I can already call it … 2012 will be the year of poker documentaries. The desire to tell true-life tales about the rise and fall of online poker in the USA should reach fever pitch as a classic story of crime and punishment plays out on Court TV. Ooh, that’s just in theory, of course, as we don’t yet know what’s on the docket for 2012 in the Southern District of New York nor Court TV’s programming schedule for next year. But it’s almost enough to get my conspiracy bells ringing over WSOP-Europe’s move to Cannes and/or the trend of using ALL CAPS in titles.

A lot of you already know about BOOM: The Incredible True Story of Online Poker, produced by Cardrunners icons Taylor Caby and Jay Rosenkrantz. Now, also coming soon, we have ALL IN: The Poker Movie, produced by the relatively big-time 4th Row Films.

Apparently both Boom and All In were all (or almost) ready to go right before Black Friday … which kinda caused a narrative breakdown in their endings.

I sat for both these films (as a talking head) … but have no idea whether or not my parts ended up on the cutting room floor. Kinda bummed I didn’t end up in the teaser below for All In … but hey, I guess I can understand appearing lower in the credits than Howard Lederer and Annie Duke.

(Can only imagine how excited producers must have gotten over Bernie Madoff-level allegations against one of their “stars”!)

Release date (and New York premiere party?) scheduled for February 2012. I really can’t wait to see how it all ends … on the big screen as well as in real life.

There’s a legitimate New York film-making outfit working on a documentary about the history of poker … and next week they’ll be in Dallas. Naturally, because it has such a relevant role, they want to talk about the Dallas underground — and they’re asking me for contact info for people to talk to, games to see, etc.

I’ve talked with a lot of you before about doing something similar with local news crews — but perhaps not shockingly, ever since the first newscaster to sneak a hidden camera into the Dallas underground ended up getting engaged to the (already married) Chief of Dallas police around the same time her station got a sweeps-week exclusive showing SWAT teams busting up three games simultaneously, most of the “good guys” in the Dallas poker scene have been a little shy about opening their doors to the media … even with assurances that no one would give up any identifying info.

(Ahh, remember the good-ole-days when Stagecoach used to openly run its ballin’ website and pay little-ole poker websites for ads the Observer couldn’t run?)

Anyhow, so this outfit, 4th Row Films, is offering the same guarantees that they will protect identities and locations. Personally I think it would be a shame for this part of poker not to be seen. But I respect the fact people who run these games generally do so to support their gambling addictions families … so I’m not giving out any phone numbers or email addresses without any special OKs. I have, however, suggested they simply drive around to area strip malls looking for the telltale white, wireless doorbells — but that doesn’t seem to be giving them confidence as they fly their people and equipment to town. So if you happen to run a game in Dallas and would like your room to live on long after you die/get arrested and have to plea bargain down your misdemeanor … send me an email and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the right people.