Poker Heist

Four men stole about $136,000 when they stormed the Grand Hyatt Berlin during a European Poker Tour event. The cameras were rolling and focused on 2009 WSOP bracelet winner Carsten Joh when all hell broke loose behind him.



Four men wearing black motorcycle masks entered the Grand Hyatt Berlin, where they threatened a cashier with pistols and a machete, while stuffing several bags with cash.

Eight people were slightly injured during the heist, including seven tournament participants or spectators who were injured while attempting to flee.

There were 20 players left when incident happened and it took several hours to piece together all the chip stacks as most of the tables were knocked over in the commotion.

But there was one interesting hand in progress at the time:

Ilari Tahkokallio raised to 70,000 under the gun, and Luca Cainelli moved all in from the big blind. It was another 503,000 for Tahkokallio to make the call, and he did.

Cainelli was at risk with ace-queen and in good shape to double through Tahkokallio's ace-10.

The flop was K-8-3 and the turn was a 4.

Then all of a sudden there was shouting and a wall of people running away from the tournament room entrance toward (and on top of) the main event tables. In the scramble, tables were overturned and chip stacks knocked over, but somehow the board and the players' hands remained on the table.

After the tumult the tournament director, told Ilari Tahkokallio and Luca Cainelli that if either of them did not want to carry on with the hand, then they would chop up the pot and move on to the next hand. In good shape to double up, of course Cainelli said that he'd like to play out the hand. Tahkokallio stands to lose almost 600,000 chips in the hand and has only three outs with one card to come. But rather than call it a wash and take back his chips, Tahkokallio said that he'd made the call and it was only fair to see the river.

An incredible act of sportsmanship. He did lose the hand but ended up finishing second for a prize of €600,000 or $817,000.

945 players paid the €5,000 ($6800 U.S.) buy-in. The winner got €1 million or $1.36m.