I am José "Girah" Macedo, the so-called "Portuguese Poker Prodigy"
06-01-2011
, 04:39 PM
Quote:
Ok, here's my 'artistic impression' of how it all happened. Please note it is a work of fiction only based on a true story - any resemblance to real people, and any plausible explanatory power in relation to the holes in the official story, are entirely coincidental.
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06-01-2011
, 05:58 PM
Quote:
Ok, here's my 'artistic impression' of how it all happened. Please note it is a work of fiction only based on a true story - any resemblance to real people, and any plausible explanatory power in relation to the holes in the official story, are entirely coincidental.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some years ago, post-UIGEA, some high-stakes player in the US - let's call them "Munglejan", "Bashee" and "Cause" were solemnly looking back on the good old days when they could crush at 10bb+/100. It was becoming ever more difficult to maintain a decent edge; the swings could be utterly brutal. They lamented at the enormous pool of European players on other sites on which they were not permitted to play. So many wonderfully ******ed donks... so close, yet so far.
One of the players decided to throw caution to the wind and set up an account on a Euro site using a young friend's information and playing behind seven proxies. In exchange for the use of his information, the youngster would be offered 5% of all profits made.
The first few weeks entailed levels of plunder not witnessed since the Viking era. "You would not ****ing believe the **** these morons will call you down with!!!!", he exclaimed to his buddies. Months went by without a problem.
Eventually the other two were overwhelmed with temptation and decided to join in, sharing the same account and then creating new ones for the various skins the network had to offer. This was beyond their wildest dreams; not for years had making money from poker been so effortless.
A year or two passed. By that time, the plucky trio had amassed a whopping $2 million in profit! The saying goes, however, mo' money, mo' problems. There was a growing concern that their luck would soon run out and they would be caught. Word would surely get around about these accounts the more they cleaned up. It was only a matter of time before people would ask who the mystery millionnaire holdem wizard was...
Rather than wait until questions were asked, why not 'out' the young fellow pre-emptively as some kind of 'poker prodigy', so that the story could be controlled from the very start? The 'outing' would need to be subtly done though, and certainly not by one of the trio themselves. So one had the idea of a fake 2+2 account from Portugal claiming to be someone 'searching' for this young poker prodigy. A young poker player, he claimed, had won over $2 million over the past 2 years, and was willing to pay money in return for information regarding his whereabouts. Of course, this worked like a charm, and the collective balls of NVG gurgled with delight at the prospect of discovering who this child genius was.
Finally, this thread arrived, with a beautifully written biography on José written by Bashee along with screenshots of the trio's epic motherf***ing winrates. But no screennames were provided for obvious reasons. How to explain this omission, he asked? "Say your lawyer has forbidden you or some sh*t, they'll lap it up" was the response. He also asked what to say when people saw he wasn't wallowing in riches despite having apparently won over $2 million. Hmmmm... "just say you don't really buy much stuff, you're not into that consumer crap", one of them suggested. "Hey", said the other, "just tell them you got scammed for a ton of cash! Credibility and sympathy in one stroke, booya!"
It all went smoothly for some time, with José even acquiring a sponsorship deal from Lock Poker! Worrying times were afoot however, when some players had claimed that the player they had seen on the Girah account was an 'average', 'weak' or 'meh' reg at best, who was playing far below the kind of stakes indicated in the initial screenshot, and, moreover, losing substantially. This was, of course, the real José playing at those times. An ok player at those stakes, but certainly no genius prodigy. Fortunately, just in time for the Bluff challenge with a day to spare, Munglejan logged in and tore some dude a new one heads-up, giving the girah account the prize. Some people questioned this sudden amazing last-minute run, indicating that they had not even seen girah play heads up before.
Finally, Lock disqualified José from the competition, citing 'another player using his account from another location' as one of the reasons for the disqualification. They didn't mention the other reasons. José tried to explain what happened but it all seemed a tad unusual, with holes creeping in everywhere. Some posters asked specific questions in order for his name to be cleared.
The trio let out a collective "fffuuuuu" and told José never to post in the thread again. And he never did...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some years ago, post-UIGEA, some high-stakes player in the US - let's call them "Munglejan", "Bashee" and "Cause" were solemnly looking back on the good old days when they could crush at 10bb+/100. It was becoming ever more difficult to maintain a decent edge; the swings could be utterly brutal. They lamented at the enormous pool of European players on other sites on which they were not permitted to play. So many wonderfully ******ed donks... so close, yet so far.
One of the players decided to throw caution to the wind and set up an account on a Euro site using a young friend's information and playing behind seven proxies. In exchange for the use of his information, the youngster would be offered 5% of all profits made.
The first few weeks entailed levels of plunder not witnessed since the Viking era. "You would not ****ing believe the **** these morons will call you down with!!!!", he exclaimed to his buddies. Months went by without a problem.
Eventually the other two were overwhelmed with temptation and decided to join in, sharing the same account and then creating new ones for the various skins the network had to offer. This was beyond their wildest dreams; not for years had making money from poker been so effortless.
A year or two passed. By that time, the plucky trio had amassed a whopping $2 million in profit! The saying goes, however, mo' money, mo' problems. There was a growing concern that their luck would soon run out and they would be caught. Word would surely get around about these accounts the more they cleaned up. It was only a matter of time before people would ask who the mystery millionnaire holdem wizard was...
Rather than wait until questions were asked, why not 'out' the young fellow pre-emptively as some kind of 'poker prodigy', so that the story could be controlled from the very start? The 'outing' would need to be subtly done though, and certainly not by one of the trio themselves. So one had the idea of a fake 2+2 account from Portugal claiming to be someone 'searching' for this young poker prodigy. A young poker player, he claimed, had won over $2 million over the past 2 years, and was willing to pay money in return for information regarding his whereabouts. Of course, this worked like a charm, and the collective balls of NVG gurgled with delight at the prospect of discovering who this child genius was.
Finally, this thread arrived, with a beautifully written biography on José written by Bashee along with screenshots of the trio's epic motherf***ing winrates. But no screennames were provided for obvious reasons. How to explain this omission, he asked? "Say your lawyer has forbidden you or some sh*t, they'll lap it up" was the response. He also asked what to say when people saw he wasn't wallowing in riches despite having apparently won over $2 million. Hmmmm... "just say you don't really buy much stuff, you're not into that consumer crap", one of them suggested. "Hey", said the other, "just tell them you got scammed for a ton of cash! Credibility and sympathy in one stroke, booya!"
It all went smoothly for some time, with José even acquiring a sponsorship deal from Lock Poker! Worrying times were afoot however, when some players had claimed that the player they had seen on the Girah account was an 'average', 'weak' or 'meh' reg at best, who was playing far below the kind of stakes indicated in the initial screenshot, and, moreover, losing substantially. This was, of course, the real José playing at those times. An ok player at those stakes, but certainly no genius prodigy. Fortunately, just in time for the Bluff challenge with a day to spare, Munglejan logged in and tore some dude a new one heads-up, giving the girah account the prize. Some people questioned this sudden amazing last-minute run, indicating that they had not even seen girah play heads up before.
Finally, Lock disqualified José from the competition, citing 'another player using his account from another location' as one of the reasons for the disqualification. They didn't mention the other reasons. José tried to explain what happened but it all seemed a tad unusual, with holes creeping in everywhere. Some posters asked specific questions in order for his name to be cleared.
The trio let out a collective "fffuuuuu" and told José never to post in the thread again. And he never did...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
06-01-2011
, 06:34 PM
06-01-2011
, 07:02 PM
06-01-2011
, 07:05 PM
06-01-2011
, 07:25 PM
06-01-2011
, 07:30 PM
06-01-2011
, 08:00 PM
06-01-2011
, 10:44 PM
06-02-2011
, 12:17 AM
06-04-2011
, 06:23 AM
very good story mctriplmerge 
I'm Portuguese and although I would like that a fellow countryman was one of the great online players in the world I really don't feel the need to blindly defend girah because the information available isn't clear.
But there's one thing that doesn't make sense. If the whole story is fake how could Lock Poker sign a guy that basically was invented? Don't get me wrong, obviously some guy called José Macedo must exist because he must have signed the papers and stuff, but wouldn't they check him? I don't know if any poker room would sign a guy based only on a gossip in some poker forum without checking the veracity of the story?
If this was all made up could Lock be involved in the scam? Could "Munglejan", "Bashee" or "Cause" know anyone in the company? Could they own the company or at least have shares?
I'm Portuguese and although I would like that a fellow countryman was one of the great online players in the world I really don't feel the need to blindly defend girah because the information available isn't clear.
But there's one thing that doesn't make sense. If the whole story is fake how could Lock Poker sign a guy that basically was invented? Don't get me wrong, obviously some guy called José Macedo must exist because he must have signed the papers and stuff, but wouldn't they check him? I don't know if any poker room would sign a guy based only on a gossip in some poker forum without checking the veracity of the story?
If this was all made up could Lock be involved in the scam? Could "Munglejan", "Bashee" or "Cause" know anyone in the company? Could they own the company or at least have shares?
06-04-2011
, 06:42 AM
06-04-2011
, 06:49 AM
Quote:
very good story mctriplmerge
I'm Portuguese and although I would like that a fellow countryman was one of the great online players in the world I really don't feel the need to blindly defend girah because the information available isn't clear.
But there's one thing that doesn't make sense. If the whole story is fake how could Lock Poker sign a guy that basically was invented? Don't get me wrong, obviously some guy called José Macedo must exist because he must have signed the papers and stuff, but wouldn't they check him? I don't know if any poker room would sign a guy based only on a gossip in some poker forum without checking the veracity of the story?
If this was all made up could Lock be involved in the scam? Could "Munglejan", "Bashee" or "Cause" know anyone in the company? Could they own the company or at least have shares?
I'm Portuguese and although I would like that a fellow countryman was one of the great online players in the world I really don't feel the need to blindly defend girah because the information available isn't clear.
But there's one thing that doesn't make sense. If the whole story is fake how could Lock Poker sign a guy that basically was invented? Don't get me wrong, obviously some guy called José Macedo must exist because he must have signed the papers and stuff, but wouldn't they check him? I don't know if any poker room would sign a guy based only on a gossip in some poker forum without checking the veracity of the story?
If this was all made up could Lock be involved in the scam? Could "Munglejan", "Bashee" or "Cause" know anyone in the company? Could they own the company or at least have shares?
Stars signed peachymer and they're a lot more in the public eye than Lock...
re: checking, what do you mean exactly? if (even if others were playing on his accounts) his online accounts were all in his name, with his address/contact info / bank details etc. then why would Lock even question that? you have a real human being with real personal information tied to a number of online poker accounts which are all consistent with each other, and the hand history & winnings can be checked to confirm that yes, these accounts made piles of cash. But how would they find out if someone else had been playing on his accounts? Furthermore why would they even consider this as a possibility, if all the documentation checks out (which it should, even if the conspiracy theory of other players using his accounts were true)?
06-04-2011
, 11:14 AM
06-04-2011
, 12:03 PM
06-04-2011
, 12:08 PM
06-04-2011
, 12:17 PM
06-04-2011
, 12:18 PM
06-04-2011
, 12:25 PM