When you decide to play poker for a living, you come to expect the ups and downs as part of the process. Mehmet Hassan made his living playing poker in London and was popular and well liked amongst the London poker community. This week he played in his final hand and won £3,000 at the Palm Beach Casino Club. This would be the last time he played a winning hand as tragedy struck Hassan when he was brutally assaulted and killed in his flat.
Hassan a regular at the Palm Beach Casino Club mostly played cash games and made his living using his wit and experience gained from a lifetime of studying and playing poker, a game that he dearly loved. Friends and acquaintances of Hassan have told police that he was last seen at the Nobu Restaurant in London on Sunday night having dinner with a woman.
Sources say that he met this woman at the Palm Beach Casino Club after winning £3,000. His daughter was the one who raised a complaint with the police as her repeated calls were not answered and she also had no response when visited her father’s flat. Friends and family say that Hassan was the unfortunate victim of a pre-planned burglary.
Andrew “Giddy” Perendes, poker player, author and Hassan’s best friend was shattered when he heard the news. In a statement, Perendes said
Yesterday one of my boyhood friends Mehmet Hassan was found battered to death in his flat. Guys that knew Mehmet as well as I did would swear that with his brainpower, wit and salesman’s patter he could have made a living doing anything he wanted, but what Mehmet really wanted was to live on his wits.
He was a kind of Robin Hood character that especially liked taking from the rich bit. Damon Runyon would have loved him. Whether he was telling stories of his rather colorful life, playing backgammon or Kalooki with some poor bastard, or having a laugh with the lads in the poker game, he was pure box office. When Mehmet was in full flight, nobody went home. He was just the funniest guy in town. RIP my friend.
Hassan had done relatively well playing poker and friends report that he usually kept £20,000 in cash in his flat. While there were no signs of forced entry into his apartment, police are investigating and searching his flat to confirm if anything has been taken.
Tributes and condolences came from a number of groups and players that belong to the London poker community. One of them was Ross Boatman, a British poker pro and one of the founders of The Hendon Mob. Boatman said
He was a wonderful, warm man — the original loveable rogue — and he would gamble on anything. He loved to gamble and, win or lose, it never affected him. He was always smiling, always upbeat.
