Jose “girah” Macedo admits cheating players out of over $30k

Jose “girah” Macedo admits cheating players out of over $30k

Monday, 8 August 2011

Former Lock Poker pro and poker heads-up sensation Jose “girah” Macedo, better known as “The Portuguese Poker Prodigy”, has admitted to cheating his apparent friends and fellow high-stakes players out of at least $30,000 on the iPoker network.

Macedo’s story is well-known – at the age of 15 he admired Tom “durrrr” Dwan and began playing heads-up No Limit, allegedly turning a €200 deposit into more than €2m in winnings playing heads-up expertly.


He is also known for his association with such heads-up legends as Haseeb “INTERNET POKERS” Quereshi and Daniel “jungleman12” Cates.


Macedo joined various strategy groups and began to sweat other players in their heads-up matches over Skype. He directed several players towards an “aggro fish” named "sauron1989" on iPoker, who turned out to be Macedo himself. Superusing via Skype, he won over $30,000 from his strategy buddies.


He was caught with IP tracing and disconnecting from Skype at the same time "sauron1989" disconnected from iPoker. He admitted guilt and pledged to pay back the money plus $30,000 per player but the reaction from the poker community has been universally damning.


Macedo has since been dropped by sponsors Lock Poker and PokerStrategy and says his mother is disappointed in him. So there’s that.


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Tags: Jose Macedo