Kjemmy, what do you think of this theory, based on your strat chat with Jose?

Given the writing similarities (seems pretty obvious that Haseeb wrote a ton of stuff for Jose), Girah's website in Haseeb's name, Girah and Haseeb's account sharing, Girah's really weird tone in his pokerstrat vid (lots of people felt he seemed to be reading), etc...it doesn't seem very far fetched a theory, imo.

this just isnt true.

I really don't see how Haseeb can defend Jose when it's clear he pretty much tried to scam everyone he knew on skype. Some of us fortunate enough to dodge the bullet, others not so fortunate. Mind you, these are people who looked up to Jose. They took his word as scripture. When Jose talked, he had a high level of respect within the group. And yet months go by and he so easily turns around tries to cheat everyone that he deemed worth talking to.

For those who are ridiculing the ones who did get sweat, think about it this way, if any nosebleed player offered to sweat you, would you not snap accept?

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re: haseeb being Jose

It's almost unthinkable, almost impossible that Haseeb would do such a thing. Jose chatted very frequently in the group and he offered strat. advice constantly. For Haseeb to put in that time and effort to make 25-30k over the span of 5 months, right...I would assume that Haseeb is A) smarter than that B) has more efficient ways of making money.

It's annoying that Haseeb especially is dragged into this. I don't know him well but he's always seemed like a great guy and if he gets dragged through the mud because of this, I hope it's because he's got too much of a big brother syndrome than doing something really sheisty.

it seems like girah is at least a winning midstakes player/slight winning high stakes player? maybe he got greedy after he got a rep.

re: haseeb/jungleman

i think it's very unlikely that jungleman was a criminal mastermind here. his involvement is likely some sweating/coaching/MA'ing.

i have no idea what haseeb's involvement is but it doesn't look good for him.

i did not mean to imply they were involved more, it's only speculation at this point.

I've personally played a number of hands against him at Merge mid stakes and I know some other people who have played quite a few. I won't have access to my database until tomorrow, but if you guys would like I can post all significant hands I have played with him.

FWIW, my personal experience was that I never noticed anything special about his play, though I may have not seen enough showdowns in order to make a reasonable assessment. One thing I do remember thinking that seemed odd was that he did quite a bit of table selecting even at 2/4--Significantly more so than other notable opponents who didn't have his reputation for crushing higher stakes.

In an interview, Jose said he made up the name Girah and it had some private meaning. "Girah" is an Indian word for some obsolete measurement.

Did Haseeb name Jose "Girah" or is it just a coincidence?

Why does everyone assume that "HM and DIH are way to smart to do something so dumb?" The fact that they are winning high stakes players does not mean that they should be trusted implicitly or that every decision they make is the best and beyond reproach.

See Bernie Madoff, Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay, Bill Clinton etc.

There are now several posters in various threads saying that Jose was either mediocre or wouldn't play them at 2/4 etc and sometime later all of a sudden asked them to play him at 2KNL or higher... couple this with the fact that Haseeb/DIH got one of Jose's accounts suspended for logging in to play it is quite clear that when Jose's account was playing MSNL it might've been him, and in HSNL it probably was Haseeb at least some of the time.

Now given that Jose, Haseeb and jungleman didn't plan to live together until after Jose's OnGame account was suspended, it is logical to say that maybe a decision was made that instead of taking the risk for Haseeb to log in and play under Jose's account from another country, it would be safer for him to do so from Jose's location.

How much was jungleman involved? I dont know. It was DOG chatting on skype to the victims, and it was DOG who set up girahpoker.com. But would you be moving in with 2 guys and putting your reputation on the line if you knew NOTHING? It is impossible to believe that. A lot of us have been in poker houses, it's just impossible for some members of the house to be pulling the scam of the century while others in the house completely kept from the truth. It's just not possible. People walk in on each other all the time in a house and Jose would not accept DOG and jungleman coming to live with him if they didnt already know some of what he;'s up to, if not being part of the planning of it all.

This also explains why DOG repeatedly said in chatlog now posted that if this whole thing was not made public that he would be OK still moving in with Jose, knowing exactly the type of scumbag he is. So Haseeb/DOG was basically saying, "OK now I know that Jose Macedo is a cheating scumbag, but if you guys dont make it public then I will still move to another country to live with this scumbag and play poker..."

A lot of people in these threads wrote how they don't understand why would anyone risk the whole reputation etc. for 'measly 30k'.

Again, for the people who, for some reason, were unable to understand what is written in the OP:
THE PLAN WAS TO CHEAT FOR MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN 30K, AFTER THE 30K 'GIRAH' (or whoever else was behind it) GOT BUSTED.

" 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. "

So jungleman might not have actively scammed for tens of thousands of dollars but if Girah was going to take the durrrr challenge "some sweating/coaching/MA'ing" could = $Millions.

actually it's not $30K.. there's imfromsweden MossBoss and ilrg for a total of $45K, plus several other posters who say they only got action from girah's accounts after being enticed to move up much higher, to a skill level that we now know was beyond Jose. no doubt some of these posters are putting together emails/chats/etc to post very soon. I'm not going to preempt but I know 1 person who is preparing something.

also how much of the $2M that girah won under his accounts were achieved by Haseeb logging in to play, since OnGame has already banned his account for Haseeb doing just that? note that Haseeb completely ignores addressing this in all the skype chatlogs.

So the figure is already $45K and going to become much higher within the next day or two when people get their evidence together. lets therefore not repeat "Oh it's only $30k, how can a nosebleeds player care to scam someone for $30k..." Well, it's not just $30K. It was already much higher than that.

jungleman doesnt need to play a single hand to profit from girah taking on durrrr. "Jose how about I move in with you and teach you to beat durrrr the way I beat him, in exchange I will take 50% of whatever you win.."

Lets think about this one! I've just committed a financial crime and could potentially get 10 years in jail

Do I:

A. Pay everyone back + compensation in the hopes that they go away and do not report me to the police

or

B. Tell them to piss off

You decide

When he wasn't asking for people to play him at 25/50+ he was asking people if they wanted to buy action for isildur/durrrr challenge. What are the odds he planned to sell >100%?

Doesn't seem like something he'd do because he'd definitely want to be known as the guy who won the challenge but it would be pretty lucrative if he could sell 200% and then just get owned. I wasn't in the one group most people are talking about but I'm in another one with most of the same people and like I said the only thing I ever remember him saying was trying to get high-stakes action and complaining about not getting any, and trying to sell action for those challenges. Maybe he was going to do it legit and had deluded himself but given how much he has attempted to scam people in the past I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility that his plan was to oversell for those challenges.

well all of that is rubbish. "Gira" is what people who come from Lisbon and nearby, eg Macedo, say for "cool", "neat", "fun",... The extra "h" is just text speak for showing how the emphasis should be.

Well there's nothing "cool", "neat", or "fun" about the stunts he's pulled. No sir.

clearly didn't interpret what i meant. someone said 'he did it for 30k!!!!'. he clearly did it for more than 30k (logically he did it to make as much as possible), i mean he's saying he's paying everyone back + an additional 30k, so he made more than 30k regardless.

Sure you are right but Jose did say in an interview that he made up the word and it had a private meaning for him.

Ouch, really?

This young poker "prodigy" (therefore rich and potentially much richer) guy was actually good enough to discuss poker with the brightest minds in NLHE and impress them, decided to sraight up steal a few dozen Ks?

what a mindboggling move... unless there is more to the story.

Open your eyes?

Its likely people aside from Girah were behind this. If you think longer term. How likely is it that dwan would give girah action? How often would girah be jungleman in those games?

Just because he says he was going to sell action doesnt mean anything until he does.

so things we know to be most likely true:?

1) DIH & JM backed jose.
2) DIH played on jose's account
3) DIH and JM were willing to repay all victims on condition none of this was made public

how are ppl not more outraged by this?

seems like there is a very high probability that DIH and JM both received stolen funds and then tried to cover up the crime.
and it certainly seems incredibly likely that something super shady was being planned re: the durrrr challenge.

but at the very least the fact that DIH was trying so hard to prevent this from being made public is suuuuuper shady and should be addressed.

also people should be demanding to see the screenshots of all p2p transfers from the accounts to find out if indeed DIH and JM were receiving stolen money.

The only way it makes any sense is if Jose was basically a front for (at least) Haseeb (who has already been shown to be backing Jose/letting Jose regularly use an account in his name etc) who went rogue with this scam

I think a lot of people in HSNL haven't read the NVG cliffs and thread about the situation.
DIH is now clearly deeply involved in the situation and it's getting worse for him by the minute.
And this is a self-preserving community that protects its members vehemently, perhaps justifiably so given how aggressively NVG pursues sometimes absurd theories.
However in this case, there is zero doubt that at least DIH is guilty of sharing his account(s) with Girah and of trying to bury this situation completely, and that's factual.

A lot of people are saying this is a crime. If I see my opponents cards in a casino thats not a crime. What crime has been committed? These people knowingly let him see their cards. He did not hack their computers. Im not defending his actions. I'm just not sure its a crime. Its more of a serious breach of trust amongst gamblers. And I do know this trust is important. Im Just not sure its important to the cops.