I’m off to the premiere of Bet Raise Fold: The Story of Online Poker, at the Palms. Supposedly there’s gonna be a bitchin’ after-party, too. Supposedly I’m in it … but we never got around to a second interview, so who knows who makes it past the cutting room floor.

But assuming I did make the cut, maybe I’ll finally get a listing in the IMDB?

Bet Raise Fold is the second recent online poker documentary. I was in the other one, too. All In: the Poker Movie was abuzz at last year’s WSOP, and just last week made its small-screen debut, beginning a run on Showtime.

It’s not a surprise that All In made it first in the race to tell the post-Black Friday poker story, even though Bet Raise Fold was more than halfway done before Black Friday. All In was made by experienced filmmakers, after all, who simply jumped on the opportunity to put Leonardo DiCaprio Matt Damon in a YouTube freeze-frame, imho. But BRF was made by the minds behind the Micros — real poker players who know firsthand the impact of Black Friday — so I’ll be very curious to see if their deep connection to the storyline makes their movie better or worse.

For those who weren’t up at 6am pacific last Thursday watching news, Chris Moneymaker appeared on Morning Joe (MSNBC’s start to the mainstream news day) with Doug Tirola, director of ALL IN: The Poker Movie … the documentary you’ve been hearing about for years (it won an award at the Cinevegas Film Festival three years ago!) that really has been finished thanks to Black Friday providing an ending, and is finally showing for the non-poker public:

While poker people may think this film is a fine representation of the past nine years of our lives … the virtual parade of poker personalities telling the tale (including yours truly, ahem) in the most hyped poker movie since Lucky You got panned by had the New York Times rolling its eyes, saying, “in the interest of accuracy. It ought to be ‘All In: The Poker Propaganda Movie.'”

Fair-ish point by the NYT, but really, watch the clip above and you see a filmmaker who, after 5+ years shooting this film, is not so much a political activist as he is a religious convert.

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.

[tab: News]All In: The Poker Movie won the jury prize for Best Documentary at the CineVegas Film Festival last week — which knowledgeable movie people tell me is known as a respected minor league version of Sundance. It supposedly won’t be announced until tomorrow afternoon, but Variety already has the results.

Chris Moneymaker is a hero again.

Even not-so-pokery people are saying this 98-minute history of the game is a sleepy sleeper hit. Indie Film Examiner says:

This film claims that poker is a “microcosm of the American dream”. After viewing it I completely agree.

And VegasHappensHere:

But “All In” tonight really taught me something else: The poker boom is about as American as anything ever was. The variation on the game itself — Texas Hold ‘Em — is an American invention. Risk-taking is the foundation of our capitalist society. And the ingredients that turned it into what it is today include new technology (hole-card cams, Web poker) and anyone-can-succeed chutzpah (Moneymaker) that have deep roots in our national traditions.

[tab: Video from premiere]
PokerListings was at the premiere, at the Palms:

All In: The Poker Movie Premiere from PokerListings.com