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.

Railbirds Gather for Durrrr Challenge II

You probably heard something about this second version of Tom Dwan’s “Durrrr Challenge” having recently taken off over at Full Tilt Poker. Looks like the sucker kicked off one week ago (August 27th), with Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates having stepped up to take on Dwan.

It’s been a long, long time -- like 18 months now -- since the first “Durrrr Challenge” was issued and accepted by Patrik Antonius. So long ago it is hard to remember what the original terms for these here challenges.

Looking back, it was early 2009 when Dwan said he’d play anyone -- except Phil Galfond -- to play four tables of heads up simultaneously, either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit hold’em, at a minimum of $200/$400 blinds. The challenge would last for 50,000 hands, and if Dwan’s opponent was up at the end -- even by just a buck -- Dwan would give his opponent a handsome prize of $1.5 million on top of the winnings. Meanwhile, if Dwan ended ahead, his opponent would owe him an additional $500,000.

Antonius was the first to try -- with PLO the chosen game -- and there was a lot of initial hype as the pair started playing their first hands. We also heard at the time that Phil Ivey would be next in line to take on Dwan, but that match has yet to materialize.

A few months passed, and by the summer it was obvious it was going to take Antonius and Dwan much longer than most had thought it would take to get through the 50,000 hands. According to the Full Tilt Poker site’s tracking of the progress of that first challenge, they’ve now played 39,436 hands and Dwan enjoys a hefty lead of about $2.06 million. As Dwan explained earlier in the week on This Week in Poker, his lead isn’t necessarily insurmountable, but he’s definitely looking as though he is in position to finish off the Finn.

Perhaps because that match seems to be somewhat in hand for Dwan, he’s begun a second challenge with Cates -- with the game being no-limit hold’em this time -- and the pair didn’t take long to move through the first 6,800 hands or so. Dwan is already down something like $700,000, as shown on this here graph appearing in the Two Plus Two forum sticky devoted to the Dwan-Cates challenge (click to enlarge):



Looks like they’re still getting the official tracking page together for Durrrr Challenge II over on the Full Tilt site, but meanwhile AlCantHang has set up this here page to report on the proceedings. Dr. Pauly has chimed in over there as well with a guest post commenting on it all; check it out: “Freaky Styley: Durrrr and Jungleman12.”

Most of the talk seems to suggest this second match will probably finish much more quickly than did the first with Antonius, and in fact might even conclude before the Antonius one does. Interesting how the second challenge appeared to get the forum guys and most other pokery people excited again about watching online poker, despite the fact that the first one had become kind of a running joke, with “Durrrr Challenge” having become a handy metaphor for anything tedious or slow-moving.

I’ll admit I remain highly intrigued by it all, and like most folks continue to find Dwan a highly compelling figure. On the most recent episode of the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast, Scott Seiver -- another interesting figure, not to mention excellent poker player (both online and live) -- commented a bit on the challenge. (An excellent interview, by the way, with a highly articulate, smart, and likable guy.)

Seiver was asked for his take on why he thought Dwan was issuing the challenge, in particular why he thought Dwan was willing to give that 3-to-1 advantage to his opponents. Seiver said he didn’t know exactly what Dwan might be thinking, but that he thought it had to do both with the publicity it drew and the fact that when playing that many hands offering 3-to-1 “isn’t that big of a deal.”

“If you’re the better player, you’re going to make enough money to overcome any odds you basically give as a side bet,” explained Seiver. He later added another comment about the challenge that I thought was very insightful, and perhaps helped explain why it remains interesting:

“To be able to play something like the Durrrr Challenge where you are in the spotlight and playing 50,000 hands against the same opponent, you can’t ever let doubt or fear creep in. And that’s what I think is one of Tom Dwan’s best assets, that he just has so much confidence and he doesn’t have the fear to make the right play.... Sometimes you know what a right play is, but it’s tough to actually pull the trigger on it. I think that’s one of Tom’s biggest strengths.”

I’m sure Dwan has his moments in which he experiences doubt, or even fear. If he’s human, that is. But still, it’s fascinating (I think) to see someone operate in a way that suggests he has neither, and even inspiring to see someone act with confidence, whatever it is that person is trying to accomplish.