KAPYLE - very cool card game

Well the latest is Temerity is now known as Kapyle after I expanded it to have 4 factions. It can now be played online here:

www.kapyle.com

Be sure to check it out!

Depth in Game Design

Where does depth comes from and how to invoke it: https://medium.com/@yesrhino11/invoking-depth-in-game-design-6c8c4f12aa7

Temerity Card Game Launches 16th January

 https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/487672/synesthete-daniel-zulauf-behind-the-upcoming-kickstarter-game-temerity

Click notify to join the launch on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/temeritycardgame/temerity

Temerity a volatile card game launching on Kickstarter

Temerity a volatile card game set for Kickstarter launch

Have you got the temerity to out-smart, out-think and ruthlessly out-play any challenger?

New strategy card game, Temerity, launching on Kickstarter 16th of January.

ZRA, Zero Rank Acquisition, is a games publisher based in London with a focus on tight and impactful strategy games and is set to bring to Kickstarter a strategy card game designed by Daniel Zulauf.

The Kickstarter campaign, which will go live on the 16th of January, will offer a pledge at £18, for a single copy, which features the complete set of cards packaged in a luxurious two piece box. There will also be a choice to back a limited edition of the game, or for UK residents, an awesome looking Temerity hoodie. Friendly shipping applies to UK, US, EU and Australia.

Temerity is a two player card game which brings decision-making into a tight area, where both players are fighting against the draw of the deck as they seek to deal out the single highest attack before the cards run out. Three forces are at players disposal: Faeries, Spirits and Warlocks, with a combined 7 unique abilities, in what first appears as a light-hearted strategy game, quickly develops into a game of timing and deception. Cards are placed either face up for immediate effect, or face down in secrecy in an attempt to activate the cards secondary ability. Attacks can be scored directly or by revenging an opponent's attack, allowing for a broad range of styles as both players think ahead in an attempt to outplay one another.

Recommended ages: 7+

Kickstarter Page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/temeritycardgame/temerity

Zero Rank Acquisition website:  https://www.zerorankacquistion.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/temeritycardgame

Kickstarter Launch!

 

Well I went back to a blank piece of paper quite soon after my last post. Over a year later I am getting ready to launch on Kickstarter. To view the project click here! 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/temeritycardgame/temerity

The game name stayed the same: Temerity, but it is a much simpler game.

I just absolutely love it, it is incredibly balanced and brings two people into a mind game. The objective is to score the highest attack before the cards run out.

Temerity Card Game

Been a while since I posted.

Continuing from the last post: It was very challenging to get people to look at my algorithm considering the industry (in crypto) is saturated with scams. I eventually got an opportunity to pitch the algorithm with a front end that I developed. It broadcasted signals in real time. I wrote a script to take the results from my local machine and send them to a remote server. It then processed them and displayed the results live with charts and gauges.

The firm hired me but unfortunately ran into financial difficulties and we both politely parted ways. I learnt a lot, but since 2016 I have been mostly focusing on card games. Well mostly different mechanics and experimenting with everything.

On March 2019 I decided to finally go for it and reset back to a blank of piece of paper to work on a card game. I think this is all I wish to do now, card games/board games.. I have a huge passion for strategy games. Although trading was a big part of my life I really enjoy creating. As a kid I used to make games and so on.

Last month I finished the card game. It took me 14 months.

The game is called Temerity and it is a structured deck of 90 cards. There are only 5 characters in the deck. They each have a rank 1 to 4 (a couple of rank 5s) and each belong to an element (or they are a repeater card).

I wanted to make a game that was just about strategy. It's a quick game, lasting about 3 to 9 turns each. You play cards in your hand and the objective is to destroy the remaining card(s) in your opponent's hand. So your cards are your life too.

I'll post some more later though.

Featured on CCN

https://www.ccn.com/why-we-need-a-fresh-approach-to-trading-cryptocurrencies-enter-bitdroid/

Website: www.bitdroid.co.uk

I never updated what happened with my trading in Copper, but here are the results over 1200 trades. After this I wanted to do something new so I made an algorithm that predicts the moves in cryptocurrencies, which is Bitdroid.

I guess this is a new chapter and I hope people will find my long journey as covered in this blog useful and see that you can get real results with dedication.

This large rise in profit was due to me shorting the S&P for 5 days and capturing 8%, I sold 3 points off the top in February I think it was, the first pull back. The rest were all quick copper trades.

Bitdroid Algorithm - A dig deeper into complexity

I recently created an algorithm, that has yet to been seen by many as of today. This is an algorithm that can predict with a strong edge the direction of cryptocurrencies. It trades and makes long term calls. The results are made public (along with signals) at: BITDROID

To further give back to the community I would like to discuss complexity as I believe it is an interesting topic and one that receives so little attention and it is one that has led me to be able to model cryptocurrencies something that not many can do. I think about everything as factors and consider influences deeply, it is a core part to how I think, which I think sets me apart from most. I appreciate everyone's differences and skills so I wish to share a little about mine. I can just hope this will be beneficial to people in some way or another.

I finished the piece in the end and published it

here: https://medium.com/@danielharvey_59478/textured-complexity-theory-on-the-subconscious-41690016151

Below is just a draft or something.

Understanding our limitations

A factor is an influence that contributes to the result, the result could be an end result or a state or a moment preceding the previous moment. Factors are just influences, be it information or parts of a system. A factor could also be considered a reference to a point which has a value. Therefore in order for us to make sense of the actuality of what we observe we need to work within some kind of structure to comprehend our surroundings.

After all the mind doesn’t work on what is actually there it uses influences and pockets of information to make sense of what is. A chair is not just us a chair to us and that is because, where it was made or its shape or colour all have meaning to us in some way or another.

Therefore the observed state such as an object in front of us is processed by our minds as having multiple states and all of this makes up the actual state to us as a whole. That is because we need to process to make sense of what is. This means the actual object or how interactions occur and so on are impossible for us to adopt without breaking them up into pieces that can be understood. We can only work to a degree of accuracy due to the fact we process rather than adopt. The mind cannot discover exactly what is what because it needs to create its own structure to make sense of something and when it does that it is subjected to interpretation and meaning that it has created within itself. Although the mind does this with the objective of obtaining value from what is there.

The mind works this way because there is too much complexity and naturally seeks to reduce it to make sense of what is. In its natural attempt in doing this factors are grouped and or filtered in an effort to reduce the complexity. It still doesn’t change the actuality to what is, it only helps observe, validate or decipher the subject or state in question.

In life a particular situation or problem can be given thought and this is done by placing boundaries around factors or typing them to know a particular result belonging to that subset or type even if it isn’t thought of as a result in the typical sense. This might be done in an attempt to know where a ball will land, only the properties that the mind believes are useful to this are considered but not everything about that ball is about its projected path through time. How the ball looks or how it was made could be discussed as it travels through the air, but it may not have value with regards to where the focus is. It is unnecessary for the mind to consider all factors as it is often not useful in its objective but it is also impossible for it to do so. After all the ball is just going moment to moment as a cluster of atoms.

Factors as a matrix

The mind holds a huge matrix that is the conscious mind and within that there are clusters of factors, factors form together to make higher level factors which form together to make further clusters of factors that help construct thought.

This all impacts how someone perceives the world. Everything in life that is felt, experienced or thought about by a person is subjected by that person’s window of focus and the values of factors within their own individual matrix and they work in sync with the matrix of life.

People’s observations or thoughts tend towards reduction within complexity and that is in order to gain accuracy within a subset by using focus which gives up immediate value but it is the way the mind finds value. This then helps to validate other factors or thoughts which helps to provide further structure and this then widens the ability to capture, which is what unfolds when we learn. The mind wants to comprehend something rather than everything, because everything becomes a greater possibility by the mind when it operates in this manner. Reduction and focus take place on the subset matrix in question and it happens in the form of type casting, filtering or grouping. Filtering out factors happens constantly by the human mind. It is not just a ball unless collectively it is agreed it is just a ball and often this happens for the purpose of obtaining value and by doing so every other factor is temporarily ignored.

In this way anything can be supported no matter how flawed it is, because internal thoughts only needs to be self-supportive, they don’t need to be truthful. This is why when someone learns something new or contradictory they will need to restructure more than the actual concept that they learnt in order to fully adopt it. People need to experience to integrate, otherwise there is no emotional attachment and that is a factor of influence in itself, the source and memory associated with a recall is all consequential of the past windows of time. To adapt and grow with new knowledge matrices need to restructure a wider set of influences otherwise the person won’t act upon new information merely only holding it as a factor due to a reason such as needing to recall it. These supportive factors can also prevent an individual from changing their opinion as the only requirement by the mind is a great enough influence. New influences are coninuously being created but they will not necessarily change the individual’s opinion as that is a collective sum of the weight of influences. To the mind everything is weighted as an influence and pulls on itself within itself. Whilst we can learn something new this dynamic of weight also works to protect information from being changed too freely. Individual matrixes don’t need truth nor do they need to be near complete to be felt as near complete, they only work with what is known to the individual and stay true to that.

If a person has an area that takes their interest, it would be due to having influences to support those thoughts. The mind doesn’t do something which doesn’t hold true within itself, it doesn’t seek to learn something or carry out an action that is not supported by enough influence. The mind only works towards factors which have greater support whether useful or not. Therefore interest is natural due to influence and it is one such way that focus arises. Interest isn’t just focus because when interest is gained it means influences are changed which can be thought of as giving a subset of factors added worth or weight due to focus which then helps attract focus due to the added influence. The mind may have built in processes that carry out a task but without interaction from the world they may well remain untouched until provoked, they can be provoked in any manner as all they need is focus. Therefore the mind finds purpose by working of off influence and interaction. Interaction works similarly as it puts focus on factors that may help to address something like a change in the environment and these factors all have some kind of influence to supportive processes or subsets of matrices even if there is little influence it will still simply just find the paths of most influence within itself. Factors are continuously being changed or offset within the matrix but most of the factors in life go past without being known or experienced by people and if they are experienced they are adopted into the individual’s matrix in some manner.

Emotions react to change within a person's matrix, they help to feel complexity and add complexity into the individual’s matrix. It does this so it can use thought to reiterate that feel as points of values which are factors. It does this because it is a factor or an influence and therefore the mind naturally adopts it. This is carried out without changing the complexity that gave rise to itself which helps reiterate large complexities into the matrix from the result. Emotion is adopted as factors to support and not overwrite what generated itself. Emotions help people understand complexity whilst thought is specific to accuracy which works against complexity comparatively.

If you think about someone you know well for a few seconds you tend to not recall anything specific yet you feel a great sense of knowing so much. That is because the matrix that supports what you know about that person has its own structure, its own depth and a shape which can be experienced as a feel. If something about that matrix was changed it would change the structure and the shape of the matrix. The bigger the change the greater the emotion felt. People use thoughts to address specifics and use feel expressed as a complex emotion to address change in the overall shape of a matrix. If a matrix changes fast it provokes a strong emotional state, it is the minds shortcut to reacting to complexity and it does so without needing immediate focus.

Something which appears to have no value to a person before can be made to have value just by recognizing or experiencing something and in doing so it creates new influences as factors within the matrix. There isn’t emotion without change unless there being no change is a factor to an emotion, which is the minds way of going from a cluster of factors to another as directed by a factor with great enough influence but either way there is still a shape because there is always a matrix to be felt and so we are always in a state that has an emotion behind it. When in focused thought we are never on top of a single factor it is still comprised of a cluster of factors but the deeper down we go into specifics within a matrix the lesser the complexity and so the lesser the emotion until you find yourself deep in thought in an almost emotionless state.

The Luck Factor

Luck doesn’t exist to the underlining matrix but it does to an individual’s matrix. What is luck? Luck is a term used in many different ways but it is the result of unknown or incomplete factors to an individual that impacts the matrix of factors known to that individual. It can be illustrated through the example of rolling a dice. When a dice is rolled there are a lot of factors at play, it is complex and therefore unpredictable at least in the situations that we use them. This is because the dice is observed through sight as it rolls and then the result is seen. The result is not known until the dice stops so it appears random, but it is not random. Dice have rounded edges to increase the complexity, when something increases in complexity it becomes more complicated to fathom out. Similarly to how we reduce complexity in getting a result in attempt to find meaning. Which means if the dice had square edges it wouldn’t roll as much and it may actually become slightly predictable, so it would feel and be less ‘random’ due to a lower level of complexity to its possible actions. If we increased its complexity in its structure by increasing the number of sides it would create more possibility and therefore more complexity. The factors that aren’t known to the individual still have influence and still take part in shaping the result. When it is not known that they don’t exist or their true values are not known or are off balanced they contribute as a luck factor. Outcomes fall somewhere between below expectation to above expectation due to this, which is bad luck to good luck. People might use bad luck to mean a lot further below average or group areas and measure their average to determine it, the term is freely used and is interpreted differently by people but it doesn’t change what is expected and what actually happens. The difference is always there.

Therefore luck is a term used due to the inability to be so knowing about everything, luck is the part that is in play that isn’t known and sometimes a lot can be known but yet the bit that isn’t can have a big influence or cause people unexpected problems. It’s not through fault necessarily, although maybe making better decisions or being more open previous to this moment could have allowed there to be more known truths in the current moment and therefore less of a luck factor. This is also not static, it goes back to the past and forward to the future, luck extends from the window of focus and is an offset of the past. The factors working as unknown or incomplete factors may not be so reachable or possible to have known and this may also be difficult to reflect upon once known. Often a stronger more complete matrix is needed to see that, which happens when someone with a stronger more complete matrix interacts with someone who is lacking in a particular area. This can make it clear to one but not the other.

In life the absolute state in full is unknown but the stronger the matrix in terms of completeness the clearer things become. People can feel that they have clarity when they don’t and this can create a sense of knowing less the more they learn but in actual terms they are gaining a kind of rough clarity when they discover more of the factors in play.

If we shape the results into just two results for example a ball either coming back down or not, we can solve it by knowing that gravity dictates the outcome but if we wish to try to work out roughly where the ball will land the complexity increases and therefore there are more unknown or incomplete factors in determining the result, which means luck now plays a factor despite their being no difference in the action itself. Which means are focus dictates how luck operates to us or if it even exists or in actual terms we can choose to observe the outcome of factors beyond our understanding or not. Attention to detail brings about an increase of luck, typically, so in a way we can create luck and that is because with less of it there is often less complexity and therefore the model becomes easier to solve. In order to have that we need to narrow our perception which is sometimes counterproductive. People sometimes say they think people make their own luck in life, but what they really mean is people can create opportunities, but it turns out in a way we can create our own luck.

Opportunities come about through knowing more but they can also come about due to luck. We don’t need to know an opportunity is coming our way to have it come our way but if we don’t know it was approaching it will appear to us more so as luck. We can still know about it and consider it as luck but that is because we interpreted its possibility of being there through chance. Chance doesn’t exist either and like luck it still stems from our ability of not knowing the full picture. After all if something incredible happens to us that seemed so unlikely it is known to us as luck although it did in fact take place for specific reasons that were unknown and some of which may have been shaped by us more than we know or less so.

We can always be better at steering ourselves through life and we can use knowledge to do that and it doesn’t mean we won’t end up steering ourselves into a wall either. If we did anticipate something rewarding coming our way it wouldn’t feel like a stroke of luck as much as it may have felt if we hadn’t of thought about it. At least we are more likely to be ready to maximize value from it. Some people may be prone to strokes of luck due to this but on average they will not get as far as those who uncover information.

If two players play a game there are always unknown variables, at least in most games. Through practice we learn the factors and learn how to utilize them, the ones we don’t know about, such as how exactly our arms movement will propel a ball, means there are factors we can’t control or know about, the complexity is too great, so there we have luck once again. When a player plays a skilled player, he needs actions or decisions to work out in his favour even when he doesn’t know the answer or the movement quite needed, the factors outside his control need to work out better than someone who has more control, which is often possible. When two players are high in skill and their skill is more equal than the influence of unknown factors, luck would then be a strong dictation of the result. The closer their skill the higher the influence of luck. Therefore luck doesn’t necessarily shrink when we improve or learn it is highly subjected by what is at hand.

In poker a lot of the unknown factors and the known factors are separated and often the unknown factors become known later. Decisions get made and then cards are revealed, it has a clearer separation of where luck is operating and so luck becomes more apparent than in other games or in comparison to how we see it in life. Poker players are notorious for talking about luck and it is because of this. It is also because players can evaluate that they would have won if the card was a different card and due to the fact players know how many of each card approximately are left in the deck they can calculate the odds of being lucky or unlucky even if they just roughly approximate it. Life rarely allows for results to be verified due to the factors that caused influence. People are far blinder and we have invented concepts such as chance to address it and to help us interpret what is not known.

Our perception of ourselves and others is highly subjected to the outcome that happened. Due to focus, filtering, grouping, communication, thinking and survival and so we are taking in only a fraction of what is. It is the only way for us to operate and we make everything look simpler. We often place thousands of outcomes into a group, converging upwards of billions of data points into 1 data point and creating influence from only this one point and not the billions inside it, there are still far more unknowns than knowns, there are far more influences working beyond our ability to comprehend. Every factor we have is never fully complete because it can be broken down further into more factors, each of which can be broken down again, some are just unreachable in our understanding. The relationship between factors plays off of individual factors within factors and the complexity is far beyond anything else. Luck is the biggest factor but in life it doesn’t always feel like that. After all we can try really hard to get good at something and can get there through hard work so how much of what we do is really luck in terms of what is reality to us and how do we break the model to shape it in a way that maximizes value? Are those at the top of their field just lucky or skilled, how sharp or soft is the blend between the two and how do we maximize decision making.

to be continued.. (hopefully)

Bitdroid Algorithm

If you are trading or holding some cryptocurrencies I recommend that you check out Bitdroid.

www.bitdroid.co.uk

It is an algorithm that makes high returns and they display everything on their website and they use telegram.

Week 3

The trading week went well, I finished up after costs on every day this week. Monday was a half day due to it being a US public holiday and I am finishing early today so it was a shorter week than I might otherwise try to do. To be honest I gave it everything and I am really exhausted and I feel I may trade badly because I felt I could have done a bit better today and by nature I am a perfectionist even though I am happy with today. Today I felt the market was coming down considerably and I made money selling it although I feel a little frustrated because it can take forever to happen and I often find it hard to hang on to a thought from so long ago when the market is clearly quite neutral and to be honest I am still not exactly sure in situations like this. I guess I find it difficult to work out which is better, that is to trade what I am feeling as a whole or to try to get in and out on what I am reading now. Although saying that yesterday I had that feeling and it went down but kinda ran out of steam so not holding onto a move that never happened turned out good, so I might just be being results orientated.. and to be honest its hard to know exactly whats gonna happen as a lot of reactions in the market that my mind is trying to predict are yet to happen. In the end I am sitting there for 20 minutes and it still hasn't gone much.. I guess I am not really trading long time frames, although I wish I could have sold a clip and scalped with another.. just my account is not ready for that at this point. In the end its not exactly easy because there are lots of bounce backs before it continues down and you can't just hold it because if your wrong your already like 10 ticks offside until you realize its a reversal and I am not trying to trade like that, its just sometimes I can't believe the market hasn't gone more so I just take it, ah anyway... I feel I am good at holding a trade though and at least I am not jumping out of profits because I am worried about losing them, although when I am reading the tape and its telling me to take profit even though I may have held the entire move and captured all I can.. what happens is it bounces a few ticks and then the next move down comes, which i anticipated and I find it hard to jump on it in time. I guess at least I am reading it pretty well, rather than getting stuck on the wrong side like when I first started. I feel better venting that, so I can enjoy the weekend now :)

My account has done a big U turn, which is pretty awesome because all I want to be able to do is keep on trading.

Trades: 279
Gross: $2025
Net: $1117.22

Week 2

A difficult week... but it was a lot worse at one point.


Trades: 207
Gross: -$43.75
Net: -$712.29

Week 1

Unfortunately I started trading when the market had its biggest move in 2 years, as always I have horrible timing. Not that it matters because I just act on tape reading, so a big move can be very profitable at times its just I was settling down with real money and felt a bit uneasy in my first hour and it was plummeting, I didnt really lose much but the next day I did and I realized I was sick.. I traded the next couple days and realized okay I am quite sick. I also traded outside the hours I was trading on the sim and realized its a terrible idea to trade with low volume, its difficult to read and I filtered my trades to within peak hours and it showed I was actually up and all my loses had been outside those hours. I suffered a $1300 loss in total after costs and as christmas and new year were approaching I had to take 2 weeks off because I didnt wanna blow my chance trading over a period where many traders arent at their desks, the market behaves differently at these times..

I planned on starting on the 8th of Jan and to keep within the hours, so I only trade when theres good volume, but i couldnt wait any longer. It seemed most people were back so I wiped the loss out of my mind and traded. I felt it was a little difficult at times, it felt a bit glitchy to me and i hovered around breakeven until Friday where I put in a pretty good day.

I decided to make this week 1 as its the first week of 2018.

Week 1

Trades: 107

Gross: $525

Net: $180.46

All in all I was happy with my trading, I know I can improve, I missed some excellent opportunities by hesistating and I feel if I can continue making money it will only help me relax and trade better. 

I have now rented an office and set it all up. I will begin trading sometime this week. This blog is quite old now and i really hope from this point onwards i will be doing this every day for years to come. There have been set backs and good trading results infact but i havent quite ever made it properly and that has really been almost entirely due to outside factors. At the same time I am yet to really trade outright on a single market live with positive results, but i have only ever traded outright for 2 days. I traded for almost 2 years at a prop firm initially but that was trading spreads and i made very little for myself after desk fees and such. It was when i got very sick with glandular fever and my stuff was stolen in my flat, family problems, girl broke up with me all within a month it caused me to quit trading with that prop firm. Since then its been a battle and life just went in another direction. But here I am trying because I feel this is what i love and this is what i am good at or would have been good at.

I have been trading on the simulator for a few weeks but i have changed to commodities. I am havin treeg good results.

I have had a lot happen in recent years, some too personal to share but i feel my mind sometimes getting so frustrated with people and life, i dont really show it unless i know the person extremely well. I feel like my mind weights factors and maps possible likely paths and i see the big picture. I researched in my spare time from time to time and after discovering more about the mind, synesthesia, which could actually explain why i can kind of 'see' huge mappings and weightings in my head, but someone told me i may be gifted, who knows me very well and they were reading a book on it. I didnt think so but naturally i read up on it and discovered i fit the traits extremely well. I read more and more and althought i never considered an IQ test as accurate i read how they are actually a pretty good measure of 'g' fluid intelligence, which i kinda gatherered, i expect some pretty high correlation naturally.. Its the same for digit spans, which i can do 10 or 11 digits.. 7 is average. Anyway i decided an IQ test would be a good starting point. After all i like challenges. I went along and did the test, result was 142 IQ, 99.744th percentile. Thing is i never use good english, long words.. Lol. Im not that annoying guy who does that, but ive been hiding myself a long time. I guess naturally i just learnt to cope and fit better, i hate changing myself, but i guess when stuff isnt logically right or kinda dumb, i often just look bored actually it feels like every 3 minutes that stuff bugs me. People who know me well know i rant alot.. I also read people well, i know i do. Thing is ive always felt disconnected and on my own, because nobody seems to be able to get on my layer, well some and i became good friends with them.

Im more focussed on trading than my owb intelligence so ill draw this to a close. Maybe ill make a proper post about it, but my pc is at the office and im typing this ony phone.. Its too slow for my liking.

Trading results to come.. Hopefully week on week results. Unless it goes bad and ill give a post or something.

Serious Luck

I have decided to put trading on hold as having a baby and getting ready to move back to UK, sorting out everything makes its difficult to trade right now. In the mean time I decided to put some time into making a website...

I have always been somewhat interested in luck and how it impacts us and so I would like to share it here.. I really believe it is the best thing ever written about luck and I have always found statistics and seeing the bigger picture is what I excel at. I feel luck is so misunderstood and so please do check it out.

www.seriousluck.com

Demo trading still

Well I have traded a bit more on market replay with positive results. I traded live a little late last night. Up $200 in 30 trades last night. Market replay results get lost and forgot to log them. Was pretty tired last night and made a few mistakes just sluggish to exit some trades and didn't pounce when I told myself too and missed some moves. Talking 4 to 5 tick moves..

I tried putting the charts up and trading 6j, dollar yen. I much prefer 6e though. I found charts a really big distraction. I saw a small retrace of the low the other day and I was going to sell and it looked ridiculous on the chart.. I waited and down it came. So I closed the charts again.

We sent of for my sons passport so may not be long now. Maybe it's better to start in UK but I think I'm so finished with teaching it's causing me panic attacks pretty much. I have done this job too long and I work with really stupid people, crazy boss, weird parents. Anyway there's a big culture difference here, Hong Kong people work so much, life is about work and restaurants and whatsapp messages. They don't have time to think and explore and are very unobservant and it's time to go. Thank god.

So I taught so much recently saved a crazy amount exchanged to gbp on a good exchange rate maybe I'll start. I do have 900 pounds of rent and bills to cover each month though. Can maybe keep a few days of work. I feel like I need weeks to relax before trading though.

After losing so much money having a baby and moving back and forth unwilling to teach more after 5 years of it I put in 50+ hours of teaching, classroom time and doesn't include lunch breaks. Sometimes doing more than 60 hours of classes a week. I never get a balance always all or nothing. Now I want nothing and all trading as I got living expenses and trading money and good sim results. Actually when I was about 10 I told my mum I wanted to be a currency trader haha. But that changed to programming, which I did.. But I was open to all markets but currencies seem most interesting.

Had a baby!

My son is now 6 months old. It's been a rollercoaster with going to UK then back to Hong Kong. He is half British and half Hong Kong. He is very cute and laughs alot.

It's been a busy time and I spent a lot of time out of work. Just no real desire to teach again but I moved us to a flat out in the greenery, near my old job and positioned myself to take work and went in strong. I got myself a good rate and worked 5 days a week and substituted one or both of the other days. Teaching 5 or 6 straight hours after lunch. I completely exhausted myself. The drive was my son and the fact I worked so hard 2014 to 2016, two full years and had given most of it back. With a good exchange rate and 50 hours a week teaching basic English and phonics I saved huge amount in 4 months. We're now getting ready to go back to UK.

Well, trading, to follow on I stopped trading the spread, I can't really remember now but I lost a few days of work basically overall and some time. The timing was bad, I was working and trading and my girlfriend wanted to know if I have finished trading. I felt it was so tough to sit there in the smallest flat ever with her literally next to me. Since then we're living in a village house. It's huge for Hong Kong and not really that expensive either as its pretty close to China.

So recently, I decided spreads are silly, why don't I at least try to trade. I have never properly sat down and tried to trade a market. So that's what I have been doing last couple months. I have been trading different markets but only 6e (eurusd) seems to work for me. I am kinda surprised I could do it. But I am still not happy enough to proceed. I have a couple hundred trades logged here and there on different Sims with realistic fills, FIFO of course.

Actually, before all this I spent my free time for some months making notes, thinking back to conversations at my old firm in London. Digging around for one useful thread, that was the toughest bit. Literally there's nothing that useful online. I know how successful people trade, I met them. Just I wanted to get more thought into it.

So I thought about the market and made notes, pages and pages on tape reading thoughts. Then after that I watched the market and then I purposely overtraded as I dont care about charts, overtrading, how I will change when it's real money and a this stuff, I trust myself and wanna improve.Everyone's so focussed on risk reward, which should be a loose framework around your trade, I believe. I just read all these posts and thought, ye so cut losers, run winners. It seems so ridiculous the stuff talked about online. If the market moves to this price then it will do this. So I think okay so you have no idea what it's doing but later and if it reaches this price you know it's likely to do this. What is this lol. I want to know why it makes fast moves and how to read the story and capture some ticks.

People say you can't read the noise, but I don't think so, in actual fact I wonder how you can read the bigger moves. Anybody can look at a chart and draw lines and says it's going up or whatever. But why because the price was here at these points so it will be there in a few hours.. Seems ridiculous to me. When I look at what's happening right now I feel there is something to read it's this so called noise that's constantly happening that's bringing a result. it's the noise I think that can give you a picture of what is happening and then you can try to second guess a little move based off that.

Anyway I kind of hate it when someone starts trading the next thing they do is then lecture about it.. But I just wanted to say I'm looking to trade small price movements. I don't want to leak all my notes about how price moves and what I'm looking at exactly, at least for now but just to say I'm sitting there on the sim, I have spreadsheets of percentage of being correct against ticks taken as an average after costs to see what kind of move I need to capture being correct this percent of the time and it seems due to cme's high exchange fees it's quite hard. Often I'm just taking what the market gives me and sometimes it's not all that much and if I think I should get out I will.. In the end I found a broker with very cheap fees and I have been averaging above the costs by a dollar or so and I can try to lease a seat later. For now I can't trade full time anyway but I cut my hours down at work, I needed too, already burntout. So relaxing and trading ready to start part time or maybe I'll wait until I'm in UK. Depends ify results keep up. I'll see.

Right now the goal is simply enjoy reading the market and improving. All this talk of I want 20 ticks a day or this percent per month. Who cares. Just can I beat this game. That's really interesting to me. I love watching the story unfold on the screen. Humans love to be more complicated. You know I played poker and every poker player who made good money over 200k hands knows new players love to play slow when there strong and quick or chase when there weak or drawing. But its actually the other way around, you have good cards, so extract value from it.. Then you can think about other stuff.. Just like in trading you want to follow the herd or take profit, book a win and become attached to the trade, just like pocket aces, new players have huge attachment. Ive really tried to look at it in as honestly as I can. I tried the same, I change my mind a lot actually. Don't hesitate and change your mind, new info comes and accept it. Beyond that I'm thinking deep about the tape and all that and I feel I have progressed from a few months ago. I'm getting burnt on other markets but I just love the 6e and will carry on logging sim trades.

Written in a rush but wanted to get a post up. Updates to come,  trading is tough so I hope I can really push hard this time. I got a better plan and well financed this time and not rushing anything, with back up plans in my mind also. Ha.

Trading Resumed!

Just over 2 years later I am fully ready to trade. I spent the last two years teaching English Monday to Sunday in Hong Kong, working holidays and getting up every morning, I worked some half days but at one point I had every hour of the day filled. I knew if I could just save money I could be free to trade and explore anything I wanted. Now I have completed 3 years with a kinder garden and got myself excellent pay for morning work (I cut the rest of my work off) and now I can come home after that and trade till night and not worry about providing an income from trading as I have a stable job. I'll have Saturdays off and work Sundays as a teacher for the meantime also.. If trading works out I'll cut out the teaching hours..

It it is nice to finally get to this point, I worked until I felt burnt out and then continued to work until I felt uneasy just being outside the classroom.. then I pushed myself further until I finally was getting increasing amounts of chest pains and irregular heart beats a couple times each day..

It was at that point, I said enough is enough, I had had this lifestyle for two years, I cut down my hours and worked on re-plastering my walls and painting them, buying a bed (instead of sleeping on the floor), getting a desktop and table, comfy chair and all that and then I moved money into my old trading account. I met a lovely girl too and have been with her 5 months, I met her just before completing 2 tough years as a teacher and I couldn't be happier. It also motivated me to quit smoking, so before completing 5 years as a smoker.. I quit! and it's coming up to 3 weeks smoke free.

I'll be trading 10 year Australian and US bonds, just like last time.

END OF THE USA

This blog is no longer being updated, but you can read more at www.endoftheusa.com.

END OF THE USA

The Week

I tried hard to adapt, waiting and waiting on soybeans before entering, because of the new bigger ranges. Continuing to be bid and offered on the bond spread more than 3 ticks apart! As well as aggressive to get size off when it retraces off a large move, sometimes I was taking off 2/3 of my position when it had retraced 5% or so. There are plenty of times when the spread ranges and you can make money, so it's important when the spread trends to just improve your average price and keep your size small as possible. Those times are not about squeezing some profit but by being in a good position if it return to the high and able to keep in it. I have to remind myself this as it's important in spreading imo. This week was v good for me and I think it's also down to some great outright trading or just the great results I had in outright trading or both who knows!

Tough day but a good result

What a day! It's been such a success on a really tough day. Firstly in the bond spread (AUS vs US) it had already pushed up a lot yesterday and opened up today almost on the high. It then went about 2.5 ticks, so it had the potential to stop me out. I managed something around break even. Then soybeans made the biggest move I have ever seen, a smaller move last week cost me $1000, but this time it moved further and I made a small loss after costs and a profit before, which is incredible. I waited a big move before even entering and scalped it tightly as there was just no room to take any decent profit. Then at 11pm my time, the bond spread (US vs GER) blew out. I had a feeling it would but it's just a hunch so I try to ignore them as I end up missing opportunities. I got in and was taking about $100 profit and leaning on the US bond when it tanked, I quickly sold the other leg on the bund to remain in the spread with the intention to try and exit at the same price later.. As it fell I found 5 spots to make outright trades, all were profitable and made a total of $315. Everything I thought happened. It was surreal, firstly my hunch earlier was right and then I picked spots just perfectly to scalp on the US bond. I sold the bund and queued two prices below market to buy the US bond and when it rallied 1.5 ticks I  held the bund which was staying and then got filled, although I moved my queue 0.5 ticks higher to the next price, it did in fact fill the price below. I dunno just how much is down to good luck, but when I feel some information click together I go with my thoughts and seems to be doing well each day.

I feel asleep for about 3 seconds several times in the last hour, tried everything to keep myself awake.. it was almost 4 hours of intense starring and clicking after already doing 16 hours of less strenuous trading. I got out 2/3 of my position on the spread when it went up 8 ticks from a 40 tick downward move. I just bought almost the very low with half an hour left, with the intention of taking a loss on it if I need to and holding one clip. German bonds will open 8 hours after the US markets open but the spread doesn't really move during the time much. Seeing as I got my position average to the low with 1 clip and this spreads the lowest ever on my chart, probably worth holding.

Around break even after costs for the day.