Hey all,

It's been a long time since I've been on the forum and the poker scene in general. Since then a lot has changed in my life and I would say mostly for the better lol. I actually went to school for film production and started my own production company and have grown it pretty successfully.

Long story-short, this week I read the story of Matt Marafioti and started digging deeper into the story. I learned of how much mental illness he was actually dealing with and what a truly sad story it was. As I was browsing through stories and posts of Matt, I came across the passing of Chad Batista. I recognized the name "lilholdem" from back in the day, but never realized who he actually was or the significance he played in the online poker world. Over the last few days I have become borderline obsessed with reading about Chad's poker career, lifestyle, and mental health. I honestly don't know why. He was so different that it just intrigues me. His unorthodox style I think is the biggest thing that jumped out to me, all the while accomplishing these things under the heavy influence of drugs and alcohol at the same time. He was the poker villain it seems.

As the days have gone by, the more and more I think Chad's story would be a great documentary. The only problem is that there is not a lot of documented material about him (lack of interview with Chad and most likely little to no video of him playing online, live, or anything in his personal life). If he was still alive, I think I could absolutely create an awesome documentary on him, but sadly that is not the case.

This has kind of lit a fire under me to maybe pursue another interesting story to document that is currently going on in the poker world. Are there any pros or former pros that would make a great documentary in your opinion? If so, why? Obviously there's a lot that goes into making a documentary so a lot of pieces would have to fall into place (along with cooperation), but I'd love to start exploring some possibilities.

Have some ideas?? Shoot them out here. ESPECIALLY if that person is you! Feel free to PM me if you'd rather do that. I'm all ears.

I went down the lilholdem rabbit hole a couple weeks ago after hearing about him on a 10 year old episode of the Tournament Poker Edge podcast.

What previous work has your pretty successful production company done?

https://vimeo.com/user126474415

85% of my work is commercial/social corporate videos. I've been apart of a few tv pilots and also a documentary is currently on stand-by because of COVID (waiting on a criminal trial to be rescheduled. Still have no date or clue when it's supposed to happen).

If anyone that is serious about this wants to see the first 10-12 minutes of the doc that is on stand-by, I can send you a private link - but I definitely can't put it out to the public right now.

At this point I'm looking for a passion project. Just testing to waters right now.

i'd speak with his family

Why the name 42 Lights?

You have some pretty good quality stuff there. As I’m sure you’re aware, you’ll need to try to secure the rights to his story through his heirs. Even if you were to somehow skirt around that issue, you’d still want to try to secure some sort of approval from them and speak to them to gather information.

As far as other stories, I think that would depend on your intent. If it’s just for you, I’m sure there are plenty of poker player stories out there. If you want to potentially market it, you would definitely need a big name. Luckily, there are plenty of people who were big names during the boom and now either currently busto, struggling for relevance, or still at the top of the game who would be interesting to document.

The other option would be to do a documentary on a number of various players and show where they are now, etc. Good luck!

Thanks for the compliments on the video work. 42 has been my lucky number since elementary school and it's kind of always stuck with me everywhere I've gone so I kept it in the company name. "Lights" have everything to do with filming so I kind of just threw it in there. Seemed to fit I guess. Haha.

As for what I'm looking for... I'm definitely just looking for a VERY interesting story to tell. I don't really care if they're super known or not (obviously it would help if they were). I think an awesome story is going to sell the final product in the long run. I would be shopping this to the average person, not just poker players.

My goal would be to shop it around film festivals and hope it picks up steam. I have a few contacts that have connections with Netflix, but that's a hard road to get traction on..but definitely an option if the final product comes together nicely.

The reason I'm probably going to stay away from the Batista story is because of the lack of b-roll. You can barely find any videos of him online, so the chances that I would be able to collect A LOT of b-roll footage to use is probably very slim. I'm sure there are a million great stories of him that could be told with family and friends, but if there's nothing to enhance or show with those stories, it basically becomes a podcast.

If I'm going to go through with this, I definitely want to have a high quality product at the end and I'm just not sure that would be possible with Chad.

So if anyone knows of any players that have an awesome story to tell, please shoot them my way!

What is your audience? I'm sure you already know this, but if you want to reach a wider, more mainstream set of eyes, then you'll probably need to find universal human interest stuff in your subjects. A doc like The King of Kong worked because the two principals were presented in classic hero/villain roles. Searching For Sugar Man struck a chord because of the element of mystery that shrouded that entire story.

Anyway, I ask because it might help us make suggestions.

Two subjects for docs that are reportedly already in the works:
1. Doyle Brunson - supposedly done by the same "team" that did the Michael Jordan docuseries, although that film's creator denies it.
2. Mike Postle - even less concrete info, but it will almost certainly be slanted in favor of Mike's innocence.

I'm skeptical about either project, as I'm guessing that reports of each film's inception has been greatly exaggerated. But I mention both because they could be interesting docs, even if the latter will be hard to research in any definitive way.

Other subjects that could make good docs:
• The rise and fall of Full Tilt Poker. Yes, old and rehashed story for many of us – maybe too dated – but still a fascinating cautionary tale about how badly a company can get mismanaged. I've always envisioned a Full Tilt equivalent of what The Inventor was to Theranos or The Smartest Guys In The Room was to Enron, although both had the advantage of being companions to books at the same time.
• The poker scene in Macao.
• Poker on the silver screen. Going a little meta with this one, as it would be a movie about poker in movies. The ups, downs, challenges and outright vagaries of depicting the game on screen.

However, it sounds like you're looking to make docs about actual people rather than wider subjects, similar to the From Busto To Robusto series that Ryan Firpo did a while back. I found both of those interesting in that they featured players who were reasonably well-known within the poker community, but less known to casual fans.

As such, might be cool to profile some of the top players who more average poker players don't know. And since most casual fans know the tournament players (thanks to WSOP and WPT coverage over the years), maybe seek out someone who is only a cash game crusher. Further still, perhaps there is a good BTS doc to be made of a poker vlogger/Twitch streamer, etc.

Other people who could make interesting docs:
• Dan Bilzerian. No, really. But a good one would not likely be flattering to him, making his participation a tough sell, even for such an attention whore.
• Haralabos Voulgaris. Probably still posts on 2+2 but I'm too lazy to check. To me, he's sort of the equivalent to what Sig Mejdal is to baseball (SI article). I interviewed Sig for a short blurb in our alumni magazine about four years before, not knowing what a crazy 7-8 years he had on the immediate horizon.
• Benny Binion. Sure, there have been several books done about the Binions, most famously Positively Fifth Street, but I still think there's an interesting movie to be made about that family and era. Unfortunately, someone has the movie rights to the biography Blood Aces, but there have been situations when a doc and a feature came out at roughly the same time (e.g. Mister Rogers).

Hell, Firpo himself could be a subject. This guy started out doing poker-related documentary shorts like the Robusto series to mini profiles on PokerStars people (mement_mori, Ike Haxton, Nanonoko, et al) to a full-length poker documentary about Black Friday (Bet Raise Fold), and now has a full-length feature coming out later this fall.

I also say there could be a good featurette to be done on Kevin Mathers, but I'm sure I'm biased because I come from the media/communications industry. It's a parallel story as someone like Firpo. Start with a passion for a subject, add a tremendous amount of hard work and diligence, put out a quality product, sprinkle in some timely luck, and all sorts of possibilities open up. No, it might not make you rich, and often won't, but a mere hobby can turn into a livelihood.

In fact, it sounds like you're hoping the same thing works out for you, and I wish you the same success.

Or you can always find a brand new person who knows nothing of poker and document their journey of learning about it and eventual climb to playing in the Main Event. Similar to that recent book about that one lady who mentored under Erik Seidel.

I think I would do that. You’d get all original footage of your own so securing rights wouldn’t be an issue, it’d be fun, it’d be interesting, it’d appeal to players and non players alike, and I’m sure you probably already know a half dozen non players who have the potential aptitude to do well if they put in the work.

And you could do this in installments and/or as a web series if you’d like.

Make a doc about the spilotros playing in vegas.

I always thought the Ultimate Bet scandal would be fascinating material for a podcast or docuseries. It has plenty of intriguing characters that were impacted in various ways..you could even use Hellmuth who is one of the few players non-poker players would know. Think Brad Booth and Prahlad Freidman (interesting characters in their own right) we’re two of the biggest victims…etc etc.

The way the case breaks, all of the forensic work done by members of the poker community to prove guilt, the fact that a former WSOP champion was one of the chief architects of the fraud and stole millions. There was a documentary already done in it, which I haven’t seen, but I imagine that since more time has passed it might be easier for you to get interviews with people who otherwise may not have been so candid back then. There’s also a 60 Minutes piece that was done on it that could give you a succinct background.

If you could somehow get a Russ Hamilton interview, or someone close to him, that would be a great climax/finale.

Stealthmunk

This guy seems interesting.
https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-new...roller-circuit

The Ship it Holla Ballas (SIHB) is an interesting story and there’s plenty of info out there about them for background research.

At some point there was also a book. No clue how accurate it is tho.

Prob a few thousand+++ posts and many threads on this site about them or by them.

Hey Willbury, yup that was the documentary I was referring to.

Re: the second video, I obviously envisioned a more robust interview with Hamilton than an ambush where he doesn’t say a word. Why would he do that? I dunno. Perhaps there’s a statute of limitations that would apply. I’m not even sure what jurisdiction his conduct would be subject to given the Kawnsake (sp?) Gaming connection.

I’ll have to watch the documentary, but I just think the whole story would work well as a docuseries or podcast. There’s just so much there, there, that I just don’t think you can tell the full story in 90 minutes.

Has the ‘clear and convincing evidence’ referenced in that statement (2nd video) ever been made public? After all this time there may be people with inside information that have either retired or no longer feel the need to remain silent on the issue.

Maybe they can find relatives or friends of Russ Hamilton who are, for whatever reason, willing to share what they know.

I only recently got into podcasts, and docuseries have blown up in the past 10 years. I just think it’s a compelling story that would work well with either format.

I always found the Girah scandal fascinating. A deeper dive into his story could be interesting.

Isildur doc, duh!

Wasn’t this analogous to the monkeys and the typewriters idea?

Poker’s equivalent no?

I remember Girah.

1 of poker’s chancers.

You get them in all walks of life.

The interesting q: how complicit were jungleman and Haseeb Qureshi?

By the way, jungle and Brian Hastings have recently joined runitonce poker and released their 1st video each FYI.

I wouldn't do a person in poker imo. It could be the best poker person documentary in the history of the world such as on Doyle etc. but it will still be a yawn b/c it only piques the interest of a very narrow subset of the viewership out there. Unlike other major sports, many do not know nor care who the pluck Doyle Brunson is imho. Sorry, but that is just the truth.

Ever wonder why 60 minutes is so successful? Whatever subject it covers relates to the interests of the broader population. So, I recommend doing something on poker that makes it interesting to the lay person imho. I think a good constructive idea would be on covering how there are players out there (amateur and pro alike) who have to physically drive near or far certain states' borders just to play for money on their laptops. You could mention how this is essential for their livelihoods and makes a difference between feeding their families or not etc. Viewers will find that at least interesting, even if they do not directly care. In other words, they many not care directly but it is interesting like reading a book on some character. You could elaborate that with illustrations of aspiring or existing pros of how ridiculous but essential that is to their livelihoods but Washington can easily remove such impediment(s). Explain how in a place like America that should not continue to be the case and an unnecessary hardship in what we call a free marketplace of interstate commerce. Show how this is most ridiculously occurring in several border states like between ny/nj or nevada/california or delaware and its border states etc. This is just my personal feelings on what you should cover since you asked.

This sounds like an incredibly boring idea. Non poker players would never have any interest in watching this whatsoever and existing poker players already know about online poker laws.

How can you say what you say in the first part then propose an infinitely more boring and pointless topic after? Shame. SHAME!

LOL. First, like I said above - existing poker player base is a very very small subset of the American population. That is already one ding against doing documentaries that jrubb42 would want to be popular/successful imo.

More to the point, I bet if you took a scientific but random poll or survey of 1000 + people who have no interest in poker industry but ask them a question consisting of binary choice of what is more interesting: 1) A documentary on Dr. Meh's favorite professional poker player vs. what I referred to above, you would be wrong.

Here is another example to bring the point home: Why do you think the Money Maker story is so popular? A regular Joe who enters an online satellite "only" to go against the odds and win a professional poker main event is a story about the American Dream. THAT intrigues a wider audiences' interest. But a documentary on Eric Seidel? Give me a break. YOU may like the latter better and maybe many on this 2+2 forum do too. In fact, I think Seidel is one of the best if not the best all time pro out there ever. BUT many in the non poker world will find Seidel's story as effusively boredom just like if you were watching documentaries on the best in a field you may have absolutely no interest in too.

P.S. - Shame? WTF does that even mean? This is an opinion thread. HELLO!