Whenever a new\nprodigy appears, it sets the poker world abuzz, and that\u2019s exactly what\nhappened in late 2010 when a thread popped up on the popular 2+2 poker forum\nabout a young gun from Portugal who was crushing high stakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to\nsome accounts, the alleged prodigy was still underage, but he was already\ncrushing some of the biggest online games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is how the myth of Jos\u00e9 \u201cGirah\u201d Macedo started and at first, people were simply intrigued. Who was this new kid, and was he really as good as the rumors made out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadly, what had the makings of a great poker story, similar to those of Tom Dwan or \u201cIsildur1<\/a>,\u201d ended up as one of the most notorious scandals in online poker history<\/a>, involving several other well-known pros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For several\nmonths, rumors were spreading across the poker community but there was no real\ninformation about this alleged Portuguese poker prodigy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in early\n2011, a thread appeared on the 2+2 forum that would set the course for future\nevents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thread was\ncreated by none other than \u201cGirah\u201d himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After so many months of being kept in the dark, the entire community was eager to get some answers, and Jos\u00e9 Macedo generously offered some of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this thread,\n\u201cGirah\u201d gave his backstory and explained how he got into poker. According to\nthis post, he started grinding 1c\/2c tables and slowly building his bankroll,\nplaying six to 10 hours every single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Describing his\npoker journey and how he kept learning and improving, Macedo left quite an\nimpression on the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A screenshot of\nhis results across various stakes was added to his post, and the numbers were\nreally impressive. It seemed like \u201cGirah\u201d was really crushing it on these\nsmaller European sites, but he wasn\u2019t willing to share his screen names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given all the\ncircumstances, this made sense. He had only recently become of legal age to\nplay poker, and it was probably better for him if his online aliases were kept\nhidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, reading\nthat post with fresh eyes and knowing what we know now, something wasn\u2019t quite\nright about his story from the get-go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Too many metaphors, a mandatory sob story, and a few other bits and pieces that could indicate that not everything was how Macedo was trying to portray it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At that point in\ntime, it didn\u2019t seem like Macedo had any incentive to lie, and his story was\nbacked by two well-known pros: Dan \u201cJungleman\u201d Cates and Hasibi \u201cDogIsHead\u201d\nQureshi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, some\nposters were skeptical about the whole thing, claiming \u201cGirah” was a\nfictitious creation of these two players and that they actually used\n“Jungleman\u2019s\u201d stats in the post. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The picture,\nwhich was later removed from the thread, showed Macedo was over $1.6 million in\nprofit, playing everything from $3\/6 NL all the way up to $50\/100 NL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite these doubts, Jos\u00e9 \u201cGirah\u201d Macedo was hailed by most as the new poker prodigy, which opened doors for him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He landed a contract with Lock Poker and got involved with Poker Strategy, one of the leading poker training sites at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The controversy\nover Macedo continued over the next few months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The poker\ncommunity was divided between those who believed the whole story was made up by\nCates and Qureshi and those who were convinced \u201cGirah\u201d was the real deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, by August\n2011, things started to unravel, and the story of the new poker prodigy began\nto take an ugly turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the months\nleading up to the scandal, Macedo spent a lot of time sweating high-stakes\nplayers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He got them to\nplay against an alleged “whale” and watch their sessions over Skype.\nThe account in question – “sauron1989” – was a horrible player\naccording to “Girah\u201d and he was giving money away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, it seemed\nthat everyone who decided to take on this supposed \u201cwhale\u201d somehow ended up\nlosing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While it\u2019s\npossible even for the biggest of fish to run hot every now and again, for them\nto consistently beat some of the best players around was very suspicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Something didn\u2019t\nadd up in Macedo\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMossBoss”\n– one of the players who was part of “Girah\u2019s” Skype strategy group\nand who lost over $21,000 to “sauron1989” – decided to start an\ninvestigation, and what he found was very interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at\nSkype chat logs and concluded that Macedo and “sauron1989” would\noften disconnect at the same time. This, combined with the fact that this\nsupposedly bad player was crushing everyone, was enough to blow the whole thing\nopen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other members in\nMacedo\u2019s Skype group started to pressure \u201cGirah,” demanding an\nexplanation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, he\ncrumbled under pressure and came out clean in another 2+2 post. This one wasn’t\nnearly as impressive as the first one, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He explained\nthat a friend of his suggested to him that he should set up matches where he\ncould see the players\u2019 hole cards by watching them via Skype. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He would then\nconvey the information to said friend, giving them all the advantage they\nneeded to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether there\nwas a friend or just “Girah\u201d all the time and the \u201cfriend\u201d is just another\nproduct of his imagination was of no consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jos\u00e9 \u201cGirah\u201d Macedo admitted to cheating. Not only that, but he did it in the most sinister of ways, taking advantage of people who trusted him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The jig was up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The myth of the\n“Portuguese poker prodigy” crumbled, and it was substituted by the\noutrage of the entire poker community. Macedo lost his sponsorship deal with\nLock Poker and was forever marked as a cheater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, how did Jos\u00e9 \u201cGirah\u201d Macedo come into this position in the first place? Why did he have to steal money if he was so good at poker? <\/p>\n\n\n\n There were still\nso many questions, some of them not answered to this very day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the whole\n\u201cGirah\u201d scandal was uncovered, people went back to the original story and\nstarted questioning its legitimacy once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new\ninformation seemed to suggest that Macedo was never really a poker prodigy. He\nwas just a young guy hyped up by a couple of pros since his actual results were\nnever confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cates and\nQureshi came under heavy fire from the community. Since they were the ones\nvouching \u201cGirah\u201d was the real deal and played a critical role in his rise,\npeople wanted an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Were they duped\nas well, or was there something more sinister going on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both pros were\nfriends with \u201cGirah\u201d and have been known to back him. They were also about to\nmove to Portugal to live with him and play poker together just before the\nscandal broke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For his part,\nCates explained that this came as a shock to him as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJungleman\u201d said\nthat he couldn\u2019t understand why \u201cGirah\u201d would do something like this and throw\naway his entire career in this fashion. He repeated the same thing in several\ninterviews later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quershi, who had\na much closer relationship with Macedo, was even more upset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In his forum\npost, Haseeb stated that the whole situation was completely unexpected, and he\ncouldn’t believe Macedo was the kind of person who would do something like\nthis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In that same\nstatement, Quershi also refuted all accusations that \u201cGirah” was some\npuppet of a high-stakes scamming ring and that the whole point of his existence\nwas to somehow scam other players out of their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haseeb and Cates\npromised to reimburse Macedo\u2019s victims as they were the ones who vouched for\nhim in the first place but took no responsibility for the cheating scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As always, the\ncommunity was split. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some believed\nthat the two pros, and Cates especially, were also victims of Macedo\u2019s lies.\nOthers weren\u2019t as convinced.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Makings Of Jos\u00e9 \u201cGirah\u201d Macedo<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Lock](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lock_ppoker.png\")
\u201cGirah\u201d Cheating Scandal: The Fall Of The \u201cPortuguese Prodigy\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Was There Ever A \u201cPoker Prodigy\u201d?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Lancaster](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lancaster-university-1024x576.png\")