Let it begin.

Just finished reading an article from 2009 at www.pokerplayer.co.uk that was an interview with Haseeb Qureshi. It seems that HE was a prodigy at age 16 in Texas.

His story is so similar to the current "prodigy" that it reads like a mirror image. He has a brother. He starts at Party with a $50 from a free no-deposit bonus in his brother's name in February of 2006. He moves with $200 to Poker Stars by playing $.05/$.10 "with strict bankroll standards". He finishes 2007 with a $70K bankroll being the "biggest winner at $3/$6 six max". He begins attending UT at the age of 17.

By 2008 he was playing high-stakes heads-up holdem and pot limit Omaha and has made nearly $2 million from poker. He said, "I believe I've made over $1.7m from poker. I've purchased several houses including the one I'm living in now."

He gets a deal with CardRunners. He starts a blog. It gains a lot of attention. He makes videos. He goes Busto and leaves poker for a time. He continues as a coach. He and Jungle become friends? (Don't know this part of the story but it seems like some type of gravitational pull because of intelligence - poker and other?) Next challenge to return to fame.

Does this sound familiar? It as if he scripted the Jose' rise to fame using himself as a template. Changed a few names to protect the innocent.

He is now what, 21 or 22 and Qureshi calls Jose', the kid?

In his blog he touts himself as "more intelligent" than most. He takes pride in his writing ability and creativity.

As we go through the timeline: January, intro of the prodigy. March, Jose introduces himself. April, Black Friday. Gets Lock Poker sponsorship. Next, takes advantage of new found notoriety and does the Lock Challenge. Outed as a cheater. August, downfall.

Script writing 101. Did Haseeb ever take a course in screen writing at UT? Sounds like he had an outline and followed it. Fleshed in the details after. He was probably approached by Jose sometime in 2010 and the timing was right. An opportunity to show how many levels of thinking he and Jungle could use to create the beast, Jose.

Multiple online identities started early for Haseem. Abusing the online system was easy and continued to be. Worked before, should work again. Poker ego and intelligence ego. Angle shooting to angle shoot. Scam to scam.

Where are the consequences? In the cyber poker world it DOES NOT EXIST. No laws govern this world of online poker. Cheaters are not prosecuted, and how can they be? Been there done that Russ.

What a waste of intelligence.

Didn't know you could do that. This is what I was referring to. Apparently I took the long route lol. I am beginning to believe that Girahh really did play 1.4million hands, it just so happens that most of them were against himself.

Has Sauce gotten back to anyone regarding a deadline for Haseebs confession?

@Palladin

Holy ****ing ****.

What I find most intriguing here is how 30+ supposed top poker minds were fooled DAILY by this guy on Skype. I mean wtf? Especially the likes of Sauce, JM etc. If lesser players than them were saying "this kid's poker knowledge isn't all that" then why the eff were THEY putting him on that pedestal. Is Sauce really as squeaky clean as everyone thinks?

First thing anyone should do as a poker player is develop a competitive mind, and given that, the first thing I would do (if I were in their position) with Jose is question the **** out of him just to see if he really is on the same level in terms of his knowledge.

In my sport (boxing) if a new guy comes to the gym talking smack, the first thing we do is put him to the test in sparring.

from the article:

Prince? Is Haseeb gay or something?

this has already been explained, and the boxing analogy is very different.

basically, it's easy to talk a big game without playing one. i've talked to average 50nl regs who, when presented with a hand will bust out required fold equity, lots of different theory etc. their actual off the table analysis was better than some good 2/4-5/10 regs i speak to.

we don't know how good he was at poker, but it doesn't matter (for explaining this, obv it matters to the big picture). somebody who didn't know much could learn enough to speak a mean game over aim if they put in enough effort, and an average player would find it even easier. it's just not that fishy at all, and sauce has given a good explanation of why he believed.

I lol'd so hard.

He is with Prince?

Lurking was a group of tards all asking WTF is X ?

this kind of sums up what i've been thinking... well said.

Lmao, that's Andrew Robl who said that. He's well... not the sharpest tool in the shed.

worth quoting the whole article imo
http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/poker-p..._quereshi.html

At just 19, Haseeb Qureshi is young for a high-stakes player, even by online poker standards. The Texan, who plays under the moniker ‘Internet Pokers’ began playing poker at the tender age of 16 when attending high school. Qureshi was always a precocious talent, and began attending the University of Texas at Austin aged just 17. And it was a similar story with poker, where after starting with just $50 in his brother’s name in February 2006, he finished the year with a $70,000 bankroll.

By 2008, he was playing high-stakes heads-up hold’em and pot-limit Omaha games and has made nearly $2 million from poker. He is currently on a short hiatus from school to concentrate on poker, although he plans to return to his studies to finish his degree. InsidePoker sat down with Qureshi to find out the true story of his amazingly speedy rise to the top.

Can you give us a brief rundown of your poker career and rise up the ranks?

When I started in February 2006 I was playing with $50 from a free no-deposit bonus on PartyPoker. I donked around and managed to run it up to $200, at which point I moved to PokerStars and began my real journey as a poker player, starting out at $0.05/$0.10 and moving my way up slowly with strict bankroll management standards, slowly learning through osmosis and basic trial and error. By summer, I was playing $0.50/$1 no-limit with over $2,000 in my account, and by the beginning of spring I had begun to play $2/$4 with more than $14k to my name.

Were you not tempted to cash out any of that money?

I was a student being supported by my parents, neither of whom knew that I was playing poker, so I couldn’t really cash out any of my money or use it on anything. I was fortunate enough to be able to reinvest all of my winnings into my bankroll. Around that time I started to study the game more seriously and began to delve into some of the material that was available through 2+2 and CardRunners. By the end of the year, I was the biggest winner at $3/$6 six-max on PokerStars, and I had finished the year with more than a $70k bankroll.

Were there any times where you found it tough going or was it all smooth sailing?

In 2007, I had a lot of trouble at first moving up to $5/$10 six-max, and probably had two of the toughest months of my poker career trying to make the transition. By summer, I had my foot firmly planted in the high-stakes world, and by the end of the year I was a regular in the $10/$20 six-max games as well, and taking the occasional $25/$50 shot. In early 2008, I made a big change after playing a tough heads-up regular when a six-handed game broke. I had a lot of trouble holding my own against him. After discussing it with my friend Ben Straate, he suggested that I try a month of playing only heads-up in order to make myself a better all-round player. I decided it was worth a try, and ended up improving drastically, dominating my opposition, and making almost $70,000 in my first month. I really enjoyed it and I decided to stick with heads-up for longer and also picked up heads-up PLO.

I ended up making an absurd amount of money over 2008, eventually moving to $25/$50, $50/$100, $100/$200, and even taking some shots at $500/$1,000 games. I started out this year in a bit of a rut due to a pretty nasty run, but I’m turning it around now and so hopefully I’ll continue to do well this year.

Can you give us any idea of how much money you’ve made from poker and what you’ve done with it?

I believe I’ve made over $1.7m from poker. As far as what I’ve done with it, I’ve purchased several houses including the one I’m living in now. I invested a lot of it in real estate and mutual funds. I have a big TV and decent furniture and own my own house, but other than that I don’t have a lot of need for much else. I guess I’m just waiting for that special Nigerian prince to spend it all on.

You make videos for CardRunners. Do you worry about having your game ‘out there’ for people to analyse?

I know a lot of people are hesitant to make videos because of this idea and even those of us who are on the inside of the industry are wary about it. I am aware that it’s in my interest to protect some information, and although I’m probably a little bit dumb about it sometimes, there is always some information I’m not divulging. But a lot of it is in the video selection itself. There are some videos I record that I would never release to the public, either because I don’t want my opponent knowing how I play against him, or because I don’t want other people knowing how to play against that opponent. You’ll never see that in the actual content though – if I’m doing a video, I’ll say whatever comes into my head. I’m not a very guarded person.

You’ve recently started a blog on CardRunners and made some posts that have gained a lot of attention – how is blogging working for you overall?

My blog has gotten a surprising amount of feedback but unfortunately I’m kind of lazy, so I don’t update it nearly as often as I should. But I want to run it not so much as a traditional blog but more as a journal in which to write down whatever meditations occur to me. It’s less the chronicles of a young poker player than it is the musings of a young poker player, which probably turns off a certain crowd, but I find it more satisfying and a good outlet for some of my stray thoughts.

Do you think the high-stakes no-limit online economy is still healthy in 2009 or are the games drying up slowly?

Well, if you restrict the scope of the high-stakes economy to only PokerStars and Full Tilt, it’s definitely drying up. Pretty soon there’s not going to be a lot of room left for what we know as heads-up bumhunters (people who wait around and hunt for fish) due to over-saturation. So for games to keep running there will have to be a gravitation back toward six-max games. However, the nosebleed economy is different. The $500/$1,000 level will be healthy for a while to come since it has an exclusive pool of players who aren’t dropping out any time soon, but between $25/$50 and $100/$200 it will be pretty desolate.

If DiH and/or JM devised this whole Jose persona in some attempt to get action scam, why in the world would they be letting everyone know they were going to live with him?

Confirmation on the Prince comment is needed. Being gay might possibly be Haseeb's biggest misdeed in this whole affair.

Article loses all credibility right here. Staring university at age 17 doesn't mean you are a "precocious talent", it means you are young for your grade, usually because you got to start kindergarten at age four because your birthday falls before a specific cut-off date (which varies by state). Literally millions of kids who have birthdays at the start of the school year fall into this apparently "precocious talent" category. Including me. I'm precocious!

Still interesting how closely the DIH story mirrors certain aspects of the Girah story, but this is absolute junk journalism. :P

so the witches are still hiding?

The state of poker media is a joke, agreed. But that's not the point, the article is like 99% Haseeb's own words.

Haseeb was a poker prodigy, starting at age 16. He's a writer with a flair for the dramatic, and appears to be quite narcissistic (Haseeb also called Jose a narcissist).

Gay innuendo has been tossed about since this scandal broke.

That's just where I happened to start looking, I wanted to see who the players were that were beating him during this period to see if I could glean anything from it. I have noticed several players he is beating with the same anomalies.

It is really grueling to go through each player's stats and then their opponents as well especially with so few searches. I was hoping at some point someone who take a closer look at all of these hands and really figure out what has been going on.

IMO there MAY be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of winnings on Merge from unsuspecting $5/$10 players that MAY have been cheated. Unfortunately I am unable to see exactly what has been happening on $5/$10 NLH SH over this time but it is certainly worth looking into and fast. I wonder if this is why Girahh was so happy to give up his account balance...perhaps he is trying to somehow empy the rest of these accounts before anyone notices? /conspiracy theory

Well, then he's a precociously talented idiot for thinking starting college at 17 means jack ****. But then his blog indicates how much he loves to get all melodramatic, there's probably nothing more to it than that.

I'm just cranky today with a migraine so w/e.

Can anyone from Merge explain those stats? It seems as though widespread chipdumping is going on? Or maybe ptr isn't reading the Merge hands correctly.

You would think that somewhere in the various Girah threads or in his blog, DIH would explain that he felt a connection with Girah because his "meteoric rise" so closely mirrored his own.

He's editing his 'x' exposé right now.