LAS VEGAS (AP) -- It may have been the best bluff world-champion poker player Doyle Brunson ever pulled off.

Confronted last weekend by two armed robbers wearing ski masks, Brunson faked heart attack to confuse the men and protect himself and his wife.

The men grabbed Brunson, a two-time World Series of Poker champion, outside his house and dragged him inside.

Brunson, 64, said he was struck above his eye and handcuffed to his wife while the robbers pressed him for money in his safe.

As they threatened to kill him and his wife, Brunson faked a heart attack and told the robbers he didn't keep money in the house.

"I just knew that if I didn't have any money here to give them, they'd be awfully mad," Brunson said.

The robbers got away with about $4,000 in cash and $80,000 in casino chips he had been carrying, Brunson said. The chips were part of a $93,000 prize he had won earlier in a tournament earlier in the week.

Brunson said the men may have followed him home after he finished in 10th place at another tournament.

"I was really mad that I had gotten knocked out of the tournament, and maybe I wasn't as careful on the way home," he said.