On the “Girah” Saga; or, Online Poker Tied Up in a Knot

Spent a little time this morning rooting around over on Two Plus Two and elsewhere, getting somewhat caught up on this “Girah” saga that appears to involve just about every form of cheating one can imagine in online poker, including multi-accounting, collusion, chip-dumping, and hole-card viewing. The story also features a lot of other examples of ethically suspect behavior, most of which appearing to involve the fabrication of identities online (both for playing poker and for other forms of interaction, including forum posting).

For those with an interest in learning more about it all, the “Cliff notes” post over on 2+2 is a good place to start. There you’ll find a readable synopsis that also links out to many other sources for the sordid tale’s various characters and episodes. Might also dial up the most recent episode of the Two Plus Two Pokercast (episode 184), where they talk a lot about the story as well as interview both Ben “sauce123” Sulsky and “King” Dan Smith about it.

I had started to write a post attempting to cover all the various ins and outs, but after fussing with how best to present the tale’s complicated twists and turns I realized I only had a few substantive observations to add. So rather than clutter the air with another (necessarily incomplete) account of what appears to have been going on over the last seven months or so with this José “Girah” Macedo character (pictured above), I’ll just fire off three observations about it before moving along.

The first concerns one of those involved, Haseeb Qureshi (a.k.a., “DogIsHead” or “INTERNETPOKERS”), loser of that crazy running prop bet with Ashton Griffin earlier this year and recently let go by CardRunners as an instructor.

One “WTF” moment among the many that crop up in this story comes amid Haseeb Qureshi’s BLUFF interview, posted late yesterday. In the interview -- after Qureshi has admitted to multi-accounting, chip dumping, posting multiple times under a different name on Two Plus Two, and getting caught in a lie about being Macedo’s “agent” -- Qureshi is asked a question about Macedo’s original story, the one suggesting the 18-year-old had won more than $1.6 million in a remarkably short stretch even though those results were never corroborated anywhere.

Qureshi (and others, among them Dan “jungleman12” Cates) had maintained in the forums that Macedo’s results were legit, though now that seems likely not to have been the case. Qureshi is asked why he insisted Macedo’s results were genuine without there being any evidence to support that claim.

He “believed them,” Qureshi says, “because people faking results is such a ridiculously rare thing in the poker world. I would never suspect that someone would do anything like that unless they were a massive con artist, which I obviously didn’t imagine.”

Faking results in poker “ridiculously rare”? Probably more accurate to say it’s rare for players not to misrepresent their results. (That graph to the left is one that Macedo -- and/or Qureshi, actually, who says he helped Macedo with the post -- shared early on to show his results, a screenshot that omitted reference to screennames or sites.)

And, it goes without saying, Qureshi himself has many times over shown a readiness to misrepresent, lie, obfuscate, fake, what have you. How does Qureshi himself believe such a statement, let alone expect others to do so?

What is rare, I suppose, is for players to get away with faking results in their online play, particularly in the high-stakes games that are mostly (though not always) tracked by external sites. That leads to my second observation, which is simply to express amazement at how many appear to have been duped by the story of the “Portuguese poker prodigy.”

Lock Poker gave him a sponsorship. Brandon Adams tried to hire him as an instructor at his new Expert Insight website. And numerous other high-profile pros and posters -- not to mention all of the poker media reporting on his dazzling yet undocumented rise to the highest-stakes games -- readily bought in as well.

Sure, in some ways the story resembled that of Isildur1, Cates, and others. And all the various “vouching” going on by others with regard to Macedo played a significant role here as well. But without screen names or any confirmation of accounts played by Macedo, how does it happen that so many accepted his story as legitimate?

Interestingly, it seems as though the great majority of interactions with Macedo took place over Skype or via other online methods of communication -- i.e., there was little face-to-face contact with him by anyone involved, including his most vocal endorsers. Thus does this story demonstrate how the “virtual” world of online communication provides ready opportunities for the creation of personas as well as the potential to build elaborate fictions that are plausible enough to be regarded as fact.

My third observation is simply to reiterate a point already made by others with regard to the “Girah” saga. Without regulation, online poker will certainly continue to attract scammers and others looking to take advantage of a still highly vulnerable environment for financial transactions. Even with regulation, attempts by some to cheat and/or angle-shoot will (unfortunately) remain “part of the game,” although one would hope the chances of their getting away with such would be reduced.

The story made me wonder what exactly “girah” meant, and so I looked it up. Used to refer to a unit of measurement (in India and Pakistan), though with the metric system it is no longer used. Can also refer to a short passage that has been inserted into a song, often an allusion to another song (a kind of “sampling,” one could say).

But apparently the word also literally means “knot,” which I guess would be the most appropriate reference here. A lot of untangling yet to be done with regard to the “Girah” story.

Also a good way to refer to online poker, generally speaking, circa summer 2011. One big messy knot.

Low Battery

Those of you with iPhones, ever notice how whenever you are told your battery’s charge has fallen dangerously low, you are given just one option to select before you are free to do something about it?

“Dismiss.”

I mean, really... we can’t just keep being dismissive about such things, can we? Seems unhealthy. I mean, if we have to recharge, we have to recharge. Why always put off such necessary action with denials?

Speaking of, I freely admit that I am running a bit low on both time and energy today.

Regarding the former, not much time remains before I leave for Las Vegas on Tuesday. In Phil Hellmuth-like fashion, I’ll be arriving late to help PokerNews cover the WSOP over these final four weeks of the Series until the November Nine is determined on July 19. I am looking forward to the trip, and especially to reuniting with my many friends and colleagues who are already there. Meanwhile I am trying to take care of a lot of different matters and tie up some loose ends before I go, which is further taking up these few hours I’ve left.

Energy-wise, I’m running a bit low as well, having committed a lot of brain power to writing other pieces in addition to pushing forward on that second novel. Am trying to reach a point with that where I feel comfortable enough to leave it for a while when I’m at the WSOP.

I did want to point you to one of those other pieces, a feature for Betfair that went up today called “On Poker’s Brave New World.”

You might recall how I commented here last week on an exchange between Jesse May and Brandon Adams over the whole online sponsorship issue and how Black Friday had fundamentally changed things with regard to the sponsored pro. This week another interesting op-ed appeared that also touched on the subject, a piece called “The Beauty of Black Friday” by Rounders co-scripter Brian Koppelman.

I thought it would be worthwhile to pull together and compare all three writers’ arguments in a piece of my own, and so that’s what you’ll find if you follow the link above. There are issues I’d probably take up with each of the commentators (May, Adams, and Koppelman), but I do think all make interesting arguments and provide genuine insight into how things have dramatically changed for sponsored pros and poker in general. Their writings evoke a lot of ideas about poker and its place in contemporary culture that are worth considering as well.

I hope everyone has a relaxing, revitalizing weekend. See you on Monday when we’re all back to 100%.

Poker in the Wild: Jesse May & Brandon Adams on Chaos & Order

The player, announcer, reporter, and author Jesse May is reporting from the World Series of Poker. His posts can be found over on a relatively new website, called The Poker Farm. Great news for those who enjoy well-written, insightful reporting and storytelling about the goings-on at the WSOP.

American by birth (he grew up in New Jersey), May became a big part of the U.K. poker scene starting over a decade ago thanks initially to his involvement as both a player and commentator during the first season of the ground-breaking “Late Night Poker” show (in 1999). He’s been commentating on various shows ever since, earning him the nickname “The Voice of Poker” across the pond.

Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to interview May for Betfair Poker. The interview appears in two parts on the site, with the first part mainly focusing on his poker-themed 1998 novel Shut Up and Deal and the second on the origins and influence of “Late Night Poker.”

I’m seeing four posts thus far from May over at The Poker Farm.

The first, dated June 1, is titled “Poker is going back to the Wolves,” and immediately addresses how the events of “Black Friday” fundamentally altered poker’s long-established world order, in a sense sending poker back to the pre-Moneymaker days when the dichotomy between sponsored or “patched” players and everyone else didn’t exist -- when poker’s “class” system (as we might call it) was based more directly on success at the tables than by other commercially-driven factors.

May expresses excitement about the prospects afforded by this new arrangement -- “I’m clapping my hands with glee,” he writes -- a revived poker world suddenly shot through with adrenaline and emotion, with nearly everyone now playing without the safety net of sponsorship.

That theme of poker “going back to the wolves” is furthered in May’s subsequent posts. “You Sanctimonius Little” addresses Full Tilt Poker’s petulant response to the Phil Ivey announcement and lawsuit. “Brits in Flow” reflects on the British players’ early successes at the WSOP. And “Brandon Adams Blog” finds May replying to a post by Adams on the “Macroeconomic Woes” site in which the Full Tilt pro addresses some of May’s observations.

The latter exchange between May (left) and Adams (right) particularly caught my attention yesterday. Not long ago I made reference to Adams’ own poker novel, Broke (2008), which I’ve recently picked up. I’ve heard Adams praise May’s novel in the past, and he does so again at the start of his post from yesterday, titled “The Center Cannot Hold,” when he notes how he considers Broke as “an afterword” to May’s story.

Adams then addresses some of the things May says in those first couple of posts about the altered significance of wearing patches at the WSOP and the Ivey-FTP feud. Adams, some might recall, sent a highly provocative tweet on April 16th (subsequently deleted but not before it was passed around by many) stating that “Full Tilt is run by much more honorable people than Pokerstars. So your [sic] money is much more likely to be safe there.”

Adams defends his decision to continue to wear an FTP patch, explaining he is doing so both out of “loyalty” to the site and some of his friends who work there and out of “fear” that poker might lose whatever sense of legitimacy sites like Full Tilt Poker once seemed to give it thanks to their having helped create (really) the whole idea of a poker “pro.”

Adams agrees with May that the poker world fundamentally changed on April 15. But whereas May is energized and excited by what’s to come, Adams is terrified. “Like Jesse, I also see poker going back to the wolves,” writes Adams. “But, unlike him, I view this as the worst thing imaginable.”

Adams goes on to recommend we all resist following the course chosen by Ivey (and many, many others by this point) and continue to show patience with Full Tilt Poker -- not just for FTP’s sake, but for the sake of poker, generally speaking. As Adams says, “My fear is simply that, if Full Tilt can’t hold it together, poker will enter a dark phase.”

As Adams’ own shaky confidence in Full Tilt Poker suggests, if what he is saying is true, poker’s prospects are especially dim. Indeed, my first thought when reading that statement was to think FTP hasn’t shown much evidence it can “hold it together,” and thus I’d hate to believe the rest of us are depending on that happening.

May also responds cynically to Adams’ suggestion, noting that in his view Full Tilt Poker’s poor leadership has already done a lot to create the chaotic, “center cannot hold” situation Adams fears. And to say that unless those in charge at FTP change their ways PDQ, “the dark days are already here.”

A most interesting bit of back-and-forth here by a couple of poker’s bright thinkers. I can’t help but think Adams is a bit too swayed by that loyalty he professes to his sponsoring site. I do find provocative Adams’ point that online poker “successfully sold” an idea about poker to the culture at large, causing “many people [to] look at poker as almost like a normal industry.” But really, after Black Friday -- and most particularly after Full Tilt Poker’s abject failure on all fronts since April 15th -- I certainly don’t see FTP ever successfully selling such an idea about poker’s legitimacy again. And I don’t really believe the stubborn wearing of an FTP patch is going to change that very much.

As mentioned, Adams himself admits the wearing of the logo is mostly symbolic. He “doesn’t expect financial benefit from wearing a patch,” but he does feel that “loyalty” to FTP and “fear” about what a patchless poker world represents. But as was the case with Absolute Poker and UltimateBet before, the patch has come to symbolize a lot of other not-so-nice stuff, too -- stuff that utterly explodes any notion that poker or online poker is a “normal industry.”

Is poker “going back to the wolves”? Or has it always been that self-interested, uncivilized, immoral, savage world it was when the game first made its way across the continent a couple of centuries ago -- despite the often-successful recent efforts of some to convince us otherwise?

(EDIT [added 10/24/11]: Adams has of late been responding to some belated response both to his 4/16/11 tweet and 6/8/11 blog post. Today he answered some questions about both from Subject:Poker’s NoahSD over on the PokerFarm site. Click here to read.)

Booked Up

Not a lot of time today for posting, I’m afraid. Have been fairly occupied over the last two weeks helping recap various events in PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker, which has cut into both writing time and sleeping time here of late.

There have been some interesting moments along the way in these SCOOP tourneys, some of which have been discussed in the daily web-based show “Inside SCOOP” on PokerStars.tv. Hosts Joe Stapleton and Nick Wealthall are a riot, too, making the show even more fun to watch.

Meanwhile, when the time to do so finally becomes available, I have three new poker books to read. Well, one of them is new, anyway (as in recently published). But all three are new to me.

The one that is just coming out is Tommy Angelo’s second book, titled A Rubber Band Story and other Poker Tales. Following up his terrific Elements of Poker (reviewed here), this one collects several essays, articles, and blog posts that Angelo has written over the last decade-plus, also adding a number of new items, too.

Am really looking forward to this one, a book I first heard about from Angelo himself when I interviewed him for Betfair poker back in December 2010.

Another book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time is one of David Apostolico’s titles, Machiavellian Poker Strategy: How to Play Like a Prince and Rule the Poker Table, first published in 2005. The Prince is a book I am actually very familiar with, one that I not only studied in school but also had the chance to teach several times in various “Great Books” classes. It’s a great one for introducing that transition from the faith-based medieval period to the modern, secular age. It’s also strikes me as a book with a lot of immediately applicable precepts to poker.

I really like Apostolico’s introduction, where he suggests poker may well provide a “perfect arena” in which to explore the many ideas and lessons of the early 16th-century guidebook for would-be rulers. Am intrigued to see how Apostolico draws connections between Machiavelli’s advice and poker strategy/theory.

Finally, I recently ordered a copy of Brandon Adams’ 2008 book Broke: A Poker Novel. I don’t know a lot about it, but was intrigued after hearing Adams on the Two Plus Two Pokercast back in April (Episode 167, 4/12/11) where the book did come up.

I’ll be teaching my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class again next fall, and while I plan to keep Jesse May’s Shut Up and Deal on the syllabus -- a book which Adams recommended highly on the 2+2 show, incidentally -- it’s possible I could add other novels, too, and so will be thinking about that possibility as I read Broke.

Like I say, though, I have a few other things to attend to before I can pick up these. Am eyeing that space between the end of SCOOP and the start of the WSOP (just a week-and-a-half away!) as a nice quiet space in which to curl up and read.

Is This the Real Life?

Left Vegas nearly two weeks ago. Have been hanging out with Vera, visiting family, resuming a more stable sleeping pattern, etc. Have also gotten back into my usual online poker playing routine -- mostly short sessions (1-2 hour) at the cash tables, scattered here and there. After those two months in the desert, life is starting to return to “normal” (whatever that was).

Am also listening to the podcasts again, and enjoyed hearing Gary Wise’s post-WSOP show (Wise Hand Poker, 7/23/08 episode) in which he compiled a number of interviews he conducted throughout the summer.

Among the several interesting conversations in there is a 20-minute one with Brandon Adams. Wise talked to Adams just after his big Day 1 of the Main Event (he ended the day among the chip leaders). Before Day 2, Adams had helped pull together a high-stakes cash game at Bobby’s Room in which he and about a dozen others had convened for a $300/$600 PLO/NLHE game. Oh, and everyone also had to pony up a $300 ante each hand, too, just to make things interesting.

The discussion of the cash game is compelling enough, but I especially enjoyed hearing Adams’ comments about his non-poker life. Some of you might know Adams is kind of an anomaly in the poker world, having gone to graduate school and picked up a couple of Masters degrees (one in economics), then having entered Harvard’s Ph.D. business program in 2001 where he did all of the course work and is now what they call “A.B.D.” (all but dissertation). In 2004 Adams published a novel, titled Broke: A Poker Novel. He also continues teach courses at Harvard every spring in behavioral finance and, more recently, in applied game theory.

“This makes you unusual as a poker player,” said Wise. “Because you are a successful poker player, yet you choose to have a job. What keeps you teaching?”

Adams quickly came up with a witty response to the question. “I like to keep one foot in the world of respectability,” he said (amid Wise’s laughter).

“And the other in the real world?” Wise cracked (pun intended).

Adams went on to talk about how much he enjoys being in the college/university environment, full of interesting, smart people who are in a place where they actually have the time and energy to explore ideas, be creative, and learn.

I appreciated the exchange for a couple of reasons. Wise’s reference to the poker world being the “real” world is funny because of how often that world is characterized as fantasy land -- is defined, in fact, as being a place where “real” world obligations and concerns simply do not register.

That’s the primary allure of professional poker (for some). In The Biggest Game in Town, Al Alvarez well portrays what he calls the “different ordering of reality” that routinely goes on in the world of high-stakes poker where Adams currently spends a lot of his time. Alvarez writes about how some of those who live in that reality particularly value being able to avoid the so-called “straight world” or “stay outside the system.”

Wise’s reference also reminds some of us of how the college/university campus -- that intellectually-stimulating environment that Adams values -- is also often regarded as somehow not being the “real” world. For Adams, teaching his classes gives him the chance to challenge others and explore ideas without money being on the line. That’s what the classroom is -- a place where theories are formed and discussed, then later can be tested or confirmed outside the classroom in the so-called “real” world.

Adams clearly benefits a great deal from having this sort of balance in his life. He went on to tell Wise how he’s been involved with the very high-stakes games for the last three years or so. He mentioned how especially helpful it was for him to have his teaching and other interests when dealing with steep downswings on the poker side. “At those times you really appreciate being able to fall back on… being a part of a broader society, if you will,” Adams explained. “I would never be willing to give that up to go full force into poker.”

I’ve written before about the “double life” of the poker player, although my emphasis was a little different in those other posts. There I was talking about the fact that in my “real” life I am mostly interacting with people for whom poker is essentially a non-entity -- if it has any meaning at all, it is as a signifier for gambling, sin, or other unsavory activities. As a result, I don’t normally share my poker-related experiences with them the way I do here.

This summer the contrast of my “double life” became even more stark as I physically relocated and spent most of two months doing nothing but writing about poker under this here pseudonym. Still, I like (and can identify with) what Adams is saying about “being a part of a broader society” and how that helps keep one grounded.

I didn’t experience the severe highs and lows of the high-stakes player, of course. But I did immerse myself in the poker world there for a good while, a place where much that might seem fantastic, alien, or even impossible exists. It is good to be back over here in this one again, if only to regain that sense of balance.

Not gonna venture to guess which of these worlds is the “real” one. Am inclined, in fact, to agree with that other great existentialist, Freddie Mercury’s bohemian, and say it doesn’t really matter to me.