"I've seen people with guns." Commentator Hartigan on the robbery during the 2010 EPT Main Event

Commentator James Hartigan shared in a new episode of the PokerNews podcast how he witnessed an armed robbery during the main event of the European Poker Tour in Berlin in 2010. According to the journalist, at that moment almost no one realized what was happening, and it was Russian player Alexander Kravchenko who helped the commentators get out of the hotel quickly and safely.

"The robbery at EPT Berlin is definitely on my list of top memories from that series. EPT broadcasts are done in different languages, so all the commentators were sitting in one narrow row. I think I was with Nick Wealthall, and we were commentating in English. Sitting next to us were the Spanish, French and Russian teams. We were on a balcony overlooking the main lobby, where the robbery took place.

Someone from the commentary team looked down, turned to us white as a sheet and said: 'I saw someone with a weapon downstairs.' Then someone ran into the room shouting about armed men. And that triggered what I call a 'human tsunami' — a huge wave of people trying to flee in panic, knocking over tables.

We started thinking about what to do. And Alex Kravchenko, who was doing comedy back then, said: 'Follow me.' And it seemed quite logical. He really did lead us to a fire exit out of the building. At the time we still didn't know what was happening — whether it was a robbery or something more terrible. But we understood that we needed to get out of the building.

You have to learn lessons from situations like these, they help you realize the importance of ensuring safety at any event where money is involved. Fortunately, since then we haven't seen anything like it at poker tournaments. And, of course, it's a good thing we were able to recover and resume that EPT main event."

In March 2010, six masked robbers stormed the Grand Hyatt hotel in Berlin, where the EPT was taking place. The criminals were armed with pistols, knives and machetes. Security guards resisted them, and one of the guards managed to detain one of the attackers and take back most of the money. The robbers made off with €242,000, and none of the tournament attendees were harmed.

In July of that year, a court in Berlin sentenced four of the raid's participants to prison terms ranging from 3 years and 9 months to 3.5 years. The oldest of the convicted was 21, his accomplices were 19 and 20.

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