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The documentary “All In – The Poker Movie” debuted in theatres this past week to mixed reviews. Its star, the man who essentially helped generate interest in a fledgling online poker industry back in 2003, Chris Moneymaker, was prominently featured in the film. That year, Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event as an unknown who entered via an Internet card room satellite.
“Some guy called me and wanted to do a documentary,” Moneymaker told Entertainment Weekly. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I mean, movie’s never gonna be made anyway. This is six years ago. He comes out to the house. I set up a nice little home game for him. I bust first so I have the pleasure of talking with him. He leaves and I don’t hear from him for years. Then finally I get a phone call: ‘Hey, this movie might get made. You wanna be part of it?’”
Moneymaker – and, yes, that is his real name – discussed what decisions went into determining the subject matter for the abbreviated documentary.
“It was extremely hard to cut it down. I approached it as if poker was almost like a character, a human being, and this is the biopic. So there’s a history and it’s also that pop-culture history, seeing all the places poker shows up and reminding people that it’s always been there, even if you weren’t thinking about it. So I knew we had to have Kenny Rogers in the movie — not that he has anything to do with the technical part of the game, but from the ’70s until the mid-’80s, ‘The Gambler’ is part of the history of poker. People forget, there were five movies-of-the-week based on that song. Dogs playing poker — everybody knows that image whether they like poker or not. So I felt that needed to be in the movie. “
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
