Jose Macedo Busted for Scamming His Students

José’s strategy contributions to this group were exceptional, and many top players were very impressed. Early in July, José created a second group which he said was for the best players to further discuss strategy, review each others videos and do some live sweats, to discuss hands just after they had happened. José and everyone elses’ strategy discussion continued to be very good and in early July, somewhere around the 10th, Joséwatched 2p2 poster ImFromSweden whilst he played a session. During this session IFS played sauron1989 HU on iPoker. IFS lost just over $10,000 in 70 hands of $10/$20 but both of them typed into the skype chat group that they thought that this sauron1989 was very bad. About 10 days later, José offered to watch me whilst I played a session on iPoker. Thinking that this was a good opportunity for me to have my play reviewed by a top player, I agreed and he watched my session start out as a 6max session but soon I had sat with sauron1989 on an empty 6max table, after José had told me that this guy was bad and spewy and proceeded to lose a total of $21,900 to sauron1989 over the course of 2 matches at $25/$50. I felt like something was wrong during the matches, not a feeling I can explain, but it just didn’t feel like any other HU match I’ve played and I got suspicious.

After reviewing the skype chat logs, it became fairly clear that José was massively pushing this sauron1989 to anybody who had iPoker funds, saying that he was very bad and that everyone should play him (and let him watch when they did). I voiced my concerns to TooCuriousso1 and we proceeded to work hard to dig up evidence to prove this. Lots of circumstantial evidence was available; José’s chat logs were extremely suspect, where he would push players to play sauron1989 despite not seeming to play him himself. We soon witnessed that whenever José would disconnect from skype, sauron1989 would sign out of the ipoker lobby and would sign back in when José reconnected to skype. This happened 3 times in 20 minutes and all 3 times both José’s skype and sauron logged out and in at the same time. During our attempts to find more evidence, it became clear that José was also operating under the username of dollarman223 on the Merge network. He scammed TooCuriousso1 for $900 and appeared to be setting up another member of the group for a further scam at $50/$100, which we anticipated would be his biggest scam. Once we voiced our concerns to the rest of the group it became apparent that José was setting up quite a few of them for a scam.

Obviously it was naiive and stupid of me and of the others to allow José to watch our screen whilst we played high stakes, but based on a few months of internet friendship and the great strategy José posted, we believed he was entirely trustworthy (despite the scepticism voiced in José’s NVG thread).

A while ago, I did something stupid. A friend of mine, who I introduced to poker, made a suggestion to me which was, I'm not going to sugar coat it, cheating. I had introduced this friend to poker and he was losing money, badly. He asked to play some of my poker friends and said why don't you sweat them and we'll see their hands. I don't know why I agreed. I don't know why I did it. I guess it was a mixture of guilt and stupidity and feeling ****ty for getting him involved in something which seemed to be bad for him.

This went on for a short while but I felt so bad, I had to say something. I confessed. I told the guys involved what I had done, I told my friends and the people who I respect and who respected me.

I told my Mum, confessed everything to her. I could see the disappointment moving across her face as she told me she was not proud of me despite all my success in poker; she was not proud of her son. She said how she hadn't raised me this way and what had poker done to me. Thats when it hit me, how badly I had let people down. I felt ashamed, I had no explanation; explanations don't cut it in situations like this and often come across as excuses.

There is a quote on the wall in my school which I always see as I pass the nurse's office. It says that the real mistake is not tripping up, but staying down. I thought of that and that's why I'm writing this.

I'm holding my hands up and taking whatever consequences come. I realise the severity of this, but I also realise that I have to take responsibility for my actions and so I'm paying back everyone involved and in addition paying them compensation of $30,000. I've also told my sponsor etc and whatever happens there I will take the consequences too. They have been really amazing to me and I've enjoyed every minute of working with them. Representing Lock and being part of their amazing team, witnessing the incredible growth, was a pleasure and an honor.

I'm young, I made a mistake and I hope that this doesn't define me; I hope that how I deal with this and move forward is the thing that does. And people will say I have no excuse and I know and understand that. I agree. I just want to let everyone know, I'm sorry. I apologise to the guys who lost their money, the people who I love and care about and I have disappointed and the guys in the poker world who have supported me for letting them down. I wish Ish I had something to say to you all, to say to my parents and my friends and all of those who thought I could do no wrong.