If you're a fan of poker documentary films, we've got good news for you. The No Filter Poker Series has teamed up with PokerPro World to produce No Filter Poker Taking the World by Storm – a 37-minute saga about the birth of the No Filter Poker Series and its enigmatic founder.
When Swedish lawyer and businessman Mounir Taijou first discovered poker he, like many others, found himself captivated by the larger-than-life characters who lit up the scene during the game's golden age in the early 2000s. Phil Ivey, Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Phil Hellmuth. These were the personalities that attracted Taijou to the game.
In recent years, however, he thinks poker has become "too slow, too quiet, too boring."
With this assessment in mind, Taijou has set out to make poker fun again – less GTO, more YOLO.
No Filter origins
In 2025, as his home country took steps to abolish land-based casinos, it was time for Taijou to put his own plans in motion and the No Filter Poker Series was born.
The NFPS website reads:
"What began as a simple idea — to make poker accessible, transparent and enjoyable within the bounds of the law — has grown into something much bigger. We now find ourselves at the forefront of a larger conversation: the future of gambling regulation in Sweden, and the urgent need to open the door for privately owned casinos.
"We believe that when honest people are prevented from participating in regulated, responsible forms of entertainment, darker forces inevitably fill the void. History is full of examples — when governments try to suppress gambling, alcohol, or other so-called “vices,” the result is often the rise of black markets, criminal networks, and unsafe environments."
Later that same year, the NFPS hosted festival, the No Filter Nordic & Baltic Championship Open, in Tallinn, Estonia.
No Filter on film
As part of the festivities, Taijou invited Scotty Nguyen, 2025 WSOP Main Event winner Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi and his son Paul, and Duncan Blake 'The Singing Poker Player' to highlight the series and its €3,500 Legends of the Game tournament. With a fourteen-event slate and plenty of wild cash games on the side, the tour's maiden voyage exceeded expectations – and Taijou had a documentary film crew on hand to showcase the whole shebang.
From a luxe boat ride around the Stockholm archipelago to a welcome dinner party with all the trimmings, Taijou rolled out the red carpet for his esteemed guests before they embarked for Estonia the following morning. There's a slight hitch, however, as they woke up to find a missing Mizrachi – father, not son.
While Taijou distracted Nguyen from the potential missing persons case with stories of his entrepreneurial spirit and his dismay at the lack of emotion in poker nowadays, the champ arrived – unharmed and in good spirits. Later, Taijou shared his theory on how Tom Dwan unintentionally inspired a generation of slow players – "the negative effect of Tom Dwan" as he calls it.
Then, they're off to Tallinn for the poker – check out the rest of the adventure in the video above.
