Everyone's Irish Today...

...except me. I'm 100% Italain. But my favorite way to spend St. Patrick's Day is in Fort Meyer's Florida with the Red Sox at Spring Training. I used to do that EVERY YEAR. Talk about a week long party!

But here I sit in Boston while my buddy is following the sox around like a puppy dog.

The photo is from St. Patrick's Day 2008. Notice the beautiful palm trees lining the ball park and me, the Sicilian wearing green.

I didn't go last year because I thought I'd use that money toward a family vacation in Atlantic City. The cool part about going to Atlantic City (and there are very few cool parts to this story)is that I paid for the AC trip ENTIRELY with poker winnings. Yay me!

And I went there ASSUMING there'd be tons of poker games to be played, but I was wrong. I was staying in the wrong part of town for poker games. I got a cheap room at the AC Hilton but texas holdem games were extremely limited. They did have some in the new hotels that were far from me and quite inconvenient.

So what I did (because I'm a good mommy) is sit down for an hour (or less) at the black jack tables. Haven't played Black Jack in years, but I used to play alot. And yes I was/am a card counter.

You know what card counting is right? All cards are assigned a value, and you keep track of everyone's cards. When the count is in my favor, the bet increases big. When it's not in my favor the bet is the minimum. Luck is defintely a factor too - no guarantees in life or gambling.

First night I run downstairs to the casino with $100 and I leave in less than an hour with about $300. Yay!

Every night I do that and every night the win increased. $500 the next night, $600 after that. You get the picture right?

Even though I paid for the trip with winnings, while there I won more than the trip cost! Just with black jack! And I am so much more confident with poker than black jack, but when live gives you lemons, make lemonade (and money).

This year I thought I'd hit Vegas (with a texas holdem plan) in lieu of my first love, The Boston Red Sox. However, bills need to be paid, so we'll see how long it'll take to get to Vegas.

Gonna kick Jew Boy's ass tonight and yes, I'll take pictures.

Play Smart.

Josie