BY TOM SOMACH

A couple of entrepreneurs have combined poker and online social networking in the latest attempt to make money off the worldwide poker craze.

The result is a new website called K9 Poker (www.k9poker.com).

That’s K9 as in canine, or relating to dogs, not K9 as in king-nine, a so-so starting hand in Texas hold ‘em.

An image of the classic “Dogs Playing Poker” painting on the website’s home page confirms that.

The site considers itself a kind of Party Poker (www.partypoker.com) meets My Space (www.myspace.com) merger, although the site does not offer online poker, either for free or for real money.

According to a news release put out by the website’s founders, the website was started by two amateur poker players who created it “to connect people together through their common interest in poker.”

“There are thousands of home games, poker tournaments and players in cities all across the U.S. listed on this website with new listings entered every day,” the news release states.

“Poker players can use K9Poker.com to post a poker profile, establish a personal network of poker friends, search for local home games and tournaments, write blogs, find useful poker information, discuss poker and much more,” the news release states.

Lest anyone worry that cops might monitor the website and bust home poker games in jurisdictions where they are illegal–don’t.

A visit to the website reveals that it does not reveal the actual locations of any home poker games, just the cities where website members regularly hold them.

A person looking for a game can then e-mail such a website member, in or near his hometown, for more information about a potential poker game.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)