Jungleman Admits Involvement in Macedo Scandal

2010 high stakes champion Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates has barely spoken since the Macedo/Girah Scandal exploded; even in a former interview summarised here at Rakerace.com as well, he kept it short and close to meaningless. Many believed it was because he was genuinely not involved closely and the only people dirty are José Macedo, who confessed the scam and his backer, Haseeb ‘dogishead’ Qureshi. Recently, however, ‘Jungleman12’ has given an interview to Subject: Poker via phone/Skype that has overwritten the previous assumptions.


“[Cates] agreed to allow Venessa Selbst, a respected high stakes poker player, to join the interview as well. Just hours after that interview concluded, Cates’s publicist contacted me to inform me that Cates had lied to us and that he would like to do another interview to explain. Both interviews appear below.

We had originally agreed, as a compromise between a text and voice interview, to conduct a voice interview but only to publish the transcript. Cates later agreed to publish the audio in the interest of transparency. Because of this confusion, the audio quality is quite poor–There is static, typing, and various sound effects from our respective computers audible on the recording–and much of the interview is conducted more casually than would be ideal. The interviews also have no clear introduction or closing statements. Subject: Poker apologizes for these problems,” the site stated in their introduction to the interview.

First interview:

• In the first interview, ‘Jungleman’ says that Macedo contacted him online, asked for coaching but he actually never gave José any. Qureshi was closer to him, although Cates also saw a potential in him, based on their few conversations.
• Cates states that neither he nor Qureshi were aware that Macedo owns the ‘LookingForProdigy’ 2p2 account. Probably all of you know that the user ‘LookingForProdigy’ (that is, Macedo himself) was the one to start the "Portugese prodigy wins over 2 mill on euro sites. LF more info!" topic which made the unknown “Portuguese Prodigy” a celebrity almost instantly. In addition, ‘Jungleman’ also denies to have ever played Macedo’s account.
• Answering the question of who played $25/$50 PLO with Macedo’s account, ‘Jungleman’ says that it was Qureshi. Noah Stephens-Davidowitz then says that Macedo has previously stated in a Skype conversation that it was not ‘dogishead’.
• He also seemed to believe that ‘Girah’ needed the chip-dumped $100,000 because part of his online winnings was stolen from him and he also bought a house. Cates sounds genuinely surprised when Davidowitz tells him that Macedo has never actually bought any house.
• ‘Jungleman’ states that he got to know that Macedo did have money, despite what he had said, when he offered those he scammed $500,000 for not coming out with the story.
• He did not decide not to move to Portugal when the scandal exploded but before, as soon as he was informed of the scam.
• ‘Jungleman’ confirms that Qureshi was not aware of the ongoing Bluff Challenge when he dumped the $100,000 to Macedo.
• Cates says that Macedo has played some PLO but not much, not on high stakes and he was not staked for it. Davidowitz remarks that Macedo, or somebody with his account has played $25/$50 PLO HU on four tables even after the chip-dumping. ‘Jungleman’ admits it is not something accomplished easily by a player inexperienced with the game type. Finally, he finds it possible that it was Qureshi, but denies once again playing Macedo’s account.
• He still completely trusts Qureshi.
  

Following the 80+ minutes interview, a call from Cates’ publicist came to Davidowitz and he told him that Cates was lying in the previous one about Qureshi playing Macedo’s account and it was actually him doing so. So the second take followed.

Second interview (in 2 parts):

• ‘Jungleman’ acknowledges his involvement in the scandal, playing $25/$50 PLO sessions with the ‘SamChauhan’ account several times. He also confesses playing the ‘Toshisan’ account (this one is Qureshi’s) on the iPoker network, in addition to ghosting when Macedo played $50/$100; i.e. telling him what to do.
• Cates says that when he started to play Macedo’s account, the villain immediately started to play tight than quitted soon. Although he did not think about it at that time, it is possible that it was Macedo’s Portuguese friend and that they tried to scam him some way.
• ‘Jungleman’ also states that Qureshi knew that his reputation already ran low in the poker community so he decided to take responsibility for the whole scheme.

Further on in the conversation, ‘Jungleman’ started to become more and more confused and he was caught up in more and more contradictions. For instance, when he was asked about the number of times he talked to Macedo, he first answered not many; towards the end, however, he remembered several occasions. At points, he sounded as if he was not aware of the weight of his words; taking it lightly, he admitted his role laughing. Meanwhile, sometimes it seemed he still tries to hide some secrets with lies.

‘Jungleman’, who used to seem absolutely clear of any involvement in such a scandal, may face a hard time in his career at best. While Haseeb Qureshi has already announced that he was retiring from poker permanently, we are awaiting newer pieces of the picture to surface.

Related articles:
Jungleman and Dogishead Interviewed on Girah Scandal
Conspiracy Theories about the Girah Scandal
Jose Macedo Busted for Scamming His Students