07 Aug 11

PokerStrategy.com Ends Cooperation With Girah After Admission Of Scamming

Jose 'girah' Macedo is known to be a 'Poker Prodigy', but a recent thread on 2+2 uncovered that he has been scamming at least two other players for $30,000 in total. Macedo admitted the scam and vowed to return the money plus compensation.

Jose 'girah' Macedo quickly rose to fame as he became known as the 'Portuguese Poker Prodigy' by allegedly turning $30 into $2 million, but recent revelations suggest that in spite of his success he was recently involved in scamming other poker players for around $30,000 in total.

According to a thread on poker forum 2+2 created by MossBoss, Macedo was part of a Skype group with other high stakes players in which strategy discussions and hand analysis would take place. A common feature of these groups are also 'Sweat Sessions' during which a second player watches another player play.

Macedo offered 'sweating' other players while he recommended they should play a "fish" called 'Sauron1989', a screenname girah might have used for himself. Two players, MossBoss and Imfromsweden, agreed to do so and lost around $20,000 and $10,000 to 'Sauron1989' while girah watched them play, therefore obviously having a very significant advantage over his opponents.

As the allegations were made on 2+2, girah immediately responded by admitting the scam and vowing to return the stolen funds plus a compensation, yet the damage to his reputation is done.

Macedo joined our coaching staff a few weeks ago and provided a high-quality coaching video, but given the current situation, we will end our cooperation with him with immediate effect.

DogIsHead, who was planning to live in Portugal with girah alongside Daniel 'jungleman12' Cates, has also released a statement that they will change their plans and "never imaged Jose could do something like this".

You discuss the matter also in our forum thread.


UPDATE - Jungleman12 statement:

"Hey all, this has been about as weird and surprising to me and the other high stakes guys who know Jose as it has been for everyone else. I was told he was 100% trustworthy and he seemed like the type to be so, so I never questioned his integrity. I still don't really understand why he not only scammed people in one of the scummiest ways possible, but also decided to risk his whole career for a seemingly small amount... Clearly I made a mistake in trusting him, and now question our relationship as a whole.

Haseeb and I are in Europe still trying to get settled in to play online once again, we have talked about the situation and we can't abide by what he did, so we can't live with him in Portugal and I can no longer consider him my student.

Again this is all really ridiculous, I and the high stakes players who supported him in the past never would have imagined he would do this. GL to all those who got scammed."