Frank Desena, 55, of Wayne NJ was murdered Thursday night Nov 1, during an 11PM  robbery at the just re-opened Straddle Club at 28th and 5th. 

I heard about this tragedy from a friend of mine named Steve, who had played poker with Frank at the old Mayfair club in NYC.   Frank was one of the small group of Pot Limit/No Limit players, at a time when Limit Hold-Em was still the game of choice.  Steve remembers Frank as “a decent and intelligent guy, not one to lament or chirp at the table.”

This poker tragedy makes me wonder about whether the NYC police deparment has some sort of indirect responsibility.  Their decisions about the tolerance of poker are made on a precint-by-precinct basis, and this leads to inconsistencies in how poker laws are enforced throughout the city.   Might this in part explain why NY state poker clubs operate in a gray legal area, and have gone “underground,” where it is less safe and secure?   

As soon as I started thinking about this, I sent the story about Frank to Sean Webb, who is making a documentary film (”Underground Home Game“) about how the game of poker is under attack in the US, and someone who PokerMoments will be interviewing in the near future. 

 About two hours ago, I decided to do a post that lists a few funny poker cartoons.  I searched high and low on the Web, checking out Bloom County (one of my favorites when I was much younger), Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, Far Side, The New Yorker.  But, alas, I could only find one Calvin and Hobbest cartoon strip that was slightly amusing (see above - you’ll have to zoom in to %200 to read it).

There are poker cartoons.  But none of the ones that I checked out were worth posting.     

So where are the funny poker cartoons?  Are they like Indian-American poker players?