Since the parties involved in this scandal have been so unwilling to reveal information until they were proven guilty of it (a reluctance that shall be described in verb form as dogisheading from here forward), most of what we know is a bit of an incomplete puzzle. The hodge podge of information that we do have has been discovered in fantastic fashion by the 2+2 machine, a collection of poker players from all around the world that have been instrumental in the uncovering of many scandals. Before I go any further I want to make it absolutely clear that although I may get excited or be amazed by some of the events throughout this scandal, this is a lose-lose for those involved and the poker community. Since I am so closely related to the poker community, the entire scandal has no choice but to reflect poorly on everyone—it sucks, point blank.

It’s nearly impossible to paint a perfect timeline of the scandal (both because details are unclear and because I haven’t gone out of my way to familiarize myself with exact dates), but it starts with the infamous 2+2 thread looking for the Portuguese Poker Prodigy. The rough details were that some young kid has been crushing Euro sites and has gained the respect of some top players both at and away from the tables. Among some other poker players from outside the U.S., Jungleman (Dan Cates) and DogIsHead/INTERNETPOKERS/Ipokeder (Haseeb Quereshi) pop their head in the thread to give this kid raving reviews for his poker talent and ambition. Then, the Portuguese Poker Prodigy (PPP) is revealed, as Jose “Girah” Macedo makes his way into the thread. It turns out after tracking the IP of the thread creator and the 2+2 poster who posed as “Girah,” they were the same person (and possibly masterminded by Haseeb, although the IP is from Portugal, so it seems the extent of his involvement at this point could have been only planting the seed in Jose’s mind). [2] I have absolutely no idea how the mods at 2+2 missed this because they are usually very diligent in policing people creating threads for their own gain.

Jose’s internet fame grows as a posts a graph of results where he has won 1.6m over 800k hands. Although there is not a huge sample at high stakes, he is certainly crushing online poker, and all before his 20th birthday. The degree at which these results are true remains very much in question. At this point, I see no reason why Jose will ever show his face anywhere near the poker community and he has no motivation to answer questions truthfully (unless he is ultimately sued, which is far from out of the question). He played under many screen names while he was underage, so it’d be difficult to verify based on opponents who played him, and I doubt we’ll ever get a real list of names that he (and only he) played on. He also seems unlikely to surrender his database to someone who could determine if It was tampered with or he filtered his results to make them more impressive.

While Jose’s Q rating is through the roof, Haseeb becomes a mentor for him in order to maximize on the opportunity in front of him. Haseeb has experience in this endeavor, when he turned 18 he changed his screen names from Ipokeder (who was a midstakes player famous for whining about how bad he ran and tilting) to INTERNETPOKERS on FTP and DOGISHEAD on 2+2/Stars (where he now became a high stakes player who was famous for whining about how bad he ran and tilting). With this new persona he was not nearly as brash, and after being coached by some Deucescracked coaches (I believe I coached him a few times as well), he started to make some theory videos for DC. They were well received, and he had successfully shed the identity of immature midstakes chump to high stakes boss who spoke eloquently about poker. This identity change goes towards character for Haseeb in this case, and proves that he has experience in influencing the mob, essentially. After success with DC, he sold himself to the highest bidder in the training market industry. The allure of red pro status was too much for any of the other major training sites to compete with and Haseeb signed with Card Runners. I’d have a hard time guessing exactly how much he received per video, but he was a hot commodity at the time, so I’d imagine along with become a red pro he got a very lucrative contract to make training videos.

Haseeb’s mentoring for Jose came with a price tag. Jose agreed to give Haseeb 15% of all revenue he made throughout the relationship. With monetary motivation for Jose to be a successful and popular poker player, Haseeb set out create a social media sandstorm. He pimped Jose to training sites (as far as I know all the major training sites got an email stating that Haseeb was acting as his agent and would be entertaining offers from all sites), further promoted his results and poker skills (including a now famous post where Haseeb wants to bet his entire net worth [which as we found out, might not actually be a very big bet!] that Jose is completely legit), and wrote posts and blogs that sounded less like someone who had English as their second language and more like F. Scott Fitzgerald. He bought and created a website, advised Jose to rise above the haters, and assumedly talked poker theory and strategy with the PPP. Haseeb went the whole nine yards to live vicariously through Jose. It was successful (perhaps unsurprisingly, because this was Haseeb’s third run at creating an internet legend), Jose inspired many young poker players with his story (who knows how true that is exactly).

Somewhere around this point in time, Jose befriends a group of mid to high stakes shorthanded NL players. They create a Skype group chat to discuss strategy, exchange coaching and sweat sessions, and send each other hand histories. It seems odd to me that JM and Haseeb, two supposedly major influences on this kid’s poker game (although JM supposedly had very little influence on it, didn’t really coach him or interact with him much), were not invited to this group chat (or choose not to take part). From this group we get some mixed reviews of Jose and his poker game. He was sharp when talking about concepts and hand histories, but many members of the group thought he played poorly when they sweated him for short sessions (they said he seemed confused in extremely standard spots I believe). I’m a little fuzzy on how good this kid actually was—on one hand we have great poker players vouching for his ambition and intelligence, but on the other hand we have no real proof of his skills put to use. We have seen him post some irregular hands on 2+2, but even those hands seem eerily similar to hands that other good players have played (in particular, he posted a river bluff shove that posed similarities to a hand that ike posted years ago). It seems nearly impossible for his results to be real in light of the stake that he needed and the scandal that followed.

There are a bevy of lies associated to why Jose has won 1.6m and now needs to be staked for 5-10. I will save you the excuses that were given by the involved parties and just say that JM and Haseeb agreed to stake him for midstakes (and high stakes shots if he’s winning, I believe) across a lot of Euro sites. To do this, they agreed to send him $100,000, which was supposedly to be spread across multiple sites, despite their decision to send him the money on only Merge. By this point in time Jose had already parlayed his success into a deal at Lock, a skin of Merge. He was considered an Elite pro. Despite these facts (and the likelihood that he had a contact high up in the Lock food chain that could have helped him move money within the site), Jose “convinced” Haseeb and JM that the easiest way to get a six figure amount into his account was to deposit the money into a different account and chip dump to him at high stakes. It just so happens that this chip dump takes place with just a few hours to go in a Lock poker monthly challenge to win the most money. In fact, the chip dump propels Jose from a breakeven month to the winner of the challenge!

The perks of the challenge include becoming an Elite Pro (which I believe Jose already was), a seat in the World Series of Poker, and the cover story in Bluff Magazine. To this day, Haseeb and JM deny knowledge of the challenge at the time of the chip dump. I would be shocked if JM knew about the challenge (I don’t pay attention to much poker media and I doubt JM does either, and JM says his contact with Jose was pretty limited); likewise, I would be shocked if Haseeb did not know about the challenge. He gets 15% of whatever the prize package is worth, seems like a lucrative situation for him that might cloud his judgment. Shortly after the challenge is over, Jose is DQ’d for what he describes as someone else playing on his account during the challenge (which likely also happened). Officials at Lock release a vague message during the disqualification and continue to support Jose as a Lock pro. In general, Lock has withheld key information since the scandal broke (although they have dropped him).

The Skype group is apparently going well for most involved, as everyone reported being happy about the level of strategy discussion taking place. However, Jose seems to have some weird motives about promoting regulars in the group to take shots at three players in particular: Sauron1989, IfYouOnlyKnew and dollarman (props to whoever created these names, they are hilarious in context) [3]. Additionally, he always invites himself to sweat the sessions via Teamviewer (frequently these people accept, after all, he is supposedly a high stakes player with a sharp poker mind). After some members of the group have some suspicions about the play that is taking place against them, they team up to gather enough evidence to prove that Jose was actually controlling the Sauron1989/IfYouOnlyKnew/dollarman accounts (although I’m not sure whose names these accounts are under, another reason that Lock [or maybe Merge?] has been particularly unhelpful during the scandal) and “super-using” the members of the group. I’m not sure the exact amount he won from them, I think it was $30,000 to $50,000 at 5-10+.

After the scandal breaks, everyone starts to lie to cover their own ass. Most notably, Haseeb lies about everything—the nature of his relationship with Jose, the reason they owed Jose money [4], multi-acccounting [5], among other things. He chooses his blog on Card Runners [6] as the medium that he’ll communicate with the community. These are embarrassing signs that he’s guilty of something more than he’s letting the public believe (which he was). Honestly, at the time he was acting so shady that I was basically attacking him and assuming him to be guilty unless he proved to me he was innocent. I think I was out of line when I was attacking him without substantial evidence at the time and it’s perhaps true that I was unable to be objective in the moment because of how I felt he treated Ashton during the running bet and the aftermath [7]. JM is primarily silent (at a time when someone who was innocent wouldn’t be) at the request of his publicist (when do I get big time enough to need a publicist? [8]) When JM finally does come forward and agree to answer questions in the thread and in an interview, he admits to some multi-accounting (including playing the same 25-50 PLO that Haseeb tried to take the fall for on Jose’s account). It’s difficult to get a read on JM’s involvement in all of this; my gut says that he doesn’t have it in him to be the mastermind of anything. I think he probably did a fair bit of multi-accounting post Black Friday. I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt because his entire life has been poker up to this point—it’s something that he’s excelled at and built an identity. He has probably used poor judgment since Black Friday, but at this point of the story (likely not over yet) I tend to think this is much more of a forgivable mistake than anyone else involved made.

In the aftermath of the scandal there are four major parties that take a hit on their reputation.

The first is Lock poker. Lock is a skin of Merge and initially emerged as one of the few sites to allow US players post Black Friday. Lock has been vague and unresponsive in response to the scandal. We could use a lot of information from them—the identity of a lot of usernames, the IP origin of a lot of sessions that were played, transfer histories, a general timeline—but I doubt they’ll be willing to provide it. If I was Lock and such a scandal hit was taking place on my site, I would be more than willing to provide someone to comply with all the information the poker community needed. I hope that people are cognizant of Lock’s involvement (or lack thereof) in this scandal.

Jose will never be able to sit at a poker table again without being relentlessly abused. Whether he receives physical harm or gets sued is remained to be seen, but he is essentially barred from the poker community. No one who comes in contact with him will ever trust him enough to lend him $20. I don’t feel like Jose is even worth talking about at this point—he’s clearly a pathological liar who cheated to get wherever he is in one way or another. It’s likely none of his results are real, and it’s possible he’s a breakeven midstakes player who is spectacular at talking about poker theory. Truthfully, the only way I’d be interested in ever hearing Jose talk again is if he implicates Haseeb or JM in a way that we were unaware of, and even then I doubt he could do anything to convince me he is telling the truth.

Haseeb’s reputation seems to be blackened beyond repair (fubar). He took advantage of people under the guise of friendship and acting as a poker agent for monetary gain (this is a line that shouldn’t be crossed—I’ve done this "mentoring" for free many people, as I’m sure many in the poker community have). The combination of fraud he committed and insult he added to the injury by covering it up as he did make him as untrustworthy as they come. Honestly, he may not have even done anything THAT bad (all we’ve got so far for certain is some multi-accounting, chip dumping, and pumping up Jose’s career without having done his due diligence on who this kid really was)—but the way that he handled it said volumes about who he is as a person. It just so happens that is someone who I don’t want to be associated with. I can’t tell if he’s truly a sociopath or perhaps his narcissism just got the best of him in the end. I just don’t understand how anyone could possibly believe anything he says ever again. I can’t imagine someone within the poker community willingly associating with him in the future.

Perhaps the wild card in this situation is Jungleman. With Lock’s silence, Jose’s lunacy [9], and Haseeb’s deception, Dan is our only open source of information of what is left in this scandal. Although Dan appears willing to tell the truth and clear his name, his sense of entitlement seems to be getting in the way of the truth. I really want the best for Dan, but with every answer he gives I have to question where his head is. Regardless, his reputation is definitely redeemable if he’s willing to put in time to give mature answers to the people that deserve them. Putting in time arguing with NVG trolls isn’t where it’s at; paying attention to crucial questions from respected members of the community in order to gauge his level of involvement is the only way to wipe the slate clean.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s next, but I’m not optimistic that we’ll be getting new, accurate information anytime soon. [10]

[1] 2+2 is unique because so many people who have gone on to be associated with training sites, picked up a new hobby, or perhaps even those who cared very little about poker to begin with are able to form together as a union of sorts to serve the poker community. It transcends just the poker community and is one of the most trafficked forums in the entire world.

[2] Much later, Jose would also create the thread for his first poker video in NVG, saying something along the lines of: “Is Girah’s first video the best one of all time? Will it singlehandedly kill the games?” WTF, if I had made a new username and created a thread about myself in NVG I’d be insta-perma-super-banned! I don’t need the confidence boost of course, I’m not insecure—I know mine are actually the best ☺.

[3] Sauron is apparently the “all-seeing” eye in Lord of the Rings. IfYouOnlyKnew and dollarman are pretty self-explanatory, but overall creates some comedy relief in an otherwise very serious situation.

[4] Haseeb and JM owed Jose $40,000, which they were going to pay when they went to live with him in Portugal. They initially told the community they owed him the money to rent a house (which, literally, would have been the most expensive rent in all of Portugal, and is unbelievable even if they paid 6 months in advance), but they I fact owed him the money from a time when JM played on his account and Haseeb had half.

[5] Haseeb tried to take the fall for a 25-50 PLO session that was played on Jose’s Lock account, when it was in fact JM that played on the account that time (and other times). We’ll likely never know the exact details of who was playing on what account and when.

[6] Card Runners immediately fired Haseeb for what they said was multi-accounting. This seemed strange to me since they had a history of high profile pros that were caught multi-accounting and still able to be affiliated with the site (I misspoke at first when I said CR had any pros affiliated with MA associated with the site-- the only one I know that was a serial MA'er was Brian Townsend, who is no longer with CR). At first I thought they might have known something that we didn’t, but honestly, they were probably trying to fire his ass anyways. He hadn’t had any winning results public in over 18 months (that he could make public anyways, since he was spending most of his online poker time playing PLO on the Toshashian iPoker account, always staked) and I’m sure that cutting a high-priced, American-based pro that doesn’t play live tournaments and has been loosely associated with shady things in the past was a high priority. Ironically, the precise reason that Haseeb got fired wasn’t even true—it was JM who played the 1300 hand session of PLO on Jose’s account.

[7] I don’t regret any of it, fucking scumbag deserved to be burned at the stake.

[8] When I do I won’t be hiring Lara Miller, Jesus Christ (LOL).

[9] Sorry, couldn’t think of a better word.

[10] I wrote this on the plane and did not proof read it. It is over 3000 words. Holy shit. I wanted to get this up before I went to bed while the information was relatively fresh, but I'll edit it tomorrow when I wake up so it becomes a bit more readable.