Chronicles of a Million Dollar Trader: My Road, Valleys, and Peaks to Final Trading Victory

Part V

Beyond the Tank: Best of the 2010–2012 Journal Excerpts

I've selected the next several journal entries for inclusion primarily because they reinforce that ever-important notion of accepting trader imperfection and mistakes and the need to just “keep on keeping on.” And although I again subsequently recovered from each instance cited—whether the mistakes resulted in real, opportunity, or perceived loss—my purpose in highlighting these particular posts is to again emphasize that it's often during our times of weakness when we find the source of our greatest strength.

Poker, Trading, and Focus

It's all about focus. In fact, it's only about focus. Let's start with last night's odd series of events.

After about going through the roof early in last night's poker tourney as the result of getting called on an all-in where my opponent was chasing a single #$%&#$ card in the deck (the most ticked off I've ever been playing cards) and, of course, catching it, I was able to somehow come back after that hand knocked me from $8K in chips to $1200 (I had a few more chips than her before the hand . . . more on that following) and actually win the event about three hours later. Incredible.

First the hand. I'm the dealer and had 4 and 5 of Diamonds preflop, which came 6–7–Q with one Diamond. One of the three in the hand proceeds to bet about 1/2 of a decent-sized pot, which was called by ...