No one really knows whats going on. The above mentioned were living with Girah or perhaps planning to, had a student/teacher relationship with him and apparently communicated on skype, which seems to be how the scandal took place. There's also a bit of evidence of account sharing which is cheating.

No the above are not at the moment guilty of Girah's crimes but there's enough evidence of something shady going on that we shouldn't be considered "crazy" or needing to "get a ****ing grip" for thinking that there's some form of wrongdoing.

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****.

Im so disappointed.

nothing more 2 say:



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Alright, I've had enough.

Jungle and DogIsHead, your posts are trash in my eyes. Half of the reason Girah was capable of scamming as he did is because you two and Sauce vouched for him enthusiastically and emphatically for MONTHS on end. We know the kid! He's got an amazing poker mind! He's the real deal! Over and over and over.

It was obvious the guy had 0 credentials as far as actually proven to have beaten any real players out of any noteworthy money. He never played on a site that was tracked via PTR, he wanted to keep hsi name secret blah blah blah.

I'm 100% speculating here, and not making this suggestion, but rather as a logical minded non-biased person this is how the situation reads to me:

Either Jungle, DIH, Sauce or a combination of the three intended to use Girah (likely their student, or just online buddy) as a shill in order to be able to multi account/play on euro sites via VPN or whatever method from the states, probably in exchange for coaching.

In turn, Girah used his new found reputation and "celebrity endorsement" to scam the fk out of everybody.

Sounds a lot more reasonable then he's a huge poker genius prodigy capable of making a mill on his own but he just decided to scam some people in order to help out one of his random 18 year old buddies...

It's so obvious that you guys are hiding something, and it's just becoming pathetic as you further try to prolong it and pretend you're "so busy" in Europe despite a complete absence of wife, kids, or job. This "I'm so busy, can't be posting much" crap is such an obvious cop out it's not even funny.

I really don't want to cause a ****storm here or an e-fight and I know I'm putting my own rep on the line coming at these guys hard but these high stakes guys made their bed with the whole Girah situation and now they have to sleep in it.

except when it doesnt

can't stop laughing at you

is it not possible alot of his winrates are realistic but just that alot of his earnings have actually came in from this scam?

the ever increasing number of people coming forward that have been scammed or attempted to be scammed by him is disturbing

who knows how long he has been doing this for, and at what stakes and to whom?

As a side note the issue of ghosting does need to be readdressed...being a HU player myself the notion that instead of facing the avg 100nl joe i think im vs, hes actually got a HS player on skype coaching him live is criminal, and as much of a scam as what jose did (although not ethically wrong because until now this hasnt been seen in a very negative light).

Yeah these high stakes players vouched for him.. but i dont see any evils in that, iv vouched for friends and family who have turned out to be horrible people, but you know friends and family.. gotta have some trust or where do you draw the line? paranoid as hell with no trust in any humans..?

real shame to see this...the kid has some serious issues i hope he rots in jail

+1

That`s just hilarious.

I guess this was answered already:

oh lawd...

One thing I'd like to point out is that a lot of people have come up with the same question; "Why would Jose risk it all for such a small amount?". He obviously wasn't just going for a small amount, he would have continued had it not been for the fact that he was caught.

Jungles and DIH`s responses seem kind of strange, at least Jungle has got to be a Multi-Millionaire for all we know, yet he brushes off the incident as being weird, oh well, gotta find another place to live/dont consider this guy my student anymore (lol, orly?). Dude, a couple of days ago you WERE ABOUT TO LIVE TOGETHER with this guy that turns out to be a super-scummy cheater! Wake up, man! If everything is actually how you guys say it was, I`d try to be a bit more careful next time before deciding to move in together with someone in a country where you cant even speak the language (assuming you dont speak Portuguese), especially when it is common knowledge in the community that you are worth MILLIONS OF F****** DOLLARS! Or the next prodigy is gonna be from Mexico (no offense, had to choose a country here) and the last time you`ll ever be seen is during the border-crossing. I know that`s a bit extreme, but seriously... if I were you, I`d try to go back in time to when you got to know him and try to figure out where you made the mistake(s) that got you close to living together with a cheater you obviously knew nothing about. This is just meant as advice, when I was in my early 20s I was naive/thought people usually mean well, too, but I wasnt worth Millions at the time. You gotta grow up a bit faster, one of the negative aspects of being rich at a young age...

While cheating is cheating the cases really aren't comparable. This is plain old superusing and is on an whole other level as ghosting or MAing. It's deception vs stealing.

This.+1

Jesus christ, this is a complete hemorrhage....Who's next?

what a total scumbag, completely morally bankrupt, what a disgrace to poker

I talked poker with Jose on skype and then vouched that he was a real person who seemed to know his stuff in the giant "Portugese Poker Prodigy" thread where everyone thought he was a level. That's it.

What a bunch of horse s**t.

Anyone that reads this and feels even a little bit of sympathy or thinks that the part about his "friend" is true needs to read the entire thread and re-think. There are some good posts in this thread where clever people explain and break this down and put it in to words very nicely.

I started cringing when I read: "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". Are you writing a f**king book?

Great linguistic skills. They might fool some people that there's some form of real emotion or guilt in your mind, but there is not. This whole thing is just sad. You're a sad and pathetic person. You're also dumb, judging by the way you did all this.

Let's hope to see some repercussions.

This post is good:

Why did people think Girah was a level?

Question is rhetorical

Is it definitely confirmed then that Jose Macedo is a scammer?

I also have a problem with the "vouching" part of responsibility from Cates and Haseeb.

It's been mentioned many times, but both of these guys were instrumental in instilling a lot of confidence in Girah from people who would've otherwise been really wary of him.

Because of your testimony and your vouching for him, a lot of people sought his coaching and "expertise" and got scammed.
Where is your responsibility in all of this. You guys make it very clear that for you at least (2 of the most prominent HS players), vouching for someone means jack ****.

Do you even know the definition of the word?

yes

I also understand that your level of involvement appears to be a little different overall, but I'd also caution everyone moving forward that if you're a boss online player there are a lot of people who give major credit to everything you say in public and even saying you know he's a real person can be easily taken to mean that he is the real poker player who has won millions etc.

Regardless, it was probably an error to place you in the same boat given you weren't on the same level of going to live with them etc. and had a different relationship apparently. I apologize for lumping it in and thank you for clarification. I should go back and do more research.

Also,

Live free or Die

2eazy,

I think it's fair to say that if they knowingly pumped up a fake guy to make him look legit that the Big 3 are partially responsible for this scamming thing (and honestly it seems to me that Sauce has been way less involved than Hasseeb/Jungle in playing up his credentials so I feel bad even lumping Sauce in as part of the Big 3).

But you're neglecting a very very very plausible scenario: guy who talks about poker very intelligently convinces three high-stakes players he's a prodigy because they don't do a thorough background check or rigorous analysis of his HEM screen shots.

One thing I can tell you is that in my many years of coaching, I've found that some of my most impressive students who seemed to get everything and had a lot of insight have had middling results. I would say my most poker-intelligent student I've had in a while is currently playing 1/2 NL.

The point is, you never know the full story: Jose could have a top-tier poker mind but tilt issues, or he could be bad at noticing when people adjust to him, or just have a general wrong sense for gameflow dynamics. It's easy to imagine, EVEN IF he were a non-prodigy (again, I don't know), a scenario in which he could convince 3 really smart guys who he talks strategy with that he's a prodigy when in fact his results aren't that great and he's showing doctored screen shots.

I mean, I saw his pokerstrategy vid. Couple minor quibbles I had, but it was obviously the product of a very smart poker mind. Now unless you want to get super-conspiratorial and say jungleman made the vid and really this whole time Jose's been a total blank slate puppet, you have to admit it's feasible that somebody who only interacted w/Jose in the world of strategy discussions and Skype chats would vouch for his being an exceptional poker mind