January 2011 Review

Oanda: +9.47%

FXDD: +17.89%

PokerStars: -35% (somewhere there lol)

Well, nt too bad for my trading. But still dangerous valleys ahead on tilting. Poker ain't a draw-down, I'll call that a tear-down instead. Reviewing it by topic..

FX Trading

The lucky thing about trading this month is the grinding of Aussie ranging between 0.98xx - 1.xxxx. It'd been in range for weeks and I have buying and buying. Until yesterday it finally punch through the level 1.01xx.

Improvements? Probably the risk:reward ratio. But the bad thing was, I still find myself tilting. Second week of January almost tear me down into another groundless abyss. It is really lucky to get back up and I should take extra care. No one can stop me from trading, so I don't know how to avoid tilting when I lost. I am still learning to accept losses. It is part of the game. I kinda keep a mentality like the following:

In the past when my equity reach say $1200 from $1000, I will be thinking yeah I'm up $200 and this is my damn money you bitch-ass market I juz humped you.

And then I lost probably $80 from it the next trading day..

I will start going tilt because my mind will be running things like damn those are supposed to be MY MONEY and market juz took it from me, thats not gonna happen.

So I keep entering trades with bigger sizes in hope of recouping losses under the emotionally distraught mind. If lucky I may recoup my $80 plus maybe $100 more. But 80% of such tries end up losing at least another $300+ more..

..and I'm sick of such days.

So now, when I win $200 for my account, I tell myself losses are part of the game, so my actual winnings are maybe $120 or so, so the nextime if there is a loss I will take such business-costs in mind, and make sure I don't do anything foolish. It worked so far. But I don't know how long. When I lost I juz keep telling myself to accept it. I could pump in another 10x size lot trying to grab that few pips to recoup a loss but I know it will tear me down in the long run. This leads me to my poker problem...

Texas Hold'em

Big tear-down. Two reasons: I started to 6-tabling, and I see too much flops.

Like the above problem in trading, seeing too much flop is a long-term disaster. Calling and playing too loosely. 6-tabling probably won't give me the luxury of analysing opponents, but it gives u more hands to get premium cards faster.

Bankroll management is obviously not present. I guess I will soon need another deposit.

Should be slowing down for this trading, poker and blogging upcoming weeks. This is a Chinese New Year celebration weekend and follow by many school assignment deadlines. Just had my re-union dinner with my family, its great seeing people respect the occasion and get together although the mood of new year days are slowly disappearing here in Singapore.

Should end here. Good luck to your trading and tables ahead!

Black.