In the grand tradition of Rocky Balboa, Return to Mayberry, and The Brady Girls Get Married, your favorite poker podcast returned today with a brand-spankin’ new episode. Five months after announcing their “retirement” — has it really been five months? seems like three — the group collectively determined the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts, and have thus decided to try and recreate the adventure, the thrill, the magic that is Beyond the Table.

Or, as Tom puts it, “We all got bored with our lives.”

The return show finds our intrepid trio (plus Sit-N-Go Steve) in classic BTT form, managing to cover a wide range of topics despite (or because) Dan is sitting on his mute button. Following the awkward reintroductions (“uh… do I know you?”), the fellas discuss the recent WCOOP successes of Tom (a.k.a., “luvgamble”), team poker tourneys, political prop-betting, the differing concerns of amateurs and pros at the WSOP, and UB cheating scandal rumors.

They even get down to brass tacks and answer some poker-related listener calls, suggesting that if you were to call the listener line — (888) 820-8091 — they might well answer your question sometime during the next six months or so, too! You can also email ’em at theshow(at)beyondthetable(dot)com.

Some of you have been wondering, why no new episodes of Beyond the Table? Tom, Karridy, and I have been wondering the same thing. It’s been a good run, and with drinks in the air, three guys who clearly love/hate the sounds of their own voices are calling it podcast quits.

Back when we started, our show about poker but not really about poker stood out as revolutionary in a sea of lame poker interviewcasts with questionable audio quality. Soon after iPod sales were booming as more and more of the world got hooked on downloading poker audio with funny intros and Angry Julie cameos. But Tom couldn’t handle the celebrity and Karridy developed a crack addiction lives got busy and producers for Beyond the Table fared about as well as drummers for Spinal Tap. The show hired Shamus at a fraction of a Cambodian farmer’s wage to pump up our numbers — did he ever get his T-shirt? — but with a new generation of poker podcasts getting better and stronger (Lou Kreiger, Gary Wise, 2+2, Pocket Fives, Ante Up, Poker Road, et al) old-school payola wasn’t enough to save us from going out on the podcast bubble.

Listen below to a heretofore unpublished episode (recorded on 2-27, my dream flop) as your favorite semi-amateur yammerers phone it in for the last and final-ish time:

Beyond the Table: Fin

Thanks for listening via RSS, iTunes, play-in-popup, and direct download … we already miss ourselves.

You can still prank call Karridy on the Beyond the Table listener line at 888-820-8091.

Yeah, Yeah – no one wants to hear my pity party – so I decided to get off my ass and book a trip to Vegas for what will be a much needed break from the kids for both myself and the always lovely Mrs. SitNGo! We land Thursday afternoon and stay thru Sunday and I should get plenty of quality poker in as we only have tickets to one show (“O”) and I overheard Mrs. SitNGo telling a friend on the phone that I would be playing poker the whole time and she was looking forward to spending all of my hard earned money having some alone time. Following the advice of Dan and Tom, and some independent research at All Vegas Poker, I booked us at the Venetian. I can’t wait for the trip, but I admit I have some nervous excitement to finally get back at a poker table. The room review at All Vegas makes the Venetian room sound great, but the competition sounds stiff. Some quotes from others who have gone there:

“These guys were very good. Where I come from (Oklahoma Indian Casino Poker rooms) you could limp in for 2 bucks and see a flop most of the time. At Venetian, you could not see a flop for less then 10 bucks.” – Is it a bad sign that the majority of my live cash game experience is at Oklahoma Indian Casino’s?

“Probably the toughest room I’ve ever played in.” – Great.

“First of all no one at my table brought it in for less that 20 and it ranged to thirty literally, pre -flop!!and then you look weak if you don’t up it after the flop so its not really 1-2 by any means more like 1-25$.” – Some concern here as I definitely don’t want to play pre-flop action that will be stretching my already meager $1/2 NL bankroll.

I shared my concerns with the Beyond the Table crew and Dan texts me:

“Puhlease. The 1/2 competition there is plenty weak. I played against a weak player who i clearly had on a flush draw … And when he hit it, he reached for his wallet thinking he could buy more chips. It was an obvious tell.

You will find the game easier than burleson.” – Fair enough Dan and point taken – there is definitely no reason psyching myself out before I even play a hand!

Along with that cash game action, I plan on playing in 1 tournament and providing daily updates here – nothing better to keep your play sharp than announcing your win/loss rate – right? Here’s hoping that I have enough cash to last for the required 6 hours of play per day to qualify for the poker rate!