Lock Poker issues official statement regarding Girah

Posted by Steve Ruddock on Aug 08, 2011 Posted in Poker Industry News | No Comments »

Anyone involved with the so-called “Portuguese Poker Prodigy” has been distancing themselves from Jose “Girah” Macedo after the recent news that he has been involved in scamming other high-stakes poker players who put their trust in the supposed online poker prodigy by allowing him to “sweat” their online sessions via Skype; giving Macedo access to their hole-cards, which he would then relay to the player’s opponent –which may have been Macedo himself in some cases.

One such entity that has been caught completely by surprise by these recent revelations was Lock Poker, the online poker site that won the bidding war, and managed to sign Macedo to a sponsorship contract earlier this year. While the cheating seems to have been confined to iPoker and OnGame, Lock Poker immediately dropped Macedo, and in an official statement CEO/Owner Jennifer Larson expressed her disappointment and disgust with Macedo’s actions:

“All of us at Lock are horrified and incredibly disappointed by Jose’s actions. Within 10 minutes of finding out about the fraudulent behavior his LockPRO contract was terminated and his account was banned permanently. says Jennifer Larson Owner/CEO “At Lock our philosophy is based on building a deep relationship with our players and at the core of this is trust, legitimacy and loyalty. Jose’s has defrauded the players, the art of poker and the basic human relationship. LockPRO is a strong team of great people and will continue to find like minded, trust worthy, passionate players who will make us proud to be in this industry.”

Macedo also saw his tenure as a coach at PokerStrategy.com come to an end, and when his 80+ students whom he regularly “sweats” get wind of this it appears all of his revenue streams will have dried up.

As the story continues to unfold, there will be more and more victims of Macedo’s ruse coming forward, and it’s possible we may find even more skeletons in the closet of the “Portuguese Poker Prodigy”. After all, as many have pointed out in the poker forums; it simply doesn’t make sense for a talented player, who has won $2 million playing poker, to need to resort to these tactics for a $30,000. It’s quite possible that Macedo is nothing more than a struggling small stakes grinder who created his own buzz and now that his scheme worked, it perhaps worked to well, and has spiraled out of control.

Whatever may have happened, it seems that Macedo fooled many in the poker world, but he is now paying the price.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,



Leave a Reply

High Stakes News

Promotional News

Introducing the New and Improved Bad Beat Jackpot 2.0
Prepare for an exhilarating upgrade to our renowned Bad Beat Jackpot, …
Read more

Promo Code TTOPS100 BetOnline.ag Offers 100% Poker Bonus Match and FreeRoll Tournament
BetOnline.ag, a popular online gaming site, has unveiled a new promoti …
Read more

10 reasons to play Poker at BetOnline in 2019
2019 seems to be the year poker players search for a new poker site to …
Read more

UK And EU Poker Players Should Check Out The New One Time Poker Website
Most poker players in the European Union and United Kingdom may not be …
Read more