Sharing: I know my method works, but I just can't follow it through

just something to chew on for a short-while because i'm tired of the whole random / non-random and every other angle argued-about...

are a deck of cards randomly distributed to poker players each hand? if yes, are there consistently profitable poker players with an edge? if yes to both does this suggest that random situations can be taken advantage of? if still yes, does it matter if charts are random or not?

this isn't some wank-fest where i with-hold some deep 'truth' or 'key' and spew 'wisdoms' and so on. it is just something to think about. quite frankly, someone might come-along and give great arguments for answering no to any of the above questions, and i welcome it.

anyways...

I will answer no, because "random poker distribution" and "random price movement" are not the same, they are different system of playing..
But I can't argue too much further because it is off topic.

I see posts all the time about how you should trade demo until you are confident the system works. This is one of the biggest lines of crap on FF. Confidence in a trading system will NEVER come without some risk. Telling someone that they can learn to become a trader by trading demo is like telling someone they can become a great quarterback in the NFL by playing John Madden Football on their X-Box. When there is no risk, there is no reward.

So what should demo be used for?
1. Learning how to place orders (market and limit)
2. Learning how stops work and how to set them.
3. Learning how the trading software works.

Too much demo trading leads to analysis paralysis. You will take trades that go against you and mentally begin to think "MAN! I sure am glad that wasn't in a real account!" This begins the process of setting you up for mental failure as a trader.

Ok, enough of what you shouldn't do, here is what I think people should do to get over this. Understand that this is my opinion which is what a forum is designed to allow people to do, express their opinions. I know this works because it is what I had to do to overcome my analysis paralysis.

1. Open an account with a broker that allows you to trade lot sizes small enough that your risk is only $1.00 USD per trade. On a 1,000 USD account this is only 0.1% risk. Less if you open a larger account.
2. Only risk $1 per trade until you really don't care if you lose. It's only a freaking dollar. How long this takes varies from person to person.
3. As you become more consistent in your trading increase the risk to 2 dollars.
4. Become comfortable in the account balance going up and down. Anyone who tells you they have never experienced account drawdown is a LIAR! By telling you that they are saying they have never had a losing trade. How likely do you think that is?
5. Because there is some risk, however slight, your confidence will begin to grow.

Even if you have a larger account and 0.1% is more than 1 dollar risk, don't risk more than a dollar. Mentally we are not conditioned to think in percent. We think in dollar values. For example, my biggest problem with 3% risk is that I kept calculating how much money that was and what I could have done with it. My first account was 10,000 USD. I kept thinking about the 3% risk being 300 bucks. 300 is a big number when you are first starting to trade. 1 is a very small number.

Because there is risk with doing it this way, there is also reward. I still remember the first time I could withdraw enough money from an account to take my family out to eat. Big confidence boost. Sure, we did that most every week before that, but it was the first time done with money earned from trading forex. Over time this grew to taking vacations, buying cars and eventually to buying a house, all with money earned from forex.

The biggest hurdle to overcome when trading forex is not the trading system but the trader. Get rid of the lottery mentality when it comes to trading. It is far too easy to open a spreadsheet and calculate how much money you could make if you risked X% and made X pips every day. Stop doing that and start trading with very small risk and watch what happens over the next 2-4 years. You will be able to look back and marvel and how much you have grown as a trader.