<img src="http://www.liquidpoker.net/staff/Raidern/girah.jpg" align="right" style="margin:5px; border:1px solid black;">Portuguese high stakes poker player Jose 'Girah' Macedo found himself in hot water this weekend. Some members of TwoPlusTwo Forums accused him of scamming them for over $30,000. Basically, it all started when Girah pushed some players, jajay1963 included, to play against some "fishes" whose nicknames are sauron1989 and dollarman223. During these sessions, that could go as high as $50/$100, Girah often watched the players' screen as in a sweat.
The players involved got suspicious about some hands and thought the whole insistence thing looked shady and decided to investigate it from the very start. They reviewed logs from the Skype conference where Girah insisted that they should play the "fishes" and also the poker sessions itself. Girah admitted that he cheated by telling his friend the opponents' holecards and as a consequence he was dropped by his sponsor Lock Poker and released from PokerStrategy. Read below the most important posts related to the whole scandal. You can find much more information on TwoPlusTwo as well as in our thread about the scam.
Girah's Statement
“I’m going to be taking a break for a while. There is no right or wrong way to say any of this, so I’m just going to say what happened.
A while ago, I did something stupid. A friend of mine, whom I introduced to poker, made a suggestion to me which was, I’m not going to sugar coat it, cheating. I had introduced this friend to poker, and he was losing money -- badly. He asked to play some of my poker friends and said 'why don’t you sweat them and we’ll see their hands.' I don’t know why I agreed. I don’t know why I did it. I guess it was a mixture of guilt and stupidity and feeling shitty for getting him involved in something which seemed to be bad for him.
This went on <A name="cutnews"></A>for a short while but I felt so bad, I had to say something. I confessed. I told the guys involved what I had done, I told my friends and the people who I respect and who respected me. I told my Mum, confessed everything to her. I could see the disappointment moving across her face as she told me she was not proud of me despite all my success in poker; she was not proud of her son. She said how she hadn’t raised me this way and what had poker done to me. That's when it hit me, how badly I had let people down. I felt ashamed, I had no explanation; explanations don’t cut it in situations like this and often come across as excuses.
There is a quote on the wall in my school which I always see as I pass the nurse’s office. It says that the real mistake is not tripping up, but staying down. I thought of that and that’s why I’m writing this.
I’m holding my hands up and taking whatever consequences come. I realize the severity of this, but I also realize that I have to take responsibility for my actions and so I’m paying back everyone involved and in addition paying them compensation of $30,000. I’ve also told my sponsor, etc., and whatever happens there I will take the consequences too. They have been really amazing to me and I’ve enjoyed every minute of working with them. Representing Lock and being part of their amazing team, witnessing the incredible growth, was a pleasure and an honor.
I’m young, I made a mistake and I hope that this doesn’t define me; I hope that how I deal with this and move forward is the thing that does. And people will say I have no excuse and I know and understand that. I agree. I just want to let everyone know, I’m sorry. I apologize to the guys who lost their money, the people who I love and care about and [whom] I have disappointed and the guys in the poker world who have supported me for letting them down. I wish I had something to say to you all, to say to my parents and my friends and all of those who thought I could do no wrong. Again I’m really sorry.”
The thing is the scandal doesn't seem to involve only Girah. Some famous highstakes players such as Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates and Haseeb 'DogIsHead' Qureshi might be involved in it. They are both close friends with Girah and were going to move in together with the Portuguese in order to resume their online poker career. According to this post by the 2p2 user and also a victim JnyC, DOgIsHead contacted him saying that Girah admitted that he cheated, and that he, DogIsHead, would prefer the story not to go public. In the same post, JnyC says DogIsHead confessed that he and Jungleman12 back Girah for highstakes games. Both Jungleman12 and DogIsHead wrote statements on the matter:
Jungleman's statement:
“Hey all, this has been about as weird and surprising to me and the other high-stakes guys who know Jose as it has been for everyone else. I was told he was 100 percent trustworthy and he seemed like the type to be so, so I never questioned his integrity. I still don't really understand why he not only scammed people in one of the scummiest ways possible, but also decided to risk his whole career for a seemingly small amount. Clearly I made a mistake in trusting him, and now question our relationship as a whole.
“Haseeb and I are in Europe still trying to get settled in to play online once again, we have talked about the situation and we can't abide by what he did, so we can't live with him in Portugal and I can no longer consider him my student.
“Again this is all really ridiculous, I and the high-stakes players who supported him in the past never would have imagined he would do this. GL to all those who got scammed.”
DogIsHead's statement:
“Right now it's very difficult for me to spend a lot of time on TwoPlusTwo, but as I've heard that the rumors and speculation are running rampant, I will say this and I will say it as emphatically and clearly as I can. None of us who supported Jose had any idea about any of this. None of us. We supported Jose and believed in him single-mindedly, I will admit that. I personally had a very strong relationship with the kid. I don't know why, but none of us who believed in him ever imagined he had it in him to be so greedy and dishonest to do something like this. Clearly, we were wrong, and as was I to place our faith in him. What he did was really ****ed up and inexcusable. I may be able to write more once Jungle and I secure a place to live and lay our heads, but for the moment we are very all over the place. But for everyone who thinks that there is some huge conspiracy or that Jose is a puppet for some high-stakes scamming ring - get a ****ing grip, ffs.”
|
