Bet Raise Fold – The History of Online Poker

AlexFonseca: Hey PokerDicas guys, how are you?

So, yesterday I watched Bet Raise Fold, the documentary that tells the story of online poker. I decided to write a little about the documentary, because I think it will help satisfy the curiosity of those who haven't seen it yet.

Overview
The documentary is interesting, but it is not a must-see for poker players of any level. For those expecting to see something like Rounders or Lucky You, don't be fooled, as I said before, this is a documentary and not a film, in which there are characters inserted in a story that has a beginning, middle and end (almost always with a happy ending).

The documentary is divided into pre and post Black Friday (BF) and aims to show the impact caused by BF on the lives of players, who until then had online Poker as their main source of income.

Pre Black Friday
This, in my opinion, is the most interesting part of the documentary. It shows everything from the emergence of online poker in the US to the complete shutdown of the market with Black Friday. For those who don't know, the poker industry is relatively new, it emerged in 1999 with Planet Poker, the first site to offer real money online poker in the world, followed by a few other sites, including Party Poker which was launched in 2001, which became the largest online poker site in the world after the so-called Chris Monyemaker effect.

The Chris Moneymaker Effect
For those who don't know, Chris Bryan “Moneymaker” was an amateur player who qualified for the WSOP main event in 2003, through an online satellite on PokerStars. Because of this feat, Chris won not only the Main Event buy-in, but also the airfare, accommodation and all those perks that we poker players are well-known for. On this occasion, Chris beat a field of 829 players (yes, there were only 829 players in the main event), including names like Phil Ivey and Sam Farha, thus winning a prize of 2.5 million dollars, which in turn led him to quit his job in order to become a professional poker player.

Chris Moneymaker, in my opinion, was one of the most important characters in the history of online poker, because until then online poker was seen as a fictional game, people didn't believe that their opponents were real, much less that they would make money from it.

Just to give you an idea of the impact this had on world poker, after Chris's feat, the WSOP main event field jumped from approximately 900 players in 2003 to 2,500 in 2004. The fact that a player, until then an amateur, qualified for the World Poker Championship through an online poker site, and made a profit of 2.5 million dollars, made many people consider that this could be a very profitable way to make a living. In addition, Chris not only helped online poker as a whole, but also the PokerStars to become what it is today, since everyone wanted to play on the site that was the pivot for all this to happen.

The best of the party
The period between 2004 and 2010 was certainly the golden age of Online Poker in the US. Many people left everything they were doing to play Poker professionally, and in many cases they were successful, considering that: 99.9% were fish, that is, a full plate for the grinders, who in turn were much weaker than today, but above average. Among the many stories shown in the film, one caught my attention: that of DANIELLE “dmoongirl” MOON-ANDERSEN, who until then was a housewife looking for an extra income for her family.

Danielle – Before Black Friday
With the popularization of online Poker, Danielle saw the possibility of earning an extra income, without having to make too many sacrifices, so that she could continue with her household chores and, at the same time, earn some money from online Poker.
So, Danielle started playing on FullTilt, which according to her was the most reliable site on the market, with the best offers, blah blah blah... and with that, she earned much more than the $100 she had planned, reaching a point where the profit obtained from online Poker was enough to support her home and the grind. During this period, Danielle had the full and unrestricted support of her parents and her husband, the latter even quit his job to live solely on the income obtained by Danielle from Online Poker, and then Black Friday came along...

Black Friday
On April 15, 2011 – Black Friday, the US government blocked the domains of the FullTilt Poker sites, PokerStars and Absolute Poker, under the allegation that they were committing a crime, known in Brazil as Crime against the popular economy. In the case of PokerStars Things were a little more relaxed, however... at FullTill things got serious. According to the US government, FullTilt had a little over 300 million dollars in deposits, but of these 300 million, “only” $100 million dollars were available in cash in case of withdrawal. The situation is very similar to the following:

You have a checking account in a Brazilian bank, where you make deposits and withdrawals. In theory, you should keep your money separate from the money that is used to cover the bank's operating costs. Not all the money you deposit in the bank is the bank's profit. Only part of it will become profit through the fees charged by the institution, in the case of Poker – the Rake.

What FullTilt did was use the money from deposits in the accounts to cover its high operational costs. The documentary reports that since 2007, FullTilt had been suffering losses in its operations, but the money collected from the deposits was more than enough to cover costs and still make investments. The two biggest mistakes made by FullTilt's directors were:

1- Imagine that no one was watching what they were doing
2 – Consider that it was impossible for all FullTilt players to “Cash-out” their accounts completely at the same time.

That's when hypothesis number 1 happened, which resulted in the arrest of its president, Ray Bittar, and also in several other legal problems, such as the closure of the website that was recently acquired by PokerStars.

The documentary shows that since 2007, FullTilt, which was founded by some big names in Poker such as: Chris Fergunson, Phill Ivey and Howard Lederer, made withdrawals that together amounted to around $10 million dollars per month, but even having received money from players' accounts, none of these people were arrested, only Ray Bittar who, as previously mentioned, was the CEO of FullTilt at the time.

Now, back to Danielle's story

Danielle – After Black Friday
After Black Friday, Danielle saw her main source of income dry up overnight, unable to play online poker. Danielle tried to compensate for the grind by playing live tournaments, which also didn't yield many results, leaving not only her without money, but also her husband, father and mother, who in a certain scene appear criticizing her for having based everything solely on online poker. The conclusion of the story is that Danielle went to work as a waitress in a restaurant in her city (it sounds like a soap opera). At the same time, her father, who had previously been totally in favor of Danielle's career, not only criticized her, but also let it slip that he had already had problems with gambling and that was why he had always been somewhat wary of his daughter's career.

I comment:
I don't play poker professionally, but I know that the life of a poker player is not easy. I also imagine that until Black Friday no one could have imagined an event of this magnitude, so I don't blame Danielle for any decision she made. Now, having the support of your family while you are in a good financial situation and then, after the source dries up, seeing that support disappear, along with your financial situation, must be a tough thing...

FullTilt and PokerStars
Last year the PokerStars acquired its former rival, FullTilt Poker in a deal worth several hundred million dollars, which not only “cleaned” FullTilt’s record with the US government, but also allowed the site to be reactivated. American players still have their funds frozen by the US government and there is still no forecast for when the funds will be released, much less whether these sites will return to operating in this market. Let’s see what the next chapters of this story will be…

This was my review of the documentary, I hope you enjoyed it! For those who are interested in watching it, below is the link to the website where you can buy it, the cost is $12.99 for the version with the extras and $9.99 for the commercial version of the material. Remember that Portuguese subtitles are not yet available for the film, so if you haven't done a wize-up 😀 it's best to wait for a possible subtitle.

Movie website: Bet Raise Fold

hugs!
Alexander

Falcao 09: Very good summary :happy34:

viniciussb: Excellent summary, congratulations!

I had already seen the news on superpoker, but I hadn't found any summary.

I'm very interested in watching it!

Vadiu: I tried to watch it with my family, but they couldn't handle it and I had to turn it off :(

Carcamano: The documentary is cool, but I expected more. The parts with Tony Dunst are the most boring, but Danielle helps to make up for it.
They could have made better use of Phil Galfond too.

pokermachine: I thought the parts with him were really cool, the parts with Danielle were weaker. hahahhaha

Carcamano: pokermachine I liked Danielle's parts because it shows how BF affected those who grinded... it's more the reality for the majority. Without the WPT, Tony would be on the ropes…

Vadiu: it's sick how those involved in the fulltilt scheme came out unscathed with the exception of ray bittar who was made a scapegoat.

Original author: AlexFonseca.