Jose "Girah" Macedo admits to scamming

Felt obligated to share this news as not everyone here reads that other poker forum, plus, not too long ago I linked one of his videos.

For those who don't know, this kid, Jose Macedo, arose as a "Portuguese Poker Prodigy," who apparently lived the dream of turning $30 into $2 million or something as a 16-18-year-old wiz kid.

He got sponsorships and some big-name pros vouched for him, including DogisHead and Jungleman12. DIH and JM were planning on moving to Portugal to live with him.

Now it's come out that Girah had started a Skype/coaching group for HSNL players. He would sweat their sessions in real time, and apparently encouraged them to play someone named Sauron1989. But he was superusing and Sauron1989 took his students for around $30K.

FWIW, he also posted in said forum with an apology and is paying those players back when they lost, plus additional funds.

It's super irresponsible for him to have done this. Not just on the many levels of cheating (and cheating of friends), but it puts another black eye on online poker at a time when so many people are trying to get it back.

And yet another reason why online poker needs to be regulated and only 21+ to play.

his post in the forum was planned by the OP because he wanted to allow him the chance to apologize to the public first. the part where he claims he felt he had to come out and admit what he did was wrong is stupid because he knew the skype members already had discovered what he was doing

lol because someone 21+ would never do this. plz stop

its ashamed he has thrown everything away by cheating others that he was supposedly trying to help. i personally don't accept his apology and think his "friend" that he was trying to help was actually himself. i also don't like that others who have vouched for him are now looking like possible cheaters, dogishead, jungleman, and sauce123. looks like if it were the case he would have outed them instead of owning up to the scam himself.

My first foray into online poker was on UB. Many years ago, before any inkling of the superusers or any online poker problems were discussed. I started out playing just with play money on there, to see how the software worked and how the people played.

It took me about a week before people wanted me to join their MSN chats, in these chats they would say what their cards were so I left the chats and just told them I wanted to play on my own. To emphasize, THIS WAS FOR PLAY CHIPS!

It made me imagine that it happened even more often in the cash games.

In all my years of online playing I never got that out of my mind, that if I saw two people on a table who knew each other (in table chat) or from the same town, I just always assumed they were playing together. That's how I played all the way through my online time and that's probably why I wasn't as into playing as a lot of the others on here.

I did end up winning over the long term, got my money from PS which has more than covered the $50 or so I left on UB and the $120 on FT, both of which I feel very likely are lost.

With the real time off the site chat options, Skype, even using Mikogo or Net Meeting, it's amazing to me that there's not more of this going on.

wow that's horrible. is he really going to pay them back? does it sound like he set these students up or just sucks at coaching?

That's crazy talk just because your nanny state says 21+. In most civilised countries you can play at 18.

rofl

And girah is scum

I have often wondered about various ways people can/could/do collude. Phone ...3rd party poker chat ... remote desktop/shadowing. Seems like often in life if there's a will there is a way. Pretty scary when you think about it. I just play micro stuff so I don't lose sleep over the thought of someone scamming pocket change from me.

People like this should be shot as someone else said where trying to get online poker back and all this garbage is popping up making it look worse.

^ this. It's 18 here and most other places outside the US and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

IMO this post is just wrong on so many levels. "Irresponsible?" This was fraud/theft, there's no difference between doing this and just going into someone's house and stealing the cash.

21+? Why?

BTW, this scandal is getting worse. I can't even begin to sum up what's going on, but it appears that big-names in the high-stakes community may also be involved.

This would be a huge black eye on the HSNL community if true. Sort of a cross between Milli Vanilli and the Black Sox scandal.

That's one way of looking at it. The other side of the coin might be that the industry is crying out for a clean-up and tighter regulations.

this situation is motha fu**ing crazy

looooooooool haseeb

With all the documentaries like "zero to hero" out there, I think it'd actually be a much more fascinating (albeit darker) subject matter for someone to do a documentary on the dark underbelly of poker... both live and online.

As long as the journalists accept that they might end up in a river with concrete boots

Way too easy to collude to expect an honest game every time you get online. I too have met individuals that claim to regularly share information on their hole cards.

The question really is how much is going on and at what level, are they successful at it, and how many are caught compared to how many are cheating?

I would also imagine that the new poker rooms just getting up and running with a very small player base and unsophisticated software would be very vulnerable to cheating and player collusion.

but, all someone would have to do is forward the chat for review ... and it doesn't prevent those accused of colluding from playing ... they just can't play at the same table anymore

i gifted my son and my sister online money and i was not allowed to join the same games they were in on PS ... made sense to me ... and really had no impact on my online play

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/0...ting-10815.htm

What exactly is this guy admiting to. He talks about sweating these players while his friend was playing them. Does this mean he was actually in the same room watching his roommates play while letting his friend know what hole cards they were playing?

Anyways, not what poker needs.

I am pretty sure it was online and probably using team viewer. He may have had his friend over while sweating the 2+2 players. I only read that article but I am sure there is a million page thread over there.

Yeah he was sweating people he'd been talking to on Skype, encouraging them to play sauron. Gets on teamviewer, sees holecards, tells his - cough - 'friend' the cards, takes money

EZ game

Funny you worded it like that, when I read the article earlier today I wondered the same thing.

If they were logging on and off Skype at the same time, doesn't that imply that there were two of them?

There's a chance I'm misremebering things but I think girah was logging on and off skype at the same time sauron connects/disconnects, implying it's the same person

correct

That is how I took it...what an idiot.

jungleman and haseeb looking absurdly shady

This is a real problem for those of us that do not understand the lingo or the tec. Where can you learn this stuff?

Isn't jungleman really successful playing online? why would he need to get shady?
Google is your friend, or if you feel like asking in here most members are glad to help out.
(except marginal when I was trying to figure out ainec, and he replied that I wasn't even close, which is not funny now that I know what is is, lol)

Why would girah need to 'get shady' and try a ridic obvious scam for 30k if hes won 2mil online?

lol he said because he felt guilty for having his "friend" try online poker and sucking so bad he lost so much money so it was sort of ...compensation? lol

Greed ...ego ...just to name 2 reasons. The 30k number is just the tip of the iceberg. I watched a vid were he was talking about trying to get in the durrr and isuldur1 challenges.