Jose 'Girah' Macedo Backer Haseeb Qureshi Admits Guilt and Retires In Shame From Poker

The Jose "Girah" Macedo cheating story fallout continued to spread this week when his backer, Haseeb Qureshi, was heavily implicated in numerous violations of poker conduct in his dealings with Macedo. While still professing innocence in the Macedo cheating violation, Qureshi admitted guilt that he had previously denied thus ruining a poker career where he had once won a million dollars and become a respected top teaching instructor at CardRunners training site.

Qureshi admitted in an exclusive Bluff Magazine interview and in his own lengthy blog some of his violations:

• He chip dumped $100k to fund Macedo's Lock account, instead of wiring or transferring by legal means.
  
• The chip dump occurred during the Lock Pro Challenge which affected the results that Macedo initially won, before being disqualified.
  
• Qureshi knew that Merge activity wasn't tracked, so he didn't worry as much about being caught.
  
• Qureshi admitted to being the backer who played on Macedo's account and officially got him disqualified from the Lock Pro challenge.
  
• Qureshi posted, edited and modified forum posts that were purported to be Macedos.
  
• Qureshi acted as an informal agent, representing the young Portuguese player before and during his official representation by PokerRoyalty.
  
• Qureshi admitted to lying on the forums when the Macedo cheating incident initially broke for fear that he would be exposed and dragged down too for his improprieties.

Qureshi maintains he didn't know of Macedo's cheating, the fabrication of his poker results, maintaining multiple forum accounts to post false information and build up his name for promotional purposes.

Qureshi has been fired by CardRunners and likely ruined his poker reputation that he has built over the last five years.

Macedo has been exposed as much bigger cheat and liar than was previously known a few days ago. He fabricated his own "Portuguese Prodigy" hype, doctored his results and scammed everyone in the poker community long before actually cheating the high stakes players of $30k that just came to light. Macedo too has claimed to be retiring from poker, paying restitution to the affected poker players, and has been fired from PokerStrategy coaching and his Lock pro role.

Only days ago, Qureshi and Dan ‘jungleman12’ Cates had been planning to live together in Portugal. Now they aren't even speaking. Cates has tried to maintain his distance, but his friendship with both and willingness to financially back one or both players may call his involvement into question as well.Qureshi admitted that poker has weighed on him heavily the last couple years and that he was more than ready to abandon it and start to search for new meaning in his life.

One can read the original Jose "Girah" Macedo cheating story - HERE