Keystone Confessions

*blogger weekend recap*

Friday

I hopped onto the bus to New Hope, PA, where the lovely Donkette picked me up. After grabbing some supplies for the Saturday feast, we headed back to the Donk Villa. By that point, Kat had already made it as far as Scranton, PA, so we knew it was just a matter of time before the festivities began.

Donkette and I burned some time by flipping through some blogger pictures. Mini Donk even joined in on the fun. The two best reactions? I asked Mini Donk to describe for me what she thought Bam Bam looks like. After hearing her description, I pulled up one of the photos from Eh Vegas. She literally fell on the floor. The next was when I showed Donkette a picture of the worst poker player ever. Her response, "He's short!"

Once Kat arrived, we headed to the pub to meet up with Sir Al and Phone Book. We tried to trick Al into thinking that I wasn't going to the pub because of my eye, but Mini Donk finally succombed to his pressure and told him that I was on my way. How lame is that? Threatening a child to get the information that you want???

I noticed something upon walking into the pub. There are NO DARK CORNERS downstairs. Al promised me dark corners. Ah well. I had a drink in hand as soon as I arrived, so all was good. I met the lovely Connie, J-Dub, Big Mike, Landow and Perry. Perry has a blog, but not so many readers. Go check it out!

Before I knew it, there were dial-a-shots, more dial-a-shots, failed dial-a-shot attempts, dinner, blogger on blogger smooching, laughing, more shots, appearances by Evy, Perticelli, millerd33 and his girlfriend, more shots, *special* dances for Big Mike, more shots, etc. I noticed that after a while, it didn't really matter that I couldn't see anything (I'm not sure if that was because of the shots or because I took my annoying glasses off).

Saturday

My phone started to die Friday night, so when I plugged it into the charger Saturday morning (well, *late* morning), I had a text message from F-Train saying, "Guess who's on his way to the Borgata." I had told him that the plan was for part of the crew to head down to the Borgata during the day on Saturday and then head back to the Donk Villa for dinner and poker. Well, by that point in the day, the Borgata portion of the plan had fallen apart. ANIguy and I did some internet searching, and we found a bus that would take him from AC to Philly and then another bus that would take him from Philly to Doylestown. Three buses, three different states. Oh, and it's something like 75 miles from NYC to the Donk Villa.

After collecting F-Train from the Doylestown bus stop, we dove into dinner at the Donk Villa. Chicken in butter and garlic that fell apart without having to use a knife, plus all the fixins. I ate two plates of food. It was very reminiscent of Astin's feast in Eh Vegas. Dinner was the only time there was silence all weekend because everyone was stuffing their face.

We started a *friendly* $.25 / $.50 NLHE game with a $20 max buy-in. The line-up was Riggs, Carlos (Riverchasers player), Kat, Donkette, F-Train, ANIguy, millerd33, Perticelli and me.

I think millerd33 played every hand for the first hour. I was playing pretty LAG early as well, trying to snap off Carlos' 9-9 with the Asian Jew and seeing tons of flops regardless of the price. F-Train cracked Riggs' hammer with A-A (all-in pre). Then Riggs got it all back by going all-in blind and flopping a boat with K-6. I think I managed to put half the table on tilt at one point or another, especially ANIguy and Perticelli. Donkette jinxed F-Train by saying that the two of them were the only ones to not rebuy. F-Train promptly went broke on the very next hand, leaving Donkette the sole non-rebuyer.

We played exactly one hand of pot limit Omaha. Flop: K-6-6 with two clubs. Carlos and Kat checked. I bet the pot, and Riggs, Carlos and Kat all called. Both Riggs and I had flopped trip 6s, he with an A kicker and me with a J kicker. Four of us saw the turn, which was a 4. Carlos checked. This time, Kat led out for $10. I called, along with Riggs and Carlos. The river was a J. Carlos checked, and Kat went all-in. I snap called, and Riggs and Carlos both folded. Kat had turned a boat with 4-4, and I rivered a higher boat.

I was hoping to play some more PLO, particularly because millerd33 was running his mouth off about how he was gonna take all my money in Omaha, but the group wanted to stick with Hold 'Em.

The best moment of the night was when Donkette and Perticelli were in a hand on a board of A-9(?)-3. Donkette checked, and Perticelli fired out $6. Donkette glared at Perticelli and asked how much more he hand behind. After Perticelli gave her the amount, Donkette slowly counted out her chips. She announced a call and threw in her $6. Perticelli immediately responded by saying, "I respect you Donkette." Then he promptly threw his cards into the muck!

I finished with a nice profit, even though I donked off 4 buy-ins early. By the end of the night though, pretty much everyone was playing *deeper* stacked poker with all the rebuying action. It was a fun game with a lot of trash talking.

Sunday

I missed Kat's departure from the Donk Villa (she wanted to get on the road before the snow started getting bad around the Syracuse area) and finally made my way to the kitchen around 11:30am. ANIguy had some coffee brewing, and Mini Donk made us some eggs. F-Train and I were taking a 2:30pm bus, so we just had a chill morning with the Donk Family.

ANIguy was going to drive us to the bus stop before heading to a Riverchasers game. When we turned onto one of the roads, we saw a Trans-Bridge bus heading the other way. We joked about how that might be our bus. But then we were trying to figure out why it was going the other way. Once we started heading down another street, I asked ANIguy if we were heading to the Doylestown bus stop. We were. There was a ton of confusion because he picked F-Train up at the Doylestown bus stop, but we were going back out of the New Hope bus stop. Uh oh.

We hightailed it back toward the direction of the New Hope bus stop and saw the bus as it was heading out. ANIguy decided that we would follow the bus and just catch it at the next stop. But then something weird happened. We lost the bus. Scratch that idea.

The Riverchasers game that ANIguy was heading to was near Trenton. So we made some calls about the Trenton NJTransit train schedule. We got to the Trenton station and hopped onto a train at 4:06pm. From there, it was a breeze back into NYC.

I was exhausted from the weekend, but not too tired to play an $8 + $.70 Token SNG with Donkette. I won my token, so I guess I will be playing the MATH tonight.

**********

A special thanks to Donkette, ANIguy and Mini Donk for putting up with me all weekend. Thank you for your generosity. Also, a special thanks to Al for hooking me up at the pub on Friday night. The PA crew definitely knows how to treat a blogger with kindness. I had a blast hanging out with everyone, particularly after being stuck in my apartment for what seemed like forever.