Another day brings further revelations in the high stakes story gripping the online poker community.
On his blog, Haseeb Qureshi, ex-CardRunners Pro known online as “INTERNET POKERS” and “DOG IS HEAD,” admitted that he was the backer who played on José “Girah” Macedo’s account that resulted in his disqualification from the “Lock Poker Challenge,” a competition where the player with the most profit during a one-month period wins a sponsorship deal, WSOP seats and coverage in BLUFF magazine.
With over $100k in winnings for the month of April, “Girah” – already a Lock Pro – was top of the list to win. However, after an inspection by Lock, it became clear that someone else had logged in and played on his account.
“I got Jose disqualified from the Bluff Challenge,” admits Qureshi. “I was bored after Black Friday and hadn’t played any poker in a while. I didn’t have a Merge account and couldn’t play any poker at all, so I asked Jose to let me onto his Lock account … to play some PLO and assured him that I was taking all of the losses for myself.”
Although Lock Poker continued their association with “Girah” after the multi-accounting controversy, they moved very quickly to distance themselves from the player after this latest scandal. Yesterday all mention of Girah was removed from the LockPoker.com website and on Monday an official announcement was made.
“All of us at Lock are horrified and incredibly disappointed by Jose’s actions,” begins Lock’s official statement, posted on 2+2. “Within 10 minutes of finding out about the fraudulent behavior his LockPRO contract was terminated and his account was banned permanently.”
The statement continues:
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.
CardRunners were also quick to sever their respective ties. In a brief announcement, Brand Manager Alex Huang stated that “CardRunners has decided to part ways with Haseeb Qureshi.”
While Haseeb is a talented instructor, he has shown poor judgement in using a stakee’s poker account for his own play. We’ve informed Haseeb of this decision and it is final.
Ironically, Macedo won the Lock Poker Challenge in spite of – not because of – the play from his mentor and coach. Qureshi claims to have lost “several buyins pretty quickly on some flips and then quit” during that session, but not enough to prevent the account from coming top in the challenge.
However, according to Macedo’s own blog post regarding the disqualification, a screenshot of hands played by the then-unknown backer shows a lengthy session of 1300 hands played.
