was functioning again, I realized Elissa was the only I didn’t see. Immediately we got up and started looking for her. She was in the tournament room where the stampede was. As we walked around searching, everyone told us not to worry because no one had been hurt. Still, my paranoid-ass was thinking that she was kidnapped or something. That was our last scare though. After a good half an hour, we found her, and after everyone was accounted for, I finally felt OK.

The aftermath was pretty hectic. Evidence needed to be gathered, outside media had to be dealt with, and players in the main event, high roller, $1K, and ladies event wanted to know, WTF was going to happen. PokerStars handled it so well in my opinion, and the players were overwhelmingly cooperative and understanding of the situation. The tournaments restarted a couple of hours later, after players had time to regroup.

It took about 45 minutes for chips stacks to be reassembled in the main event, but with the effort of players, dealers, and reporters, the situation was handled. When there is a crisis, it’s amazing what people will do to help one other.

(As an uplifting side story, two of the players in the main event were all in on the turn when this all happened. The bigger stack was behind with A-10, and he was up against A-Q with one card to go. When they returned to play, apparently the stub was retrievable. However, the tournament director gave each player the option to call the hand dead. It would seem quite advantageous for the player who was behind to take back his chips and call the hand dead since there were only 20 players left in a tournament with the top prize being 1 million Euro… but he didn’t do that. He said that it would be fair to deal the river. He lost, doubled the guy up, but actually ended up taking him out later and is now at the final table today! Yay for Karma!)

As we went back to work, there were so many rumors flying around about happened. Some said it was three robbers, some said six, some said they had just machetes, some people said guns, some said they made away with 1 million euro, some said they didn’t escape with anything… but the one consistent part of the story was that there was a pretty bad ass security guard. Apparently, two of the robbers threatened security guards with guns and went behind the registration counter where the cash from the high roller event was being stored. The two were about to make off with the money, but one of the guards grabbed one, wrestled him down, and put him in a headlock… This picture is pretty amazing.

But after this pic was shot, one of the other assailants came at the security guard with a pole. The guy lets go of the robber, and they run away. One of the bloggers was at the right place at the right time and had the courage to tape the action. Here it is:

So at this point, we’d figured out pretty much everything that had happened, so after the tournament restarted and people went back to work, the environment in the media one was definitely light hearted. Grand Hyatt servers came back in to refill our drinks and pretzels, which for some reason was pretty funny to us given what had happened. Thankful though, we all applauded them. Mad and PN blogger, Dana, brought everyone some cognac and beer, and the laughing continued. Especially funny were the awesome one-liners that people came up with.

“This is PokerStars version of Rush Poker.” — Someone on 2+2

“EPT Berlin: Where everyone is under the gun” — Pokerrati

“EPT Gunfest” — PN video guy Alexander

We joked about how it was Marc’s (PokerStars blogger) b-day, and that it really started off with a “bang.”
Of course these are just jokes and only meant to be funny. None of us feel like anyone here was at fault, and it was all handled to the best of everyone’s ability. A couple of hours after play restarted, I felt exhausted as ever, and figured it had something to do with the adrenaline surge.

So looking back on everything, I started thinking about how a certain people reacted.

–Elissa was in the tournament room and tried to rush out with everyone else. With everyone running and knocking over tables in sheer panic, a few people got trampled on. Elissa said she fell but some guy picked her up, thankfully. That guy had the presence of mind to do that for her.

–The two guys who got pictures and video footage reacted by instinctually turning on their weapon of choice. There are people with masks and guns, and they stuck around to capture the evidence.

–Remko (HappyFreaked) He was the one with Donnie who went to go check on what they thought was a fight. When everyone, including Donnie, ran back into the media room, he was like “Ef no, I’m not running into a corner.” He knew that it’d be best to follow the employees who ran because they probably knew the best way to get out of the casino. He went through some kitchen and was running through the Brandenberg Gate in no time! Hahha ok not that far, but that was really smart of him.

–Alexandre Kravchenko- So from what I heard, he was doing commentary for Russia’s EPT Live. As soon as this happened, he calmly stood up and said, “It’s ok, just follow me.” The people who told me this story said that he would look around the corners for them, and then motion the rest of the group that it was safe to proceed. He led them out of the room and into safety. HAHA! That is sooo bad ass.

–Donnie– So I had just remembered him sitting at his computer after he ran back into the room. While we were about to jump out of the window, he was staring at his computer with headphones on. So later, I was like “Donnie, what the hell were you doing? Just continuing to work???” He was all “Uhhh, no. I was calling the police on Skype.” Ahhhhh wow, good call.

–Gloria (PN Hostess) Cool as a frickin’ cucumber. She barely flinched, and when it was over, there was no “collecting herself.” She was immediately calling our bosses to figure out how to break the story on Poker News. Then, the motherly side of her emerged, and she, Alex, and I started searched for Elissa.

–ME… I durrrrrrr, duh, ummmm- I stood there. I didn’t so sheisse (pretty sure that’s German for SHIT). Yeah, that’s Soooo not ninja. But don’t worry, I know I’m a ninja deep down inside, so I’m going to work on that.

Seriously, the next time I’m somewhere that gets raided by masked robbers with guns, I’m gonna go straight ninja on their asses!!!!!

Right… anyway. I’m not going to get all emo on you guys again about how life is precious, but haha, it does make ya think. ANYWAY– So the final table is today. I’m sure more details on this are going to be released today… Sheesh, I probably slept only three hours after passing out right when I got back to my hotel room, so it’s going to be a long day, but that’s what coffee is made for! Elissa and I are going to stay until Tuesday so we can do some site seeing which I’m SUPER excited about. Check back for a picture blog!

<3 Kris

P.S. This is a hilarious/scarily appropriate picture Elissa snapped of a woman in the lady’s event after the incident