What To Expect!
Trading Lessons From Chess
Chess is a game of strategies. It tests your foresight, patience, strategic thinking, and the ability to get into your opponent’s mind.
Chess —Sounds familiar? Most times, you see the villains in movies—keep playing chess which I find weird. I feel like it should be the other way round. Anyway, this board-game is one I find really interesting.
15 days ago, I recently got interested in chess. I’ve known there’s a board-game called, “chess”.. Never took interest in it—Till now. I want to believe that every-thing that has happened in my life is for a major purpose. All my life, I’ve had lots of interest and all these so called—interest, have been helpful in my trading career. However, “Chess” isn’t exempted!
On Friday, the 18th of March, 2022. I came across this chess app.. Lichess. It’s really advanced and it’s lessons are free. So, I got excited because the previous app I was on: wasn’t. Anyway, fast-forward that. I continued learning to play this amazing board-game and realized how much it’s lessons are related to trading. Like trading, in chess, you need a plan, strategy, opening, middle-game, patterns, and tactics. The game of chess is really an interesting one and every-one aims the grand-master title, however, only a few reach it.
According to wiki-how, to become a grandmaster requires years of practice, having strategies, learning different tactics, and finally, executing endgame situations. Sounds like a lot of work. That’s why only a few ever attain the title, “Grand-master”.
Trading isn’t so different. In trading, statistically, only 1% of traders are consistently profitable (I can’t even say I’m there yet). That’s why I decided to learn chess because I needed to improve my co-ordinations, mind-set and patience. In addition, I wanted to get better at my executions (opening, middle game, and end game).. What’s the co-relation? You might ask.. Well, for me—it’s really not necessary. Not all traders take on chess to improve but I did because there’s always a lesson to learn. Moreover, trading is one career/profession I obsessively want to succeed at. Therefore, I’ll do whatever it takes to become successful at it. That being said, here are trading lessons I got to learn from chess..
Trading Lessons From Chess – Hard To Master
Trading Lessons From Chess – Go For The Highest Value But..
Always Have An End game, Middle game, And Opening
Trading Lessons From Chess – Recognize Patterns
Don’t Lose Your King
Know The System
Trading Lessons From Chess – Learn From Failures
Trading Lessons From Chess – Learn To Spot Opportunities
Opportunities are everywhere in the game of chess but—most don’t see them when they reveal themselves. Learning to spot opportunities is just another great skill one needs to acquire to be a better chess player. The best way to spot opportunities is: to have a strategy. Once you have a strategy, then it’s much easier to know what you need to look for. Trading isn’t any different having the right strategy helps you in spotting these opportunities when they show up. A trader without a strategy; can’t tell when he’s(she’s) supposed to buy or sell.
Furthermore, I have a very simple strategy called: the 3-way with a retest trigger. With this strategy, I can easily call tops and bottoms. That is, when the market is about to reverse, I can easily spot it—because there are patterns. These patterns are in the strategy and with the strategy, you get to spot the opportunities and take the trade. So, do you have a strategy, if yes, What is it?
Be Decisive, Aggressive And Take Action
Finally, the last trading lesson you’ll learn from chess is: being decisive, aggressive and taking action. A short anecdote, my early days of learning to play chess, I realized that I focused more on defense than attack. Each time my opponent came closer, I had no way of defending my king. Most chess players are known for being decisive, aggressive and actually taking action. Chess players are actually one of the smartest people in the world. It’s one thing to be decisive but—not aggressive, then knowing what to do but not doing it. These guys, do everything. They know when to be decisive, aggressive, and also when to take action.
Likewise, in trading, most traders are indecisive and it’s usually because of fear. Being indecisive in trading, one can’t exactly be aggressive. Because, when you’re not even sure and you’re scared of pulling the trigger, how can you? I’ve met with traders who are really great at analyzing a pair but: they never take action. So, having these three combos at once will make one a really successful trader. Before I go, let me add one more lesson. Learn to be responsible for your every decision. The chess players take full responsibility for every move they make—no matter the outcome. They never have to blame any-one for their failures. Why do traders do that?
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