Several Tigers with a taste for high stakes are part of an award-winning documentary on poker being released on iTunes today.
“All In: The Poker Movie,” an exploration of the rise in poker’s popularity and its integration into mainstream society from 4th Row Films, includes footage from a tailgate during a football game between LSU and Auburn and footage of LSU fans playing poker.
Featuring celebrities such as Matt Damon, Kenny Rogers and professional poker player Chris Moneymaker, the documentary illustrates the renaissance of poker over the last decade and a clash between politics and personal freedom.
Douglas Tirola, the film’s director and president of 4th Row Films, said he has always rooted for LSU from childhood, even though he is a graduate of the University of Miami.
Tirola said his personal desire to get back to LSU as an adult and experience a tailgate encouraged him to include shots of the University in “All In.”
Tirola came to the University to try his luck at finding a tailgate with some poker.
“I actually never read an article that there was poker played at an LSU tailgate. … I just was willing to bet like a poker game,” Tirola said. “I’m looking all around for this poker game, and finally we found some alumni playing poker and we found some students playing poker. In the movie there are some shots of that poker, and there are shots of students in the stands cheering.”
Tirola said part of the idea was to show that poker is not just being played in Las Vegas casinos, underground clubs or at some movie star’s house in Hollywood. He wanted to show that poker is played everywhere, in places that people don’t even think of.
Tirola said he learned from filming that poker is a great social game that is uniquely American.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like or what your physical abilities are,” Tirola said. “When we went to these games, we saw such diversity at the table. Even when we were at LSU, the people weren’t necessarily lifelong buddies. They were people that were united through LSU and through poker.”
The film has played in 50 cities nationwide, which Tirola said is lucky. In the screening process, once a distributor has seen the movie, usually at a film festival, someone may purchase the movie and have the ability to put it into theaters.
“There are somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 independent movies made every year,” Tirola said. “Maybe a couple hundred of those find their way into a movie theater. Anybody that makes a movie, you just want it to get the biggest audience that it can, so we are thrilled that it’s played in all these major cities, and we’re thrilled that it’s on iTunes.”
Tirola said filming “All In” also reminded him that some people don’t like gambling.
“People just feed on [the idea] that gambling involves risk and that it’s the role of the government to stop people from taking risks that could be unhealthy to them and want to stop people from that activity,” Tirola said. “What has happened with the economy in the last year, people have become very averse to risks. … We move forward as people and as a culture when we take risks.”
Tirola said the film celebrates more of an entrepreneurial risk in advancing the world of poker. He said poker can teach players to get back up and keep going when they fail.
“You hope you can touch a few people with that message, and the rest of the people, you just want them to have a great time,” Tirola said.
 
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Contact Raylea Barrow at [email protected]