Originally Posted by MossBoss

Hi 2p2, I’m a 6m and HU player on iPoker by the username of “jajay1963”. I met José in a strategy skype group which was set up by TooCuriousso1 to discuss HU strategy amongst good players.

José’s strategy contributions to this group were exceptional, and many top players were very impressed. Early in July, José created a second group which he said was for the best players to further discuss strategy, review each others videos and do some live sweats, to discuss hands just after they had happened. José and everyone elses’ strategy discussion continued to be very good and in early July, somewhere around the 10th, Joséwatched 2p2 poster ImFromSweden whilst he played a session. During this session IFS played sauron1989 HU on iPoker. IFS lost just over $10,000 in 70 hands of $10/$20 but both of them typed into the skype chat group that they thought that this sauron1989 was very bad. About 10 days later, José offered to watch me whilst I played a session on iPoker. Thinking that this was a good opportunity for me to have my play reviewed by a top player, I agreed and he watched my session start out as a 6max session but soon I had sat with sauron1989 on an empty 6max table, after José had told me that this guy was bad and spewy and proceeded to lose a total of $21,900 to sauron1989 over the course of 2 matches at $25/$50. I felt like something was wrong during the matches, not a feeling I can explain, but it just didn’t feel like any other HU match I’ve played and I got suspicious.

After reviewing the skype chat logs, it became fairly clear that José was massively pushing this sauron1989 to anybody who had iPoker funds, saying that he was very bad and that everyone should play him (and let him watch when they did). I voiced my concerns to TooCuriousso1 and we proceeded to work hard to dig up evidence to prove this. Lots of circumstantial evidence was available; José’s chat logs were extremely suspect, where he would push players to play sauron1989 despite not seeming to play him himself. We soon witnessed that whenever José would disconnect from skype, sauron1989 would sign out of the ipoker lobby and would sign back in when José reconnected to skype. This happened 3 times in 20 minutes and all 3 times both José’s skype and sauron logged out and in at the same time. During our attempts to find more evidence, it became clear that José was also operating under the username of dollarman223 on the Merge network. He scammed TooCuriousso1 for $900 and appeared to be setting up another member of the group for a further scam at $50/$100, which we anticipated would be his biggest scam. Once we voiced our concerns to the rest of the group it became apparent that José was setting up quite a few of them for a scam.

Obviously it was naiive and stupid of me and of the others to allow José to watch our screen whilst we played high stakes, but based on a few months of internet friendship and the great strategy José posted, we believed he was entirely trustworthy (despite the scepticism voiced in José’s NVG thread).

To José’s credit, before we had fully conclusive proof, though our suspicions were becoming apparent, he confessed what he had done, and promised to pay us back all of the money plus was adamant that he would pay compensation for the time that we had been forced to put in to unearth the cheating. We have been promised reimbursement for the money stolen by Jose while superusing. Once I receive the funds, I will then send IFS and TC what they are owed.

We have co-ordinated this with José to allow him to write his statement in here for all to read. His statement will be posted below.

edit: regarding the confession, we received a full admission of guilt at a point at which it was more or less apparent that we already knew we had been cheated.

Originally Posted by girah

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, who 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 ****ty for getting him involved in something which seemed to be bad for him.

This went on 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. Thats 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 realise the severity of this, but I also realise 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 apologise to the guys who lost their money, the people who I love and care about and I have disappointed and the guys in the poker world who have supported me for letting them down. I wish Ish 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.

Originally Posted by DOG IS HEAD

We never imagined that Jose could do something like this. Suffice it to say that Jungle and I will be changing our plans and will no longer be living in Portugal with him.

Originally Posted by sauce123

I was shocked when Kjemmy brought this to my attention and could barely believe it.

I have (informally) coached/chatted with Jose for over year now since he somehow got my skype and showed he had a sharp poker mind. I did this because I admired his drive to improve and he seemed like a nice kid who could go far in poker. Jose offered me large sums of money for private coaching which i refused in order to talk strat/general bull**** over skype for free. I have repeatedly vouched for him on 2p2 as well.

Kjemmy brought these suspicions to my attention which I dismissed as circumstantial (until IP addresses were confirmed or Jose confessed) because I felt that the scam was so flagrantly unethical and poorly conceived that I couldn't imagine Jose or anyone rational doing it. That same day, Jose advised me on skype chat to put money on ipoker and play "this aggrofish sauron1989 at 50/100" and I still was not convinced he was scamming.

I suppose the only constructive thing that can come from writing this post is that I want to advise other poker players to be extremely, extremely wary of others' intentions, especially when so many interactions occur online. There are many incredibly honest people in poker who have fostered a climate where deals totaling thousands or millions of dollars are brokered on people's word alone, usually without incident. We have to both be more careful about trusting other people these days and we also have to make sure people who behave like Jose are barred from the poker community by any non-violent means possible.

Originally Posted by MossBoss

It would appear that the confession isn't to be taken at face value, just received this PM (maxkatz1 is a real ipoker player):

Hey,

I'm maxkatz1 on ipoker and read the whole story today. Basically I had done some investigating after loosing to sauon1989 and Jose sweating me 3days in a row and was gonna post sth similiar. He also said sth about a nick on ongame and i kinda suspect its also one of his scam accounts.

Originally Posted by ivvaen

I was in the skype group and can safely assume that Jose tried to set me up for a scam as well. He is the nut low scum and can never be forgiven. I want to clear some things up. First of all, ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME:

This is so immensely false and infuriating. Jose did not feel bad and confess. We had gathered lots of evidence and he caught wind of it. He lied and denied , lied and denied and lied and denied some more. This cant be stated enough. He used all sorts of arguments about how well we know him, how much strat he has posted, “what would I gain?”, “youre my friends” etc. He absolutely tried to deny this for as long as he could and did NOT come clean out of guilt like he claims here. FU Jose you scum, I don’t ever wanna hear about you or see your face ever again. I hope you quit poker and never make a cent from it ever again. SCUM!

Furthermore, from Jose’s conversations about this on Skype he is NOT as sorry about this as he proclaims. He even had the balls to say this last night when we informed him we were going public asap:

[01:25:17] josé maria macedo: stop thinking so much about your reps
[01:25:20] josé maria macedo: and think about mine
[01:25:22] josé maria macedo: for one second

Once again, are you ****ing kidding me????? This kid does not grasp what he has done.

Secondly, this friend story has to be a load of crap. For example, Jose claimed on Skype that Merge wouldn’t detect the cheating by looking at IPs as his friend was online by the use of a mobile internet 3g pen. Why, then, did Sauron disconnect at the same time as Jose, who was on his normal internet connection?

Now, when it comes to the sweating. The point of it was to rail in real time and comment after. Personally, I never got sweated by anyone, but I sweated Jose playing a random fish one time. I did comment in real time on hands and I acknowledge that this is wrong and I should not have done it. It was not my intention when talking about sweating in the first place, and I consider it a mistake and will never do it again. This was the only time I have been involved in any type of sweating as long as I have played poker. From talks with the other guys it seems like they all merely sweated and that any real time communication was extremely limited. I believe this.

I leave you with this gem from the Portuguese Russ Hamilton who is so so sorry for what he has done:

[16:00:16] josé maria macedo: i assume you all know this
[16:00:24] josé maria macedo: but if it goes public, both mysponsors are dropping me
[16:02:45] XXXXX: yeah they're aware
[16:03:16] josé maria macedo: ah, really?
[16:03:20] josé maria macedo: damn
[16:05:28] josé maria macedo: theyreally know that both sponsors will drop me?
[16:05:35] josé maria macedo: and still want to?

Originally Posted by ilrg

I was gonna post this today... Jose scammed me for atleast 15k on ipoker.

On 28th of June I contacted Yoan Gaidov from hand4hand.net about coaching with Jose Maria Machedo, the so called portuguese poker prodigy. He gave me his Skype info and I added him. He said that he would talk with Jose and forward my information to him. He told me there was a waiting list of like 50 players.
On 29th of June he gave me Joses Skype info and I added him. From that day I would try to contact Jose about coaching. He would ignore me first but then after like 2 weeks we finally scheduled a session. I filled out his questionnaire and was good to go. He wouldnt show up to the first session and also missed the 2nd one we scheduled making up excuses. Then he apologized and said he would make it up by coaching me for free for 2 sessions.
On 07/17 we had finally our first session where we talked about some theory. The session was nothing special and I didn,t get the impression that he is as awesome as everyone seems to think he is. He basically send me the links to the hands he posted on 2p2 (also the hands he made his first video for pokerstrategy) and talked about them. He told me to prepare some conceptual hands and send me to him. I would do that but he never really analyzed them. He would then ignore me again for some days and when our next session was due he delayed it during to having so much stress because of his first video being released.
At this time I was playing almost only on pokerstars and partypoker. On 07/28 I would started playing on ipoker on my old account (maxkatz1) I haven't played there for a while. Jose knew my name there since he asked me on 07/17 about it and. All of a sudden Jose started to show an unreal amount of interest to sweating me. After bascially ignoring me for over 3 weeks and hardly doing anything that can be considered coaching he would suggest to sweat me up to 3-4 times a day starting on 07/31. I played up to 9 tables of 6 max on ipoker.

Basically he wanted me to play ongame or ipoker during our sweatsessions. He told me his nick on ipoker is toshisan. Pretty strange if you look it up on ptr - plays low - midstakes hu.
He told me that his ongame account was frozen and that he thinks that games on ongame are great so I should play there and asked me about what my nick there is.
Ok so now the fun part begins. After starting the sweatsession a guy named sauron1989 would sit with me at every table he could at 10-20. He would make some garbage plays (coldcall crap pf v me - make some stupid bluff) then type that he is tilted in chat and ask me to move up in stakes).
Jose told me that he played him for over 3k hands and that he thinks that sauron is a huge fish. He told me he lost like 15k to him at 25-50 but will play him again since hes got really good reads on him. He also encouraged me to start 10-20 games with sauron. I lost about 15 k to sauron on the 3 days where Jose did sweat me.
He would spazz here and there but other than that he was playing in god mode - calling every single bluff of mine. Jose tried to encourage me to play sauron hu and also asked why I won't play him at 25-50.
After sking him several times he finally agreed that I can sweat him and he played about 45 minutes on merge on his girah account. Before and after the session he was asking me again and again if he can sweat me. He was never really interested in analyzing any hands. I got suspicious after getting crushed by sauron 3 days in a row and asked a friend of mine (mdma) about his opinion. He told me that he has read some interesting stuff on a swedish pokerforum a while ago. Basically Jose asked an ipoker reg to sweat him when he played a fish hu. During that session he lost 8 buins or so on on 10-20. Guess to whom he lost? Sauron 1989!
Toshisan has not a single hand played v Sauron1989 according to ptr. Jose asked me to play Sauron from my account since hes getting no action from him. He asked me if he can sit in 4 handed with Sauron1989, me and geeforce1. I said sure but he wouldn't. Then telling me that his ipoker account is blocked cause Hasseeb logged in.
So it all looks pretty strange. First he ignores me and doesn't wann do any coaching. As soon as he sees me playing on ipoker he can't get enough of sweating me. As soon as I sit at ipoker Sauron sits at very table of mine at 10-20 with position and plays in godmode. His ongame account is blocked. His ipoker account is blocked. His moneybookers deposit limit is reached so he cant make a new account and deposit.

Originally Posted by kjemmy

I've just spoken with ilrg and what hes writing seems to be true as well, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by MossBoss

can confirm that this appears to be true from talking on skype

Originally Posted by ilrg

[01.08.2011 21:47:13] josé maria macedo: ifonlyouknew guy is -19bb loser on ongame and -100k loser on ipoker if its the same guy

so basically hes advertising to play this guy on ongame like he did with sauron on ipoker - if anyone was sweated by him v this guy please post - I lost 3,5 k to him durings the sweat with Jose.

Originally Posted by Giev money??

Pretty sure that Girah tried to scam me too. Few days ago he PM'ed me and said he had something to propose for me and wanted to add me to skype. At the skype he instantly asks me if I play at ipoker and tells me that there is a big fish playing 25/50 50/100 (haven't seen any big fish there and there is not much 25/50+ games going on at ipoker anyway).

I had to leave and haven't talk with him since but for some reason I have a feeling that the big fish playing at ipoker was gonna be sauron1989......

Originally Posted by jungleman

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% 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.

Originally Posted by DOG IS HEAD

Hey guys,

This whole situation has come as a huge surprise to all of us who've been supporting Jose. No one ever imagined he could do something like this, and honestly I still have difficulty understanding his motives. We've been traveling to Europe (Jungle and I have been in Gibraltar for the last few days) and as such, I had to be very brief, with having to wade through all of the commotion in what's happened from every end. Since Jungle and I decided that we no longer can be with Jose after the way he's betrayed our trust, we have changed our plans from Portugal and are now trying to sort out another place to live within Europe. This whole situation is a huge cluster**** to say the least.

Right now it's very difficult for me to spend a lot of time on 2p2, 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 singlemindedly, 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.

Suffice it to say, the OP speaks for itself. I wish the best to all of the victims in dealing with this.

Haseeb

Originally Posted by FoxwoodsFiend

Two thoughts:

1) This is by far the worst thing a poker player could do. It's theft pure and simple. There are a lot of questionable actions that you can excuse as "oh I didn't really think about it, but yeah now that you mention it, it's kind of messed up [eg multiaccounting back in the day when it was never discussed critically]" or "there are arguments on both sides [eg HUDs, live coaching, etc]" but this is not excusable in any way. The complete depravity required to do something like this is just shocking. He should go to jail, nobody should believe a word he says b/c at this point he's got nothing to lose by lying and trying his hardest to make himself look good, and the poker community needs to completely shun him. There are lots of situations in which somebody should get a second chance for a youthful or thoughtless mistake. This isn't one of them.

2) Everybody trying to blame Sauce/Jungle/Haseeb is crazy here. Regardless of whether past rumors wrt the Big 3 using Jose's account are true (I didn't fully read the thread, have no opinion on the subject, etc.), nothing that anybody suspected these three of at all relates to this scamming situation. Taking previous speculation and conspiracy theorizing and using it as evidence of guilt in one setting, and then presuming that guilt and trying to use it as evidence of guilt regarding an entirely unrelated issue is insane. It's like hearing a rumor durrrr and Ivey collude, assuming they collude, and then blaming durrrr for the recent NoahSD article about Ivey.

The most you could say is that they made a bad judgment call vouching for this guy and this helped make him famous. The only problem with that is that there's no way to see something like this coming and when you vouch for people on the internet it's never "I did a thorough background search and subjected him to numerous tests to see if he had hidden sociopathic behavioral traits," the most you can ever vouch for somebody you're not IRL friends with is "I can vouch his story checks out and that he's been honest and forthright with me in the past." Basically, they talked to a guy who obviously knew his poker stuff and who befriended them on the internet, and expecting them to somehow be responsible for people falling for his scam reads way too much into what vouching actually means.

Originally Posted by sauce123

I've never had any financial arrangement with Jose of any kind. I've never sweated him or been sweated by him and have only interacted with him on skype chat. As to how Jose got my skype name I have no idea- at the time it was simply Ben Sulsky or something similar so it really wouldn't be that hard (it has since been changed btw). Jose just happens to have been the only person to contact me in this way and not come off sounding like a stalker. My motivations were simple: I like talking poker and was impressed that this 17 year old kid was on track to crush, so I tried to help him out a little. Believe it or not this actually happens, people (still) help each other for free ...

As far as coaching Jose all I did was answer his HH and theory questions on skype chat. I still don't feel comfortable charging some sick $/hr number for my time, I prefer to just crush at the tables where there's no possibility for bull****. (the expert insight coaching $$ go to charity btw)

Kjemmy came to me with this news a few days before it was posted on 2p2 as Jose had touted his relationship to me for various purposes and Kjemmy figured I could look over the evidence with an eye to defending Jose. I checked out the chatlogs and Sauron1989's suspicious log in history as presented to me by Kjemmy. I concluded that the evidence was circumstantial and that Kjemmy should contact the sites in order to get the IP info for the Sauron account as well as Girah's info. If they matched up then the evidence would be clear cut and Kjemmy could confront Jose. In the next few days Kjemmy et all confronted Jose and he confessed, so that was that.

As far as me being the "whale at the end of the line" or whatever, I have no idea what Jose's intentions were. I do know he suggested to me to get money on ipoker to play "a huge aggrofish named Sauron1989." To be fair, I had said to Jose that I was considering getting money on ipoker and only then when I was basically walking into the trap did Jose seem to get the idea to scam me. He didn't pressure me or maneuver me into getting scammed in the way that he did to the OPs.

Anyways, I have absolutely no reason to defend my actions or my intentions in this thread. I have since blocked Jose and ceased all contact with him, of which there was very little in the first place and nothing outside of internet bull****.

Originally Posted by sauce123

I am not responsible morally or legally for the actions of someone I vouch for. I am responsible morally that anything which I may post when I am vouching for someone is accurate to the best of my knowledge, and that I don't go around heedlessly posting things I have little idea of the accuracy of. If it isn't accurate then people can question my discretion in vouching for someone, but that's about it.

Here's an example of a post I made recently vouching for someone: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...46&postcount=3

In this post the only claim I make is that I a) did in fact play the person at mid/high stakes, b) in my opinion they played well, c) I bought a coaching package from this person I was satisfied with and d) In my informed opinion I think the person is a strong player and coach.

If somehow (and I have not even the most remote reason to think this, there is nothing to read between the lines here) this person had fabricated his results in order to sell coaching, my only culpability is that I was taken in by him enough to make the above claims b,c and d. Other people on the forums might then justifiably question my reputation as an expert on poker.

The same sort of thing happened with Jose. I was satisfied that he had a sharp take on poker theory and therefore saw no reason to be particularly skeptical of his results. Since I thought he was a large winner I in turn saw no reason why he would engage in cheating as despicable as this for such a comparatively small amount of money. For those of you who watched his video, I think it seems quite credible that Jose has a sharp mind for poker theory and you all might understand my mistake. Others of you might doubt my supposedly expert opinion in the future, which is totally OK with me and justified.

It would be dishonest for me to be recommending Jose in a coaching thread if I expected to get any cut of the profits or had any vested material interest in Jose's coaching success. In the actual case of Jose, all that I attested to was his reality (the proof of which were my repeated chats with him on skype which started long before the 2p2 thread(s)) and that in my expert opinion it was plausible he had put up the impressive results he posted, and that I thought this was plausible because he seemed to have a sharp poker mind.

Hope that clears things up,

Ben

Originally Posted by JnyC

So this is a very long thread and I am not going to read through all of it. Below is my account of everything that has happened.

Girah invites me to a skype strategy group. This was probably a 4-6 weeks after black friday. During this time, I was playing very little poker and was almost non-existent in the group. I didn't participate in much strategy discussions nor any sweat sessions.

At some point, I log in and Girah and Toocurious are talking about a fish named dollarman223. TooCurious mentions that this fish plays terribly preflop but seems to 'own' him postflop and that he plays 25-50+. Girah pushes me to play dollarman. TooCurious is horrible at poker, so I decide to play dollarman. We play a short session of 1 table of 25-50 where I end up winning. During this time Girah is messaging me on skype but not viewing my screen. Dollarman leaves only to return in a short while. We begin playing another session during which Girah presses me very hard to allow him to 'sweat' me via teamviwer. Reluctantly, I agree.

I want to stress that this is the first and last time I have allowed anyone to 'sweat' me at my regular stakes. I have allowed students to watch me play much lower stakes and ask questions later - but that is where my 'sweating' experience ends.


Dollarman and I play another short session, this time with Girah watching via TV. I run numerous suicide bluffs, all of which work and end up winning about 4k overall. Dollarman becomes 'tilted' and asks to play 50-100 deep. I decline. He asks to play at a different time and we exchange e-mails. Over the next 2 weeks, dollarman e-mails me several times asking to play 2 tables of 50-100 deep. Over the same time period, Jose becomes super insistent that I play dollarman and allow him to TV. It becomes almost an obsession for him. He is also insistent that TooCurious play dollarman and allow him to TV and that the European guys in the group who play on ipoker play sauron.

This goes on until toocurious messages me and says he believes that Girah is cheating. It is decided that we contact ipoker and merge to try and collect some hard evidence and look for links between Girah and dollarman. One of the guys ends up contacting Sauce and Dogishead.

While we waited for responses, one or more of the group members pressed Girah for information. I was not involved in any of the discussions with Girah, as I have had very little contact with him since TooCurious brought up these allegations but I did read through the chat transcripts that were posted. It was clear that Girah knew that he was caught as he had come up with a story that his 'real life frined' super used him. This story was sent to at least 3 people in the group, myself included. Following this he admitted to ToOCurious that dollarman and sauron are the same person and that it is his rich friend from school and that "sometimes" he played at his house. A bunch of other BS followed.

The next day(?) Dogishead enters our skype chat and says that Girah confessed to him that this cheating took place. Prior to this, Girah did not confess to me nor anyone else within the group as far as I know. In any case, Dog says he will get back the money of those who lost it. In fact, he gave his word that if Jose didn't pay then he and Jungleman would. He then asks if we are going to go public with this and mentions that it's up to us, but he would rather it didn't go public. He mentions that they were going to go live with him...but if this gets out then they can't do that anymore...implying that if this wasn't outed they would still live together(?). He continues by taking on the role of big brother and almost defending Girah by saying that he's young and stupid and that while what he did was scummy, he doesn't think that he's a bad person and a whole bunch of other comments that rubbed me the wrong way.

During these conversations, Dog admitted that both he and Jungleman back Girah for highstakes games. This leads me to believe that either Dog or Jungleman were the mysterious backer who logged in to play PLO during the Lock Challenge. Jose also mentioned that one of the ipoker accounts he uses is in Dog's name. To quote Dog "draw your own conclusions".

Dog was very insistent that we hold off on making any posts before he had a chance to deal with this situation as both Jungle and him had "strong ties" to Jose. He also wanted us to wait and "confront" Jose and let him "explain himself" and other completely asinine kindergarten BS.


It became apparent (at least to me) that the only thing Dog cared about was his reputation, not about what his "very close" friend did, not about the people who were cheated - only that he's not portrayed in any way that could damage him. He confirmed this yesterday when, upon learning that all of the above would be posted, came into the skype group and said that if this was mentioned, "there is NO way [they] can agree to bank transfer the money".

According to Dog, in terms of reimbursement, Jungleman was going to bank wire funds to Moss who would distribute them to those who were cheated. I don't know if this is still the plan or if this has happened yet since I am not owed. It is a complete mess and it is possible that Girah may be repaying the funds via Lock.

Originally Posted by MossBoss

can confirm Jay's post is true.

Originally Posted by ivvaen

2:24:56 AM]

josé maria macedo: i can login to my own ipoker account?
[2:24:58 AM] josé maria macedo: well not my own
[2:25:15 AM] josé maria macedo: but the owner hardly plays
[2:25:20 AM] josé maria macedo: toshisan
[2:25:32 AM] Nick Frame: why dont u just have your own account
[2:25:40 AM] Nick Frame: i dont play on any1s account but my own...
[2:25:46 AM] josé maria macedo: my moneybookers is blocked
[2:25:54 AM] josé maria macedo: like reached its limits
[2:26:03 AM] josé maria macedo: so i couldnt deposit any more after i put however much on prima and lock
[2:26:09 AM] josé maria macedo: and toshisan is my account
[2:26:16 AM] josé maria macedo: its not in my name but its mine
[2:26:29 AM] josé maria macedo: its a very close friend's
[2:26:31 AM] josé maria macedo: dogishead

Originally Posted by kjemmy

Jose offered the 30,000 before we had gone public with this. Me and Moss were in a discussion with Jose trying to sort out the payments, and he offered. We told him clearly this is going public no matter what and if it's as meant as a bribe, we'd decline no matter the size. He said he knows and just wanted to give compensation.

More than that I don't know, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by kjemmy

According to the three of them (jungle, DIH, jose), Jose had put up a 40k deposit for the house Jungle and DIH were moving into, so they owed him money. What was said was that if Jose didn't come through and pay up, DIH and Jungle would take money from what they owed and make sure the money was paid.

This ended up not happening - Jose is sending the entire amount to me on Merge - and there was no 'bribe' from DIH and Jungle's side to keep their names out of this.

The reason we kept their names out was because we werent completely sure how deep it went, and we didn't want to cause a huge ****storm if we were wrong. After reading more into it, Jay decided to go ahead and post all of the convos and what we had discussed in the skype chat. The rest you can read yourselves in Jay's post; Jungle and DIH have backed Jose, apparently Jose's ipoker account is in Haseeb's name, etc etc.

Originally Posted by Ansky

To the ppl demanding FWF respond to the new post:

I just texted him and told him about it, he said he is out for the night and will respond tomorrow. He was just saying that given the info at the time that there was no reason to rush to judgment, I'm sure he will give an updated opinion on the matter when he sees the new stuff.

Originally Posted by cts

From Ashman's twitter:

arfarfhowl Ashton Griffin

For the record, Jose Macedo blantantly stole from his friends and students. The number may be more than what he claims. To my knowledge.....

To my knowledge Daniel Cates and Haseeb Qureshi had 0 knowledge of his transgressions while promoting him and backing him. However, they....

have at the very least used accounts, mostly being Jose using the 'Toshisan' account which is Haseeb's. I would bet a lot that HQ/DC........

didn't go past account sharing which is something that should be frowned upon and shouldn't be condoned, but not blatantly cheating.

I would wager a lot that DC/HQ are 100% people of utmost integrity. HQ lost over $250k to me in a running bet and paid me every dollar.

Originally Posted by jungleman

Here is my side of the story:

About a week ago kjemmy on 2+2 messaged me saying he thought Jose was scamming him and his friends, with a lengthy explanation... I told Haseeb about it and he said Jose had mentioned something about sauron1989/dollarman as well, to be honest I did not inquire that much because I thought it was basically impossible for Jose to be pulling such a scam. Later in Gibraltar, Haseeb talks with Jose and the victims and actually suspects Jose is scamming based on how he is responding, and gets a confession out of him. Incoming ****storm... Haseeb and I know a bunch of crazy **** is about to go down on 2+2 and, given our public relationship withJose, want to basically stay out of Jose's crucifixion (well so much for that). Hence the chat logs trying to convince the victimsnot to talk about us... As for the payment we owed Jose money and would rather pay the victims than give Jose the money because it seems more fair. Once again, Haseeb and I have nothing to do with Jose's dumbass actions.


On another note, I didn't like the way Jose seemed to like to build hype for himself: challenging durrrr in the durrrr challenge, taking the isildur challenge, offering to play anyone giving 1bb back at 200/400--basically suggesting he's better than he was in ways that he could not back up. I've always been a proponent of the idea that respect should follow from being worthy of respect, not vice versa--something that Jose's actions contradicted. Lastly it's a bit exaggerated to say he was my protege, indeed I did coach him but for maybe a couple of sessions at best in addition to answering questions. Many others are my protege moreso according to the time I've given them.

For his actions, Jose should burn on his own. I am not involved in this ****storm. Also, Haseeb will be commenting shortly/writing a blog post shortly to explain everything.

Originally Posted by MossBoss

thought i'd just post that $21,900 has been xferred to my overbet account on merge, so i've been paid the full amount i lost to sauron1989.

Originally Posted by imabigdeal

cliffs regarding jnyc's post are not comprehensive enough imo. jnyc's post implicates Dog much more and your cliffs do not really reflect that aspect.

Originally Posted by 3x Range Merger

Fixed that, I believe.

Originally Posted by MagicMurderBean

lol his ****ing results pic just reeked of insane bull****.

Anyone know what his actual winrate was?

Originally Posted by DOG IS HEAD

Haha, interesting thread.

A friend of mine pointed this out to me. I haven't been on 2p2 much lately, but here's what I know.

I know this kid and have been talking to him for a while. His name is José, he approached me a while back for coaching (I'm not the aforementioned coach in this thread). He seemed extremely intelligent and hardworking. He told me that he studied poker 3 hours a day every day, just reviewing hands and breaking down his opponents. He said that in a matter of six months from when he started poker, he had gone from a micro stakes bankroll to becoming one of the biggest winners at 5/10-10/20 6-max and was trying to break his way into the 25/50 games. Now, in 2006 or 2005 you heard those kinds of stories often enough... but in 2010, that's an unbelievable progression up the stakes. And as if that weren't amazing enough, on top of all that - he was 17 years old.

I've talked to José quite a bit and have given him a lot of advice on various things, but since the very first moment I met this him, I knew he was a prodigy. I remember Sauce saying that he was probably on the road to becoming one of the strongest players in poker. AFAIK, he's approached both Sauce and Jungleman for coaching, and has tremendous knowledge and dedication to the game. Right now on American sites he's pretty unknown, but this kid has just turned 18 and is now positioned to take a serious run at the top of the poker world.

It's a pretty ****ing crazy story. I look forward to seeing what this guy can do with his career.

Haseeb