As my first post after the holidays and some taking-care-of-personal-biz time, I am proud to serve this one up. Monks in South Korea were busted by the police for gambling. That’s not very zen, but the visual brings laughter every time.

The Korea Times reported that a group of five Buddhist monks were minding their spiritual business by playing a little high-stakes poker at a hotel in the North Chungcheong Province, where they were staying for a monk-ish convention. There was about 9 million won in play, which translates into roughly $6865 and some nice action. Where monks might get that kinda dough is probably not my concern, but I do not believe it was the best karma decision for the cops to bust them for playing cards with it.

“We were tipped off that a group of monks were gambling,” a police officer said.

A new episode of (the new and improved!) Beyond the Table is up. We’re still tinkering with the technology you see on the righthand sidebar and below … so any functional usability feedback will be totally ignored because you are probably not smart and we’re tired of fucking with shit warmly received and carefully considered.

Beyond the Table – 4/11/07[display_podcast]

This week, you’ll get the clickable privilege of hearing, Tom, Karridy, and Dan enlighten you about:

Segment 1

• Chris Moneymaker urinating during an interview
• Covering the WSOP as a blogger / “working” the WSOP as a player
• Getting stood up by Cash Poker, and other televised cardsy infomercials
• World Poker Tour moves from Travel Channel to GSN.
• Deal or No Deal strategy
• ZeeJustin kicking simultaneous ass online by playing two tourneys at once
• Criminal poker and the lack of recourse

Segment 2

• Tom heading to Bellagio for the 5-star WPT Championship
• The mathematics of buying in (or not) for $25k
• California players vs. Arizona players
• Poker strategy at The World Series of Golf
• Tom grows up, technologicially speaking

Segment 3

• One-name wonders in Poker (and Soccer)
• Googlefight.com while Tom takes a leak
• Annette_15 — underage online PokerStars phenom, top-ranked online player in the world, and not seeing Gavin Griffin’s penis
• Gavin Griffin wins the EPT Championship
• Teaching Tom to use google to stalk Annette Obrestead
• Males vs. Females online, and lack of interest in Dan’s proposed “Male Minority” tournament

There were two hands talked about in Austin last week more than any others. One was relayed by Crandell Addington … when Doyle Brunson flopped a set of Aces and laid down a boat on the turn in like 442 AD. (Brunson was right … the other guy had quads, which would go on to lose to bigger quads on the Nile.)

The other was this hand, between Clonie and Vanessa Rousso on Cash Poker … which is basically like High Stakes Poker, only a bit smaller of a game and grittier:

Wow. After that, somebody clearly needs a big hug.