Portuguese Poker Prodigy admits to cheating

A new scandal broke across online poker this week when 18-year-old heads-up sensation Jose ‘girah’ Macedo admitted to cheating friends and players out of $30,000.

Macedo shot to fame earlier this year when he revealed himself as the Portuguese Poker Prodigy on two-plus-two. His story of rags to riches spoke of turning $200 into $2m playing some of the game’s best players heads-up.

After a string of media appearances, Macedo was signed up by LockPoker as the new face of the brand but the wheels began to come off earlier this year when Macedo was accused of multi-accounting in the LockPro Challenge.

Macedo denied those accusations, but held his hand up to a different scandal this week after forum posters discovered he was using hole card information to cheat fellow players.

Macedo, an up-and-coming tutor of the game, was encouraging those studying under him to play sauron1989 on the iPoker network while he used Skype to discuss strategies. Unbeknownst to the students, Macedo was sauron1989 and relied on hole card information to pocket at least $30,000 from his pupils.

After posting a length apology on his blog, Macedo has been dropped by sponsors LockPoker and PokerStrategy and looks to have burned a lot of bridges within the game.

Players involved with Macedo have also been fast to distance themselves, with ex-CardRunners instructor Haseeb ‘INTERNET POKERS’ Qureshi even hanging up his gloves for the foreseeable future.

More and more players are being sucked into the Macedo scandal each day, so check back with PokerPlayer for news as and when it happens.