Poker has rarely received as much glaring attention as it has in 2011, and with the unveiling of online poker’s latest cheating scandal involving Jose “Girah” Macedo, Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates and Haseeb “DogIsHead” Qureshi, it’s never been quite so opaque.
With some of the most successful and influential names being associated in this reproach, the news that online poker was once again under fire came to the astonishment of many. Macedo, whose rise through the online poker world was initiated through various poker forums and web casts, is currently under the most scrutiny, and is at the forefront of these wrongdoings. Macedo has recently taken responsibility for superusing and deceiving several online poker players, including Cates and Qureshi, through Skype strategy forums, verbal communication, and obviously, real-money play.
In an effort to inspire action from “weaker” competition, Macedo enticed both friends and colleagues through Skype chat to play several online poker aliases that were believed to be “marks,” or players of whom experienced veterans could extract money from. However, several accounts that Macedo provided to the players, were in fact operated by him. This took place on the iPoker network, of which the accounts “Sauron1989″ and “dollarman223″ were perpetrated to be “aggro fish,” but instead were under the close control of Macedo. Instead of losing consistently, Macedo and his aliases took the collective group members for approximately $45,000.
While this particular incident was exclusively Macedo’s decision, and was organized by him, both Cates and Qureshi have further involvement in the scandal because of their previous relationship with Macedo.
Through a Lock Poker Challenge, which was to be played exclusively by Macedo, both Cates and Qureshi were found guilty of multi-accounting. Said to initially be the repercussions of a simple online balance overview (since the two players were backing Macedo), Cates admitted to playing under the “Girahh” screen name for short $25/$50 and $50/$100 Pot-Limit Omaha sessions during the challenge. However, it’s been recently reported that neither player was aware that the challenge was underway at the time, and their involvement was strictly accidental.
It was also found, that during the challenge, play from both Qureshi and Cates was located under the account name “SamChauhaun.” This account was responsible for a $100K chip dump, which was done through $100/$200 NL table play (not typical stakes for Macedo), and not sent via person-to-person. This transfer eventually became the primary reason Macedo was victorious in the Lock Challenge, as he had been down substantially before this at the regular stakes of $5/$10 NL against various opponents.
Although Macedo’s epic rise through the online poker world by winning thousands of dollars in just six months duration was never confirmed with concrete evidence, Cates and Qureshi decided to stake Macedo based on their conversations, and also the inept poker talent that Macedo frequently portrayed. Also because of his insistence on saving his online winnings for future expenses, and his previous run-in with a heart-breaking family scam, the pair decided to help.
Nevertheless, much of the poker world remains clueless to Macedo’s actual earnings, as very few credible graphs or sources have come to fruition.
While the last thing online poker needs is a publicly released scam, one good aspect of this continued gossip is that all of the aforementioned players have removed themselves (if at least temporarily) from poker.
Macedo has been recently released as a Lock Poker pro, and no longer shows any signs of being connected with the poker brand. He’s also started the process of returning funds back to all of the players involved (ImFromSweden, MossBoss and TooCuriousso1 to name a few), and insists on giving them an additional $30,000 on top of their reported losses. Through a recent post on TwoPlusTwo.com, Macedo also pledges to take some time off from the game; although how long, is still up for debate.
Through various interviews with Bluff Magazine and the combo team of Noah Stephens-Davidowitz and Vanessa Selbst, Cates has come clean in his comments about most of his involvement in the matter. Unfortunately, because of Cates’ lack of actual accounts and dismal poker results, few (if any) repercussions have occurred in consequence.
Haseeb Qureshi, arguably the most innocent party of this scandal, has come forward with his knowledge and understanding of the events through multiple mediums. He’s written detailed epilogues in his former Cardrunners blog, covered interviews with several reputable poker organizations, and has most recently found closure through an extensive TwoPlusTwo discretionary post. Despite insisting that he’s leaving the world of poker for good, Qureshi remains humble, apologetic and available to rectify every detail of the situation that’s evolved.
While most forgiveness lies with Qureshi because of his resume and reputation, amongst several of the brightest and biggest faces in online poker, there’s very little compassion being distributed. They’ve rightfully put themselves in this mess, and they’re currently trying to find any way possible to get out of it.
Hopefully, online poker will see better days in the upcoming months.
