Roy Hodgson??

Roy Hodgson for next England manager? He seems a decent man but it's got to be Harry hasn't it? Everyone seems to be writing off Redknapp's chances with the news the FA are speaking to Hodgson, but surely the FA won't just speak to one man. I've got a little bit of 4.2 on Betfair about Harry tonight and I reckon there are worse 3/1 shots around.* (Edited to add late Sunday night - just topped up at 6.2! - maybe somebody on there knows something...)

Mind you, it is the FA we're talking about here..

Hope you've managed to stay dry these last few days, what miserable weather. Our results since Thursday haven't been good either, just the four picks, but not one placed and all rather bleak. Plenty of support about for one or two of them though, and they just might reward that confidence in their next race or two.

Since last Monday it's been a quiet but profitable week, with two winners from our eleven selections. Treehouse (13/2) and Sotovik (5/1) did the business for us.

April as a whole has been hit by all too many abandonments, and of course this awful weather, which must be a nightmare for the jumpers who've been readied for a hit around this time but now hampered by the wrong ground. We're a little bit down for the month, with one meeting to go (assuming Windsor is on tomorrow night), which is disappointing given we were bowling along quite nicely in the first half of the month. It's been quite a while since our last massively profitable month, and it's just a matter of time before it comes again.

It's not always easy to think long-term in this game, and playing (what we think are) value bets at big odds (we're averaging 8.1/1 this year so far) is always going to play havoc with variance, but we're due a good run. We're beating SP by around 10% on average, and that edge will eventually see us through.

Variance in results can yield good, bad, or indifferent results, but in the long run if you have an edge you should be fine. It's something poker players talk about a lot - and for those starting to get a little impatient, James Atkin's blog post "the positive side of variance!" offers some encouragement -http://www.atkinator.net/2012/04/positive-side-of-variance.htm.

He writes:

Variance is a funny thing. I went through 4 or 5 months of what seemed like continuous pain with no sign of reprieve. But apparently I've paid my dues, and I'm running really well recently. Overall I'm probably running to expectation, it just took 6 or 7 months to even itself out.

That is why getting frustrated with the short term in poker is so futile. Don't get me wrong, I get annoyed with the short term plenty (as you'll know if you read this blog regularly!), it's just generally a waste of energy.

The graph below shows the extremity of what I'm talking about. Okay, this graph includes all the turbo MTTs I have played (as well as SNGs) which are naturally high variance, and doesn't show rakeback, but still...

epitomised, All Games, PokerStars, Last 6 Months

It's very possible that I'm playing a whole lot better now than I was during the bad patch, as I really think success breeds confidence in poker. Obviously thought I'm not playing that much better, I'm just running hot as well.

Now that is one graph we certainly wouldn't mind seeing repeated over here sometime soon!