Buffett's Monopoly Investment guru's holdings highlighted in Berkshire Hathaway version of popular board game. (full story)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Thursday evening, one lucky bidder put in the winning bid of $351,100 for lunch with the Oracle of Omaha, beating the next highest bid by only $100.

Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (Research), holds an annual charity auction to benefit San Francisco's Glide Foundation. Glide, which offers a range of services including free meals, housing assistance and job training, is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

The auction, now in its third year, offers the highest bidder and seven companions a lunch with Warren Buffett at a "mutually agreed upon time, date and place." Bidding began at $25,000 a week ago.

Last year's winner, a Singapore investor named Jason Choo, paid a relatively inexpensive $202,100 for the honor, later increasing his contribution to Glide to $250,000. He may have been in the running again -- a bidder called "jchoo9" with positive feedback from the Glide foundation from last August, placed several bids topping out at $301,000. If it was Choo, he was the high bidder at that price for just a little over a minute.

Buffett, who has a net worth of $44 billion, is known as the world's greatest investor, and is the most famous practitioner of a strategy called "value investing."

For his part, Buffett has said he would make the lunch as worthwhile as possible for the winning bidder, giving them leeway in how to conduct it.

-- from staff and wire reports

Buffett has recently put a huge stake in the energy industry, and it may be just the beginning. Read more here.