Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!
Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:

- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…

- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:

- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!

TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.

🦍🧠📉 Lessons from a Rookie Ape-Brained Autist 📉🧠🦍

I was officially diagnosed with autism three weeks ago, when my girlfriend’s brother (you can pretend it was my wife’s boyfriend if it helps you to visualize) told me about Andrew Left shitting on GME and GME hitting $45 the same day.

I lost around half of my life’s savings (thank god I’m young enough that it was only around $5k) and have recognized a few lessons in the last few weeks, if not learned them yet. I’m taking some time off trading and might return - I hope that some of these perspectives are in any way valuable to my fellow aut-lets out here. These are not original, revolutionary perspectives - the smooth brain tl;dr is that if you think you’re a financial genius on a subreddit of people who identify as ape-brained tards on the internet, you’re probably closer to being a bonobo than a billionaire.

1. Monkey can always throw poo but monkey cannot take poo back
or You can literally always wait an extra day to buy - don’t let FOMO make your decisions for you

I knew about the GME story at $45, didn’t have a brokerage set up, figured I had missed it. As it kept climbing, I kept having FOMO, eventually got set up and bought near the peak at $330, figuring “at least I finally got in - this was my last chance”. Every single time I thought “well I missed it, I should have got in today” - I was wrong - there were other opportunities and if you ever mentally say “this is my only chance” - you have no chance.

2. Monkey need to know safe tree to hide in if monkey throw poo
or Always have an exit strategy

“Diamond hands”, “waiting until it feels right”, a price target that is 5000% higher than the last month’s price etc. are not exit strategies, because when “the moment feels right”, everyone else who had a planned out strategy has beaten you to the punch. You don’t even have to execute your exit strategies when they hit those targets, but if you buy a single asset without having a stop loss and a target sale price in mind, your exit strategy is going to end up being “selling when I feel shitty” and that’s not going to work.

3. Once monkey throw poo, monkey needs to be ready to keep throwing
or Don’t let a fear of buying and selling paralyze you.

Once I had my GME, I had a massive, massive fear of selling because that would “lock in my losses”. That is a lie - stocks are meant to be bought and sold, and a stock (unless it pays dividends) is a worthless bunch of electrons. If you wouldn’t buy at a stock’s current price - don’t hold there either - you can always buy back in and selling at a loss is a lot smarter than holding to zero.

4. Monkeys don’t believe in God
or If you NEED a stock to do something, don’t buy it

I bought AMC weekly options (calls and puts) once I got out of GME (far too late) because I needed to “make it all back” and figured the volatile like lottery tickets could do that. As soon as you only have one outcome that you’re okay with, you’ve already lost because you have no objective decision making - accept that you’re better off going to a casino and betting it all on red for roulette because you’re at least not going to pretend you’re smarter than everyone else.

5. If monkey goes to magic banana fountain on advice of lion, monkey gets eaten
or If you have no additional perspective/info on something, and are just going off what you read - don’t buy it.

If you didn’t discover a reason to buy something on your own, it’s probably not going to be a smart buy for you. If you read some good DD, do your own research, like the fundamentals or the projections or literally anything - good for you and go ahead, but if your main reason for buying a stock is “everyone else is” you’re definitely not going to win as much as the smart people that actually did their research and understand the trends and exit strategies, and you will most likely lose. WSB is a propaganda machine - and its not just the exterior HF forces that motivate it. I caught myself making pro AMC comments when I needed the price to go up and have realized that not a single sane person on the planet has ever thought “boy I thought of a really good stock play that’s going to make me rich - here is free financial advice without any ulterior motive”. Every single comment and post here that mentions a specific stock has an intent for that stock, implicit or not and if you’re a lurker that tries to gauge “sentiment” for a stock, don’t believe a single word. If I am to ever use WSB again, I am aware that I will only be looking for memes, well-recommended resources, and DD that leads me to do my own research - if WSB is your only destination, you are fucked.

6. ^{I made this statistic up}, but 85% of overconfident monkeys get eaten by leopards
or Confidence is not necessarily an asset

I really truly believed wholeheartedly that I had outsmarted the system, hopped on along with the hip tendie-loving community, and even when it started to dip, that it would eventually hit $1000. I am not saying to not trust your gut, but if you begin to assume that only you are right, every hedge fund is manipulating the markets against you, you’ll be able to sell right before the rest of WSB does etc, you are not going to be in good shape. If you do not have doubts about your investment, that probably means you didn’t do good enough research.

7. Monkeys don’t fall in love
or You should not be emotionally attached to a stock.

For all intents and purposes, for almost all of us, a stock is a bunch of electrons in a computer that may or may not turn into chicken tendies. Those electrons do not deserve your respect and your emotions are going to make you a worse trader - if you “like the stock” then you are much more likely to make an emotional/faith-based decision than you are to make a smart one.

8. Bananas are delicious, but so are insects, nuts, the Wendy's 4 for $4 and tendies
or Don’t listen to WSB - don’t make a YOLO play.

I’m not even saying to diversify for the sake of “financial stability”, I just had no fun once I had put all of my money into one stock and couldn’t make any other moves. Make two YOLO plays so you have separate stocks to be following - buy half of your YOLO now and half later - buy 10 different YOLOs at smaller quantities. If you’re in this because this shit is fun, give yourself enough toys to play with that it is.

9. MONKEYS DON’T READ
or Stop checking ticker tape, WSB, Bloomberg terminal

It’s not fun - it’s not that meaningful, and if you’re buying stocks that are only going to have one window for you to sell, you’re going to lose 9 times out of 10 anyways. Set your exit strategy, put in your stop limit and stop hitting F5. All the people who have already had GME gains had multiple exit points and the only people crushing F5 were losers hoping to get out. Lose your money or your sanity, not both.

If anyone else has some advice for me and my fellow millions of fresh aut-lets out here, let her rip. Until then, I am not a qualified financial advisor nor monkeyologist, and my advice should not be taken as such.

Do NOT buy Quantumscape (QS) - unless you just want to gamble with -EV

[TRADING PSYCHOLOGY] Nobody ever takes a trade thinking it's going to be a loser

I spent several hours this past week coaching traders at my prop firm. And something caught my attention…
Every single one of these traders needed help with the same thing.
It has to do with what I call the “reverse” gambler’s fallacy. And it’s something many traders struggle with.
Today, I’ll show you how to get this common obstacle under control… and start earning more consistent returns year after year…
What Most New Traders Get Wrong
The obstacle I’m talking about is trading psychology. It’s a very broad term used to describe the emotional side of trading.
Almost all new traders believe the most important part of trading is being able to analyze markets like a pro.
On the surface, this logic makes sense. After all, if you can reliably forecast which direction to take on a trade, the money should take care of itself… right?
What these novices don’t yet understand is that something special happens the moment you commit your money to a trade…
You start feeling things.
Whether it’s fear, excitement, anxiety, or a mix of all three, no one is immune to these emotions. And they can wreak havoc on even the best planned trades.
You may be able to call the direction, the timing, and the target price to perfection… But it can all be for nothing if you are unable to stick to your trade plan.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen traders plan out a great trade… But then ended up somehow losing money, or not being in the market when the move they’d forecast played out.
So how do you beat your emotions to become a better, more consistent trader? It comes down to the three key parts of trading. Let me explain…
The Three-Legged Stool of Trading
I think of trading as a three-legged stool.
Your methodology/strategy for picking trades is the first leg. Your risk- and trade-management strategy is the second leg. And the third leg is your trading psychology.
In my experience, most traders focus on the first leg (strategy and methodology), and they neglect the other two legs. But the stool needs all three legs to stand on its own.
Over the years, I’ve honed my own proprietary method to develop well-rounded traders. Here’s what I’ve learned…
The first fundamental building block of a profitable trader is to establish a proven strategy/methodology you can use to identify good trades. In my experience, everything follows from this foundation.
How you manage your risk and your trades should be determined by the strategies you employ. Your trading psychology likewise will be influenced by your approach to risk and trade management.
I’ve seen other trading instructors assign arbitrary percentage values to the three legs of the trading stool. Usually these values are divided up like this: 30% to the level of importance on the analytical strategy, 30% to risk and trade management, and 40% to trading psychology.
But I don’t believe that any one leg is more important than the other. And yet I’ve found that, more often than not, traders neglect risk/trade management and psychology.
So how do you stop neglecting these two important areas to become a more well-rounded trader? That’s where our reverse gambler’s fallacy comes in…

Time to Ditch the Casino Mentality
There is one block that seems to stop traders from progressing to working on the other two legs.
That is, they don’t know how to flip the switch from thinking about their trades as individual trades in a vacuum… to thinking about them as a collection that relies on a statistical edge to net a profit.
Most traders run into this problem at some point in their careers. And if you’re frustrated with your trading right now, chances are you may be struggling with this, too.
It’s known as the casino mentality. And it’s the same mindset that amateur gamblers will take with them into Caesars Palace or the Bellagio.
It doesn’t matter if they’re seated at the blackjack table or standing over the roulette wheel. Most gamblers believe that the hand or spin they are about to play is the opportunity to hit a winner.
After all, if the roulette wheel has landed four black spins in a row, the next one surely must be red, right?
In reality, the chances of the roulette ball landing on black or red is even, at about 47.4% each. This means each spin is independent of the last.
This is also known as the gambler’s fallacy. What’s interesting is that I’ve observed a kind of reverse gambler’s fallacy from many traders…
This occurs when a trader, who does in fact have a statistically proven strategy, goes on a losing streak… And then instead of continuing to trust their strategy, they abandon it altogether.
How to Avoid the “Reverse” Gambler’s Fallacy
I saw this logical fallacy in effect this past week during one of my coaching calls.
The trader I was coaching had recently taken a technical setup that simply did not work. He was convinced he had done something wrong and wanted my help in improving his analysis.
But his analysis was great.
He didn’t do anything wrong in identifying the setup, which was textbook in nature. But the setup looked so good that, when it resulted in a loss, the trader was convinced that he was the problem… That he did something wrong.
The lesson I imparted to him, which I now want to pass on to you, is this very simple truth…
Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever takes a trade thinking it is going to be a loser. Every single trade you take will be because you thought it would make you money.
Despite this feeling of confidence, out of 100 trades, you’d be lucky to win 50% of them.
That’s why a great trader is not defined by what percentage of their trades end up as winners or losers. A great trader is defined by whether or not they are net profitable after taking 100 trades.
If you win roughly as many trades as you lose, but your winners make you 2x or 3x the amount of money you give back on your losers, you will end up with a nice profit at the end of the year.
Remember, nobody ever takes a trade thinking it is not going to work out. This is why it is absolutely crucial to abandon the idea of thinking about your trades as individual trades.
Instead, start taking a more data-driven, statistical approach to your trading. What do I mean by that?
Keeping a longer-term perspective on your trading is the key to longevity in this business. What your numbers look like over the next 100, 200, or 300 trades is far more relevant and important than losing your cool because you lost a handful of trades in a row.
Of course, to be able to make it to 300 trades, you must have a rock-solid risk management plan in place.
I don’t see gamblers at the casino take a professional approach very often. It’s rare to see someone bet small and stick to the odds on every play. It’s far more common for gamblers to be all over the place with the size of their bets.
They may start off betting small, but after winning a couple of hands of blackjack, they get overconfident and take an outsized bet. Sure enough, on that next hand they go bust while the house just happens to hit blackjack.
This is how casinos make money from gamblers. And it’s how the market parts amateur traders from their capital.
No doubt, it takes a lot of hard work and discipline to make the transition from amateur to professional. But, I promise you, the rewards make it all worthwhile. Until next time.
Regards,

Why you should learn poker and game theory (LONG READ)

Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!

Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:

- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…

- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:

- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!

TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.
Edit: I couldn't crosspost from cc so I just copied the post as I figured it is relevant here too :)

Does gambling problem run in your family?

Today i lost 1.2k. Well my original deposit was 300, built it up to 1.2k through sports betting. But when i went under a 1000 i started chasing losses. Bet 500 on red. It landed black. Shit, Ok its gotta be red this time.. bet 500 again. Nope black again. Damn it was so hard not to deposit again after. I felt like i went thru a lot building up that much money, it felt unjustified.I felt like such an idiot playing fucking roulette chasing my losses. I even told myself i wouldnt do that. But ive been here before.
3 years ago i had it way worse. Lost 16k gambling online. All credit card debt. Ofc i couldnt pay it, pretty soon i had collections calling 3 times a day. Everytime i saw their number id get a hit of anxiety. Never picked up. What was i supposed to say? "Hi i gambled ur money and lost it all"?. Well eventually they sued me and so i had to figure something out. Settled for about 30% for both credit cards. The last card i actually settled yesterday, while playing blackjack. I thought it was funny at the moment, thinking i overcame my addiction, and if i could follow the rules and strategies i set up for myself, ill be good. But once i started losing big numbers relative to the stack i had, i couldnt stop doubling, tripling down. It was like i was possessed by a demon making the most perfect excuses in the world. Those excuses sounded fucking delicious. "U only deposited a fraction of what u have now anywayss" "what if u could double ur money right now? That would be soooOoO awesome wouldnt it?" "Imagine if u could get another double after this!" "CMOON BET ON RED 1 MORE TIME AND U WILL BE 50X UR ORIGINAL DEPOSIT!" Its more persuasive than a hot chick trying to have sex with u. I dont even think drugs can replicate the dopamine and adrenaline rush u get when so much is on the line. This is when i remembered. This shit runs in my family.
many many years ago my uncle spent 200k of borrowed money gambling in russia. He lost it all and was held by the russian mafia. My grandfather who also was a gambling addict had to pay the debt in order for them to let him go.
My grandfather was a rich man. Owned a hotel and was very very well off, but he couldnt beat his gambling addiction. Lost everything including his hotel. My dad told me he attempted suicide many times only to bail because of his fear of death. He had everything.. now he asks my dad for money occasionally and he doesnt even make a fraction of what grandpa made. Went from a millionaire to a begger overnight. Being old, its hardto financially recover from that.
I realized, in gambling eventually ur gona lose it all. Whats the fun in winning 10 dollars if u have 10000? Its the psychology of gambling that makes casinos billions. We are hard wired to lose and the house was designed to win. I dont wanna do this anymore, I feel like i cant enjoy watching sports without betting now. Having money on the line made the thrill that much better. Higher highs, and lower lows. Exactly the same wave pattern as drugs. I want to get into (crypto) trading and have been learning. I have holding position and some money laying around i wanna try trading with. I dont know how my gambling problem would affect me. I lost money i can afford to lose, im not financially ruined at all. But mentally im ruined with regret and shame. I had a huge urge to deposit and bet half my checkings on red again but i managed to hold that off, sounds fucking retarded right? Well i wouldve thought the same yesterday. But in the moment i was not in control, like something switched on inside me. But the pain of past history wouldnt let me do that. I controlled my pain with the possibility of even more pain. How would i feel being even more in debt than last time? Now thats a shitty feeling. Fuck
Tl;dr : lost 1.2k today chasing losses. Was very hard not to deposit again. 3 years ago i lost 16k of borrowed money (credit card) had collections calling me everyday until i got sued and then settled. If there wasnt a credit limit i probably couldve went way higher.
Uncle lost 200k in borrowed money in russia and was held by the mafia until grandpa paid it off.
Grandpa then lost his hotel and all assets gambling, attempted suicide multiple times.
All in all, im glad i only lost that much today. It just hurts to see all that profit disappear just like that. Mentally its very painful. I wanna put in another 5k and double up. But i know itll never end until i lose it all again, this time 10x more than before. Fuck man

Do NOT buy Quantumscape (QS) unless you just want to gamble with -EV

Ultimate Casino Cashback Guide - Earn over £500 - Every Offer Explained!

This guide aims to outline all of the best gambling cashback offers available over a range of sites, following this guide you should be able to make over £500 in cashback
Note - Cashback often takes a while to payout, bear this in mind when completing offers as you may have to wait to cashout your earnings
When completing these offers don't chase any loses as the cashback will give you a profit with nerly every offer
A short review of each site and some referral links
Topcashback - Cashback will show as tracked within a few days, can take a few weeks to become payable, in some cases even longer, asides from gambling they have great offers for car insurance and mobile phone contracts, worth taking a look to save some extra money!
Ref - Extra £5 when you make £10 cashback
Non-Ref - No reward
Quidco - Much the same as Topcashback
Ref
Non-Ref
Minimum payment - £10
Ohmydosh - Faster Payouts but less offers
Ref - Extra £1
Non-Ref - No reward
Minimum payout - Any
Cashback Earners - A lesser known site in need of a fresh look, this site also has some bad reviews, referal income is paid to the site on a monthly basis with the dates for each site being different, offers don't seem to show as tracked until the website receive their payment, cashback should appear in your account within 1 month of completing an offer. Cashout amounts are specific, its best to build up a balance and then withdraw. Payment takes around 3 weeks.
Ref - Sign up bonus £6.5
Non-Ref - Sign up bonus £6.5
Minimum payout is £20
Payment Proof - Payments for all sites can be seen here, quidco isn't shown as i have signed up for all the casinos on offer through topcashback

How to Maximize Profit - IMPORTANT - READ THIS

For the majority of these offers you want to play blackjack following the chart found here
Any blackjack game will do, look for a normal version of the game at the site you are playing on and make sure it is a non live game as the hand sizes will be lower.
When playing blackjack there will often be more than one spot that you can bet on, allowing the player to bet more than one hand at a time, Its important to only bet on one spot at a time as it reduces the variance of the game and will ensure you get the maximum return possible from the game, stick to £1 hand sizes when playing and dont be tempted to bet larger amounts as you will be getting a nice amount of cashback from every offer
Through playing blackjack this way the player will get a return of around 98%, meaning for every £100 staked you will lose around £2. If you make a loss on a casino site after completing the required wagering amount, withdraw your remaining balance, don't chase loses as the cashback will make up for loses and give you a profit in most cases.
All offers are updated fairly regularly, make sure to check the terms for each offer as information in this post may become outdated. Also check for other offers every now and then as new casinos are added!

TopCashBack Offers - £400+ Profit

Topcashback Referral - Get an extra £5 - See the Ref Link at the top of the page!
If you dont already have an account at top cashback, you can sign up through my referral to get an extra £5 added to you account once you make £10 cashback
Lottoland - Cashback £15
Add £11 and play 11 separate £1 hands, following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Betfair Casino - Cashback £70
Note this is not the poker offer
Add £50 to your account and play 50 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Quidco are offering £100 for this offer
Party Casino - Cashback £26.5
Deposit and play 30 single £1 hand son blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Tombola - Cashback £24.5
Deposit £10 and open the tombola roulette game, choose a £1 chip size and choose 5 spots, repeat this twice, withdraw any remaining balance, you will likely lose money here but the cashback will give you a profit
Coral - Cashback £46
Add £10 and play 10 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Bingoport - Cashback £3
Sign up to bingoport to get an easy £3
Ladbrokes - Cashback £42
Add £10 to your account and play 10 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Pokerstars - Cashback £32
Add £25 and play 25 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
STS - Cashback £21
Add £30 to your account and play 30 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
William Hill - Cashback £54
add £25 and play 25 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Megacasino - £15.75
Add £25 - Play 25 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
LottoGo - Cashback £3.18
Buy a euromillions ticket
Slingo - Cashback £24.75
Add £10 play 10 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
PaddyPower Games - Cashback £20
Add £10 play 10 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
The Football Pools - Cashback £24.75
Sign up for the £10 a month subscription, cancel this after 30 days
Lottomart - Cashback £18
Add £10 - Play 10 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Genting Slots - Cashback £25
Add £30 play 30 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
OhMyDosh - Cashback £40+
Referral gives an extra £1, sign up through the ref link at the top of the post to get the bonus!
Gala Bingo - Cashback £17.50
Deposit at least £5, you'll get a £10 slots bonus and 100 free spins, these carry hefty wagering requirements, Open any slot and play the minimum spin size, play until you lose all of the money in your account or complete the wagering requirements on the bonus funds. Withdraw any remaining balance.
BGO - £10 Cashback
Deposit at least £15. Play 15 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance. DONT ACCEPT the welcome bonus from BGO.
Lottosocial - Cashback £4
Sign up to Lotto Social - Use your correct phone number when joining as it is the only way to login to your account. Purchase 10 lines for £1, after making a purchase go to your account page and find the list of syndicates your are in, leave the syndicates to avoid making any more payments.
Cheeky Bingo - £10 Cashback
Deposit £10 and get a £40 welcome bonus, just play bingo with all of your funds and hope to get some wins, bonus has 4x wagering requirements.

Quidco - Cashback £100+

Quidco don't offer a sign up bonus, find my ref link at the top of the post if you want to help me out!
All of the offers on quidco are much the same as topcashback, the only offer worth noting is the betfair casino offer which pays £100
Betfair - £100 cashback
Add £100 and play 100 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.

Cashbackearners - Cashback £180+

Sign up Bonus
Get a £6.5 sign up bonus, think this works with or without the ref link, links are at the top of the post!
To find these offers just search for casino on the site.
All of these offers state that you only need to make a deposit, its best to play through the deposit 1x to ensure that the cashback is paid.
LuckyMeSlots - Cashback £15
Add £15 and play 15 single £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Spin Genie - Cashback £12.5
Add £12.5 and play 12.5 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Cashmo - Cashback £10
Add £10 and play through £10 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
Ice36 -Cashback £15
Add £15 and play 15 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Spinhill Casino - Cashback £15
Add £15 and play 15 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Galacasino - Cashback £30
add £30 and play 30 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Casino765 - Cashback £12.5
Add £12.5 and play 12.5 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
Casinosuperwins - Not recommended, bad site, awful support
Casino2020 - Cashback £15
Add £15 and play through £15 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Keep track of spins and quit the slot after wagering the required amount. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
Pocketwin - Cashback £10
Add £10 and play through £10 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Keep track of spins and quit the slot after wagering the required amount. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
The Sun Vegas - Cashback £15
Add £15 and play 15 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
DrSlot - Cashback £10
Add £10 and play through £10 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Keep track of spins and quit the slot after wagering the required amount. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
MrSpin - Cashback £10
Add £10 and play through £10 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Keep track of spins and quit the slot after wagering the required amount. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
PrimeCasino - Cashback £15
Add £15 and play 15 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
ConquestAdor - Cashback £10
Add £10 play 10 £1 hands on blackjack following the strategy outlined at the top of the post, withdraw any remaining balance.
MFortune - Cashback £10
Add £10 and play through £10 on any slot staking the minimum amount per spin. Keep track of spins and quit the slot after wagering the required amount. Don't spin the wheel that pops up after signing up or accept any other bonuses.
Thanks for reading, hope this of use to some people, happy earning!

GoodWin Casino - free spins, no deposit bonus, promo codes

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(MANGA) Top 30 strongest characters in the series so far

Yeye i know hunter x hunter is all about match-ups and strategy, knowledge and all that but i believe you can still put together a solid list ranking the characters. For example no matter how much strategy went into the Youpi fight, Knuckle and Morel couldn't best him. Also beware as i'm gonna go into manga spoilers. I will go into detail for every character and why i rank them the way i rank them. Open to suggestions and discussion. Creditless arguments like "pouf is a royal guard tho" or bias (looking at Morel, Killua, Feitan and Hisoka wankers) will be ignored.
Note: this list is a little subjective as i'll go into some headcanon. I won't include characters like The Guide or the Gatekeepers. Also no characters undergoing development as we know nothing of what they can do in a fight (looking at you Tserriednich and Benjamin). Finally no Alluka / Nanika and Adult Gon

**Don Freecss (assuming he is still alive) 1, *Post-Rose Meruem (in the case Don is not alive)
Beyond Netero - There's no way someone that already survived the Dark Continent once and went on to train himself for 50 years to go there again can't be this high up. If Togashi ever decides to write that arc, i think we are gonna see Beyond best foes above Meruem.
Pre-Rose Meruem - No matter how you put it, Netero couldn't best him in a 1v1 fight so he had to go all out and kill himself to prevent Meruem from being a further threat to humanity. 0 Hand barely did some damage to Meruem. A true King
*Isaac Netero - The pinnacle of hunters at the time of the palace invasion.
*Ging Freecss - His portrayal is off the charts. One of the 5 greatest nen masters in the world according to Neterom and he showed some of that potential with the warts game. He can copy any Enhancer ability just by being hit with it and use it in a masterful manner by analysing the way the user might use his ability and in what situations, showing his deep understanding of nen and his cerebral, strategic prowess. Lastly he's gonna be a major player in the Dark Continent arc if Togashi ever picks up the story to that point. Personally i think he could potentially be above Meruem and Netero, but i'll give those 2 the benefit of the doubt as we haven't seen much from Ging.
Botobai - One of the only 3-star hunters in the world and given that he's a terrorist hunter he's highly proficient in combat. Also portrayal wise, he was stated to be the man in the HA to be the closest to Netero
*Silva Zoldyck - This may seem weird, but i believe Silva is supposed to showcase what a top tier hunter in his prime is supposed to look like. Great portrayal as the head of the Zoldyck Family and a master assassin. His explosive orbs were said to be able to kill top tier nen users like Zeno or Chrollo if it's a direct hit, and he also 1-shot Cheetu who was giving Morel and Knuckle a run for their money without even having a Hatsu. He could potentially be higher but we need more feats. *Interchangeable with Razor*
*Razor - Insane nen reserve and nen mastery. The fact that he created and imbued all the thousands of cards inside Greed Island and even keeps the game going with his nen is enough. On top of all that he can still conjure dozens of nen beasts and emit high level nen attacks (like his nen ball). Add his insane physicality on top of all that and i think we're looking at a top tier. *interchangeable with Silva*
*Youpi - Insane nen reserves, insane growth speed and versatile with his body transfiguration technique. *interchangeable with Pitou*
*Pitou - Around the same as youpi. Genius level intellect and a specialist, can make up new Hatsu on the spot and hast some of the best feats in HxH. *interchangeable with Youpi*
Zeno Zoldyck - Self explanatory
Chrollo - I don't think i need to go into detail for this. His encounter with Zeno and Silva and his fight with hisoka speak for themselves. As for why i have him below Zeno, i think ppl too often misinterpret what Zeno said after that encounter. He never said "Oh chrollo you could kill me", but rather "The outcome *might* have been different". Also important to note that once Zeno fought seriously he cornered Chrollo. Lastly Chrollo needs more prep-time to be effective in a fight, whereas Zeno is suited for quick, direct combat.
Post-Revival Hisoka - Honestly he might be even stronger than this but we don't really know the heights he achieved after his revival, given that he was already strong enough before his death. As far as we know he could be only slightly stronger or even above the Royal Guards. I for sure expect his placement to change in the future.
Bisky - You may think this might be a little too low for Bisky but hear me out. Yes she has peak physicality and is a great nen user, but that's all she has. Everyone that's above her (besides maybe Chrollo) has either high tier or top tier physicality AND some great hatsu suited for combat. At the end of the day as good as Bisky's hatsu is for training, it's pretty useless in combat, so all she has going for herself is her physicality and basic nen techniques.
Pariston - Probably the most cerebral character in HxH, Pariston is to this day a mystery. One of the only 10 3-star hunters in the world and a great threat lurking in the world right now. We don't know what type of hunter he is, and to be honest the fact that we know so little about him is the only reason i have him this low. Could easily be top 10.
Saiyu - being one of the Zodiacs he is a high tier hunter and master Nen user. I mostly put him this high cause i think his hatsu is quite insane.
*Pre-Revival Hisoka - High tier hunter that sees even the Zodiacs as nothing more than playthings. Proven himself to be a nen master and highly cerebral and skilled combatant. Bungee Gum is super versatile and his physicality is high tier. His cards also help a lot since they provide piercing damage.
*Illumi Zoldyck - Pretty much portrayed to be equal to Pre-Revival Hisoka. Proficient nen user, master assassin, i don't know what more I can say about him. Pretty self explanatory.
Uvogin - Physical beast, top tier Enhancer. Uvogin was unfortunate enough to go down rather early in the story and people underestimate him because of it, but Kurapika is just too good against PT members.
Nobunaga - In my opinion one of the most if not the most underrated character in HxH as far as fighters go. His hatsu is pretty crazy imo and the restriction makes it so much more potent. He was also portrayed to be Uvo's equal.
Killua Zoldyck - The only reason he is this low is cause his lack of experience against top tiers (Chimera Ant Arc was his first time fighting opponents this strong) and the inconsistency Godspeed provides. Being a former assassin and given Godspeed's insanely high nen usage, Killua is at his best in short encounters. If he can't best any of the people above him while Godspeed is active, it's an automatic loss imo. Could potentially be ~16-17
Kurapika - Good physicality as he was keeping up with Uvogin, master nen user and probably the most versatile fighter in the series thus far. Emperor Time is just too OD. NOTE: this is Kurapika on average, not when he is facing PT members
Morel - Nen master, experienced fighter. The things he did in Chimera Ant Arc speak for themselves to be honest. You could argue he can be a little higher but i'm comfortable with putting him here.
Knuckle - Similar to Saiyu, knuckle has to meet a certain condition to best his opponents. The only problem is, his condition takes way longer to be met and i'll give Saiyu the benefit of the doubt cause of his Zodiac status. APR is an amazing hatsu, truly broken to be honest. You could argue that Knuckle does great against your usual hunter / monster, but Youpi was just too much for him, and while i agree, i still don't think he can drain someone of Kurapika's caliber or Uvo of his Nen before they beat him. I could be wrong tho. This is a placement i'm looking forward to hear more opinions on from yall.
Kanzai - Now this might be controversial, and i feel like I'm heavily low-balling Kanzai. He's a combatant 2-star hunter, a Zodiac, Hisoka said his strength is around 85 (w/e the fuck that means) and was stated to be Netero's sparring partner. So why do i have him this low? For 1, he is super dumb, and intelligence and strategy matters a lot in nen fights, and 2 we don't know to what extent his sparring with Netero went. Also very important, Netero was notably rusty nd out of shape before Chimera Ant Arc. I could see him being higher tho, but we need to see more from him.
Phinks - Potent Enhancer. We don't know much about Phinks to be honest and that's the only reason i have him this low. I will say tho he could 100% be above Uvogin, we just need to see more
*Kite - Proficient nen user, kite is a really skilled hunter, earning Ging's praise. He could potentially be higher up but the random nature of Roulette keeps him from being consistent in fights against high tiers in my opinion. Kite vs Feitan 1v1 could go either way depending on Roulette. Does he get a good weapon and kills Feitan before pain-packer, or does pain-packer take him down before he gets an amazing weapon?
*Feitan - The exact opposite of Nobunaga, i think Feitan is one of the most overrated fighters in HxH. Yes pain-packer is cool and all, but if you can put him down before that ability activates, he's not much to fear. *NOTE: now i will say, given the context of post-death Nen, it could turn out that a post-death pain-packer could even take out a fuckign Royal Guard, but at the end Feitan is still dead so it's not really a win
Gon - I love Gon, and he is just as talented as Killua, but he is far from reaching his potential. His main issue is his 1-dimensional hatsu and the lack of versatility in fight, proven time and time again against people like Genthru or Knuckle. I wish i could put him higher but i really don't see him beating anyone above him.
*****Pouf - Honestly i don't even know if Pouf deserves to be on this list, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Pouf is 100% the most overrated character whenever i read thru someone's list of the strongest characters in HxH. YES he is a royal guard, YES he has insane nen reserves, YES he is a genius, but people forget 1 really important thing: HE IS NOT A FUCKING FIGHTER. This dude didn't even pose a threat to Morel for crying out loud and i see people put him in top 10 all the time. HE. IS. NOT. A. FIGHTER.

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Getting ready for a Merry Xmas of Fantasy Fixtures

A post for everyone to think about but for someone like me who is hovering around the 700k overall rank, I always see the December games as a massive opportunity to pick up/gain points on the rest in a short period of time.
Provided there are no changes to fixtures or unfortunate postponements I'm listing a few teams that I think should be the go to's in the 6 games over festive perriod.
I believe everyone should be targeting these fixtures on the basis of quick match turnover which give those who are in top form an opportunity to go on great runs. It can also be an opportunity for certain players to win big. Teams will be obvious but hopefully it will help some.

1. Liverpool: FUL(A) TOT(H) CRY(A) WBA(H) NEW(A) SOU(A) 2nd place Liverpool are looking very nice in December. Apart from Spurs at home I don't foresee there being many problems for the champions. I fully expect with some fans now allowed back at Anfield they will want to show more of what they did against Wolves to the unfortunate fans who did not get to celebrate the title.
Player watch: Salah is my personal preference instead of Mane. You could double up with Jota if you think he will get more starts but he is a rotation risk. Robertson and TAA are also attacking full backs who have the potential to haul but they do come at a cost.

2. Man City: MUN(A) WBA(H) SOU(A) NEW(H) EVE(A) CHE(A) After a mediocre start to the season Pep will have seen promising signs from the last 2 fixtures that his team is starting to show signs of why they are one of the best teams in the league. Champions league is wrapped up, surely he will want them to go full throttle now and bang in as many goals to prove that his team is still to be reckoned with.
Player watch: KDB is the obvious choice but if you feel like going for something different, don't shy away from Sterling and Mahrez. Personally I think a double up with Mahrez could be a nice aggressive move to make. Yes you will encounter Pep roulette but how many times have we seen city 2-3 goals up in the 2nd half only for a player like Mahrez to come on and get a goal. I don't have a preference for the defense.

3. Leeds: WHU(H),NEW(H) MUN(A) BUR(H) WBA(A) TOT(A)
Bielsa's boys lie 14th but only separated 5 points between 4th placed Man Utd. You know what you are going to get with Leeds, solid performances. They can give the best in the league a game on their day and with that I feel like they are one to monitor.
Player watch: Bamford is the obvious choice, he gets in great positions and I'm surprised he hasn't scored more over the past few game weeks. At 6.1m I think that's a bargain. I like the defence and I prefer full backs than centre backs so 1 of Dallas and Ayling might be worth a shot.

4. Aston Villa: WOL(A) BUR(H) WBA(A) CRY(H) CHE(A) MUN(A)
A team that has gelled really nicely since avoiding relegation. I would be targeting Grealish for the first 4 fixtures at least. Annoying that he started to give Watkins the pens but after he missed his last one hopefully Grealish can get back on them. Watkins is a nice pick but he seems to haul big in certain games and go missing for the rest. I'm a fan of Mings and Konsa, 2 goals each so far and have picked up clean sheets.
The maybe teams:
5. Man Utd: MCI(H) SHU(A) LEE(H) LEI(A) WOL(H) AVL(H)
As a Man Utd fan our season is like sitting on a roller coaster, so many highs and lows. Despite being 5th there is a recurring pattern playing out with Man Utd in that they start matches too slow, deep and lack much of a press. It's only until the ship is steadied that they make it to half time but by then they've already conceded.
Player watch: I don't like any defenders from this team. Bruno and Rashford are the obvious picks. I'd stick with Bruno, just look at what happened at W.Ham. Stay away from Pogba,VDB,Martial etc, way too flakey,expensive and rotation.
6. Spurs CRY(A) LIV(A) LEI(H) WOL(A) FUL(H) LEE(H)
After losing to Everton first game of the season, I'd be lying if I didn't think Jose was going to have a bad season but he's surprised us all in creating a classic team that likes to sit back and hit hard when they get an opportunity. Everything is coming from the superstars Kane & Son. Before playing City/Chelsea/Spurs who would have thought they would also have picked up 7 points? It's testament to how well the team is playing. I put these lot as a maybe because now that we have settled into the season I think some of these matches might be more lower scoring and Jose will no doubt happily take a draw I think if games aren't going his way considering their position. I could be very wrong and biased but let me know.
Player watch: Kane & Son (obvious reasons). Reguilon looks great on the left and Aurier has played the last few matches instead of Doherty so maybe he keeps his place.
Teams with good fixtures but who I feel are not good:

Burnley: ARS(A) AVL(A) WOL(H) LEE(A) SHU(H) FUL(H)

Not the prettiest team on the eye but I feel like there could be some clean sheet value in their defence. Last 4 games 2 clean sheets, mauled by City and conceded 1 goal against Everton. Maybe you take a punt on Taylor or Lowton at 4.4m or a bit more on Tarkowski.
8. Arsenal: BUR(H) SOU(H) EVE(A) CHE(H) BHA(A) WBA(A)
Before you shoot me, wait a moment! I mentioned Arsenal last night to a few on a forum and they all rejected the idea. I totally agree but Arsenal are not relegation fodder despite where the league positions them. In my opinion they will pick up wins and improve, it's just where and how.
Player watch: Aubamayang is ridiculously expensive but if anyone is going to score it has to be him to lift this team as he starts every game. Lacazette does not start often enough but I don't think Arteta can afford to keep his minutes low. I don't know what Arsenals regular team is but if you really are desperate and want to take a huge risk maybe have a quick peek.

Hopefully this wasn't a bad read. Let me know what your Xmas strategy is and which teams and players you think we should be targeting.

Good luck everyone.

Big Brother Season RANKED (SPOILERS)

I’ve been looking around YouTube for recent lists while I wait for Peridiam’s new part to come out, and there surprisingly aren’t many season ranking videos. At least not of late. So I decided to type down my own thoughts and put them here. Would love for some discourse/debate on this! Some seasons I’ve only seen once and it was a long time ago(like BB9 & BB5). Anyways, here is my ranking!
SPOILERS
21)Big Brother 9 -horribly gross drama, a terrible pairs twist, and a fixed Final 4 HOH comp are all factors that lead BB9 to being my least favorite season of the show. It was just bad. Every single bit of it was bad. The gameplay sucked. There wasn’t a single cast member I liked. A couple were tolerable, but none that I actually LIKED. A bad, bad season and easily my least favorite of all-time.
Favorite Player: N/A Best Player: I guess Adam?
20)Big Brother 13 -another season with a pretty bad cast(in my opinion), an awful pairs twist and a rigged outcome. I really dislike this season because it’s so clearly set-up to favor the veterans from the start. The pairs twist ruined all gameplay in the first half of the game, as veterans came in with their loved ones as their pair, and the newbies were just slapped together with another stranger. Like, wtf is that. Not to mention the veterans all were a 6-person alliance from the jump. Then there’s the stupid golden key twist which practically kills the gameplay of whoever receives one, Evel Dick leaving early, and Pandora’s Box literally shaping the end of the season on it’s own. It’s awful. The whole game feels fabricated from the start. Just a bad season for me.
Favorite Player: Dani Donato Best Player: Shelli Moore
19)Big Brother 19 -Arguably THE WORST cast in the show’s history(except for Paul). I really enjoyed Paul in BB18, and while it was somewhat nice to see them take control of the game in BB19, it wasn’t enjoyable to watch. Paul used a lot of bullying tactics in their gameplay. Which honestly, I didn’t mind. The issue was that every single other house guest just followed their orders. They all were their minions and none of them seemed to ever mind being their pawn. It was embarrassing to watch the other players do this. And the only two players that didn’t give in to Paul, were terrible people in their own right! There was genuinely nobody to root for. By the end of the season, I at least was hoping that Paul would be rewarded for their dominant gameplay but NO. The jury votes Josh the winner. I know that for some people this felt like justice, but I loathed the finale. Josh sucked just as much as Paul, but Paul clearly played a better game. And Cody won AFP which... also sucked ass.
Favorite Player: Paul Abrahamian Best Player: Paul Abrahamian
18)Big Brother 22 -While this season was unbelievably boring and predictable, getting to see house guests like Tyler & Janelle talk in the same house together was incredible. The fact that I got to watch several BB legends game with each other gives this season enough positive points that it can’t rank last. Still, a horribly boring/predictable season though. It’s just so unfortunate that The Committee won every single HOH in the season(counting Enzo as Committee). There was never even a chance for a power shift with the comp results. Cody played a great game, but it’s hard to truly give him props when he dealt with literally 0 adversity throughout the entirety of the season.
Favorite Player: Tyler Crispen Best Player: Cody Calafiore
17)Big Brother 11 -Another extremely unlikable cast(in my opinion). We were introduced to Jeff & Jordan in this season, and while I enjoyed watching their relationship blossom at the time, I can’t look back and enjoy watching Jeff play Big Brother. The only good players this season are Jesse and Kevin. And yet again, there’s some rigging. Jeff is just given the coup, and suddenly gets the front runner at the time, Jesse out of the house. It was such an unfair and embarrassing moment for the show. And it truly tainted the rest of the season for me. The only real highlight that this season has for me is Ronnie’s HOH week. Seeing every other house guest screaming at him from the kitchen was incredible. Loved watching Ronnie’s game collapse.
Favorite Player: I guess Kevin? Best Player: Kevin Campbell
16)Big Brother 16 -A season with a really good cast gets heavily weighed down by one of the worst twists in BB history, AND one of the best players leading with extremely boring gameplay. Starting with the twist, Battle of the Block SUCKS. It HEAVILY favors a super alliance. Which is something that really originated in this season. It let everyone in that super alliance have too much control of every week, and it gave the outsiders almost no chance to overcome their fate. Then there’s Derrick. One of the best players we’ve ever seen, but also really boring. He intentionally stopped fights from happening all the time. Which sucked because it led to practically no drama in the season after Devin had left. Still though, Devin’s downfall, Zankie, and an overall good cast make this season somewhat enjoyable to watch.
Favorite Player: Zach Rance Best Player: Derrick Levasseur
15)Big Brother 4 -A season that I didn’t really like at the start. The ex twist was one that didn’t really work for me. I just didn’t enjoy watching people argue about personal stuff that we didn’t originally see for ourselves. But even with that, I just thought the cast of this season was ok. Jun and Alison were great. But nobody else really shined at all. Not to mention, the overall gameplay during the season was lacking. The only real strong gamers were Alison and Jun. I was happy to see them make the Final 2 and, in my opinion, have the rightful one of them crowned winner. Just a solid, but not great season.
Favorite Player: Alison Erwin Best Player: Jun Song
14)Big Brother 21 -The first half of BB21 is abysmal. It’s probably the worst pre-jury phase in the entire history of the show. BUT things reaaallly kick into gear once jury begins. The super alliance breaks open and a lot of drama and real gameplay begins. We get Taco Tuesday here, Jackson’s incredible lie at Final 5, and Cliff & Nicole’s underdog story. Not to mention Christie becomes a solid player and really entertaining in her own right. If only the cast wasn’t so unlikable. Practically all of the likable house guests are evicted immediately and we’re left with a group of assholes + Cliff & Nicole. Still, BB21 has a very entertaining back half. And I think that it’s overall a solid season.
Favorite Player: I guess Christie? Best Player: Jackson Michie
13)Big Brother 5 -A season with a solid cast and a really entertaining set of twists, just fell flat a few times too many. It’s impossible to not mention Project DNA when talking about this season. It was a really cool set of twists that still gave us the coolest reveals in the show’s history. But the gameplay of the season was mostly lacking. Drew & Diane were a strong duo, and Karen, Marvin & Nakomis were strong players as well. But other than that, it seemed like nobody else had their head in the game. The best moment of the season was when Drew cut Diane at Final 3, and he goes on to be crowned the winner. Deservingly so. In the end, it was a solid season that was just lacking in some aspects. It’s hard to point out the exact issues I have with it. It’s easier to just say that it fell flat at multiple points. Still thought it was a fun season though.
Favorite Player: Karen Ganci Best Player: Drew Daniel
12)Big Brother 12 -This season became the template for a typical Big Brother season. It was the first time that an alliance of more than 2 people really dominated the game in secret. This led to some predictable and boring gameplay, but this is mostly remedied by the cast. BB12 has a fantastic cast. We’re introduced to Britney, Hayden, Enzo, Matt, Rachel & Brendan(I didn’t like them but it’s undeniable that they bring drama/entertainment), and even Andrew was really entertaining as well. The fun cast of characters is what drives the season. The Brigade dominates and the winner is practically decided once Hayden masterminds Matt’s eviction. It’s a solid season that lacks a bit in overall gameplay, but more than makes up for it with a phenomenal cast.
Favorite Player: Hayden Moss Best Player: Hayden Moss
11)Big Brother 8 -A really weird season for me. It has a lot of aspects of seasons at the bottom of the list(less than stellar cast, rigged outcome). But I just can’t deny that BB8 is so wildly fun to watch. It doesn’t have the same vibe to it as any other season of the show. It almost feels like a drama with how much focus is on the relationship of Dick & Daniele. It was impossible not to be enamored with the edit. And then there was the secret star of the game, Eric. Eric is one of the greatest players we’ve ever seen play, but he didn’t even get to play his own game. Being America’s Player drastically hurt his game and practically made it impossible to win. But somehow he still manages to control the season without ever even casting his own vote. It was an incredible feat. But it’s also why this season can’t rank higher for me. Eric being strong armed by America saved Dick in the pre-jury. He was literally going home without America forcing Eric’s vote. And then Dick goes on to win the game. It makes his win feel so fabricated. I wish Eric could’ve returned for a future season of BB.
Favorite Player: Eric Stein Best Player: Eric Stein
10)Big Brother 17 -I never really loved the cast of this season. There were two major highlights with Vanessa and Johnny Mac. But other than those two, I didn’t care about anyone else. AND this season brings back one of my most hated twists, Battle of the Block. This all sounds like a recipe for a terrible season, but surprisingly that isn’t the case. BB17 thrives because it’s one of the most competitive seasons of the show ever. Almost every single person in that house came to play and win. Vanessa is such a great strategist and she brings so much drama and gameplay shifts. Not to mention that her emotions DRASTICALLY varied depending on the conversation. It was just really, really entertaining to watch Vanessa dominate this season, especially because she was at the bottom early on. It was unfortunate, but also so cool to watch Steve cut her at Final 3. I wish she could’ve won, but Steve played a solid game and I can’t fault him for eliminating her. It was the necessary move. BB17 is a really good season of Big Brother.
Favorite Player: Johnny Mac Best Player: Vanessa Rousso
9)Big Brother 6 -This season introduced us to multiple legends of the game. Janelle and Kaysar are seen for the first time, but we also get James, Howie and Maggie this season as well. The drama here is palpable as the house is immediately split right down the middle, and it remains that way for the entirety of the summer. The Friendship and the Sovereign Six HATE each other. And that hate really drives the season. It is just so entertaining to watch two sides of the house despise one another and take deep shots at each other week after week. Literally every other week the side that just lost a number won the next HOH. The intensity never seemed to dampen all season long. The Friendship really takes their lead when our eventual winner, Maggie, convinces Howie to nominate his own alliance members. It’s the best move of the season, and also the defining move of the season. That being said, while this move by Maggie is incredible. It’s really the only big game move that happens all season. There isn’t much strategy discussion or secret moves done because the house is so openly two-sided. Maggie’s only other move she has to make is keeping The Friendship together and staying less annoying than the others in her alliance so she doesn’t get targeted. In the end, BB6 is a really great season of Big Brother that lacks just a little bit in the strategy department.
Favorite Player: Janelle Pierzina Best Player: Maggie Ausburn
8)Big Brother 3 -A really good early season that shines because of it’s cast. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Danielle & Jason secretly dominate the game together. Marcellas was amazingly fun to watch. And seeing Roddy stay in the house so many times really proves how strong a player he was. In my opinion, Roddy is one of the most underrated players ever. I haven’t even mentioned the winner, Lisa, yet. Coining herself as the Princess of Darkness and I loved her. While a lot of people claim Danielle was robbed by the jury, I’m not as sold on that as others. Don’t get me wrong, Danielle is definitely a better player than Lisa. But Danielle & Jason could’ve evicted Lisa instead of Amy at Final 4, and they didn’t. It was their fatal mistake. I understood the logic for Danielle as keeping Lisa gave her a better shot at Final 2. But in my opinion, you gotta take out the jury threats when you’re that deep in the game. Still though, Lisa was a great winner in her own right. One of the most underrated winners, in my opinion. And in the end, BB3 is a great season of Big Brother.
Favorite Player: Lisa Donahue Best Player: Danielle Reyes
7)Big Brother 18 -In my opinion, the most underrated season of the show. I just think the cast in BB18 is SO GOOD. Frank comes back(not great, but at least brings drama), Da’Vonne(I didn’t even like her but again, drama/entertainment), I loved Paul, Nicole(gameplay-wise), Victor’s insane comp run, Paulie’s beautiful fall from grace, the best cryer the show has ever had with BIG MEECH, even Bridgette was awesome. Most of the cast here was really great. Although it wasn’t all great as we had James & Natalie who I loathed at the time. And Corey is arguably the most boring house guest that’s ever been casted. But the game is FILLED with exciting drama in the first few weeks between Day, Frank and Tiffany. And then late game is extremely fun to watch as we have 3 pairs duking it out at Final 6. We also get one of the strongest Final 2’s ever with Paul & Nicole. And a crazy close jury vote. I think Nicole was an overall better player but Paul had less of an advantage and overcame more in the game. I would’ve voted for Paul to win if I were on the jury. My only real complaint with BB18 is the team twist at the start. But it’s such a good season that gets overlooked too often.
Favorite Player: Paul Abrahamian Best Player: Paul Abrahamian/Nicole Franzel
6)Big Brother 15 -This season gets so overlooked by too many people due to the terrible people on the cast and the racism of the season. The cast in BB15 really is gross. Not very many great people to root for and most of them are complete assholes. I know it’s hard, but if you can get passed the racism/bullying in the season, then you’re in for THE MOST competitive season of Big Brother. There are so many strong contenders playing in this season including Andy, Amanda, Helen, Aaryn, McCrae... even Spencer, Elissa and Judd are strong competitors. We get two of the best double eviction episodes EVER. BOTH IN THE SAME SEASON. My only complaint(besides the racism) is the MVP twist. I hated it because it was another twist clearly trying to favor production’s favorite house guest. BUT this twist was utilized by the other players SO WELL that I couldn’t be too mad about it. And it led to the David & Nick blindsides, which were very fun to watch. Andy plays a rat floater game this season, and he plays it to perfection. It’s honestly one of the most impressive games I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how he’s able to juggle so many relationships and conceal/give info at the correct moments all season long. Super, super impressive and a very deserving winner.
Favorite Player: Andy Herren Best Player: Andy Herren
5)Big Brother 10 -I think that the cast of BB10 is what keeps it from being higher on my list. Dan is really the only cast member that I LOVE here Keesha is also good, but then I didn’t really love watching anyone else. Memphis, Renny, Jerry... they were all just ok to me. But the important cast member here is Dan. Dan drives this season to greatness on his own. He’s just such an entertaining player because his moves are so theatrical. Nomination Roulette was incredible to watch. Dan’s lie to Ollie to set it up was ruthless. And Dan’s constant acting for sympathy made for great TV as well. The drama this season is very apparent too with loud and feisty women in the house with Keesha, April, Michelle and Libra. They always made for entertaining drama. Keesha’s birthday is the true highlight of drama in all of BB history. The awkwardness and tension of the whole scene is incredible. The season never really lets up in the strategy department as Dan is ALWAYS positioning himself for the win. It’s a really great season to watch, and I understand why others may have it as their favorite season ever. But for me, I just didn’t love the entirety of the cast as much as most others seemed to.
Favorite Player: Dan Gheesling Best Player: Dan Gheesling
4)Big Brother 20 -Some may think it’s crazy to put BB20 above BB10, but in my opinion BB20 has a phenomenally better cast. The only house guest in BB10 I truly loved was Dan. But BB20 had Tyler, Haleigh and Brett that I loved so much. On top of that, the first 2/3s of BB20 were incredible. Blindside after blindside. FAUTTE spectacularly failing. And Level 6 capitalizing on their shortcomings. If the final third of this season kept the momentum of the first two-thirds, then it’d be in contention for the best season ever. But unfortunately, the hacker twist and buyback come into play and slow the season to a slog. Not only that, but the best player isn’t even voted the winner at the end. It’s a shitty ending, but it’s first two-thirds are so amazing that it still ranks this high for me.
Favorite Player: Tyler Crispen/Brett Robinson Best Player: Tyler Crispen
3)Big Brother 14 -The first season I delved into the live feeds for. At the time, I was most excited to watch Mike Boogie play again. BB7 & BB12 were the only seasons of watched before this, and I was enamored with Chilltown at the time. Unfortunately, Boogie didn’t live up to my expectations. But I did fall in love with his partner Frank. Frank had such an incredible run in this season. He was either HOH or on the block every single week in the house. And it was solely because of him being Boogie’s top pick. Watching Frank win the double eviction Veto and then come at the whole house(Ian in particular) was one of my favorite moments. And while I loved Frank, he wasn’t even the star of the season! Dan stole the show away with his funeral. I think that Dan’s Funeral is the greatest single moment in reality TV history. Dan’s delivery, charisma and gusto with this plan is done so well. It truly is him coming back from the grave. AND THEN his blindside Shane eviction at Final 4 is just as entertaining/crazy! It’s disappointing that Dan wasn’t voted the winner of the season, but Ian was still a respectable winner on his own. It’s weird because I don’t think that the overall cast is great in BB14. The newbies SUCK outside of Ian and Frank. But the vets they brought back were genuinely 4 legends of the game. And they really helped carry this season.
Favorite Player: Frank Eudy(Dan as a close second) Best Player: Dan Gheesling
2)Big Brother 2 -It’s absolutely insane that BB2 is so entertaining without a Veto being present all season. It really goes to show how great the cast is this season. Not just in personalities, but also in gameplay. Nicole and Will really pioneer strategy in Big Brother as we know it. They’re the clear two best players of the season, but they play so wildly different from one another. Will is the obvious highlight and star of the show. His DR segments were just absurd when compared to the others. He was always playing a character and it never got boring. It was so entertaining to watch, but he also had the gameplay to back it up. Watching Will’s underdog story in BB2 is some of my favorite television ever. He plays everybody in the house to perfection after practically sabotaging his game to death in the first couple of weeks. It’s absolutely incredible to watch him maneuver his way through the game. It’s masterful AND he never loses his evil doctor persona throughout the entirety of his run. I will never get tired of watching this season solely because of Will’s come from behind win. But we also have other great players like Hardy and Monica. All of these players were so good at the game. Any of them could’ve come out on top at the end. It’s a phenomenal season of Big Brother. And easily one of my favorites.
Favorite Player: Will Kirby Best Player: Will Kirby
1)Big Brother 7 -This is the first season of Big Brother I ever had the pleasure of watching. I can vividly remember my 7 year old self sitting on our living room floor and watching Will & Boogie work their magic. I was so enamored with the way Chilltown masterfully lied their way to the end of the game. It really made me fall in love with social strategy. My mom even made me a Chilltown shirt during the season because I loved it so much. BB7, I think undeniably has the best cast ever. I mean, it’s All-Stars. And the cast lives up to the hype. So many incredible blindsides set up by Chilltown, Janelle’s ridiculous presence in comps and in the house, Operation Double Date, The Legion of Doom, James’ feud with his fellow S6 allies, Danielle Reyes’ drunken rants and doorbell ringing, Chicken George’s Veto win, and the list goes on. Everything that I love about Big Brother is present in this season. And while neither of the best two players made it to the end, a win for Boogie was essentially a win for Chilltown. So I still wasn’t upset at all with the winner of the season. For me, BB7 is undeniably the best season that we’ve had to date.
Favorite Player: Will Kirby Best Player: Will Kirby

Robbing Hood Tactics - Just so you know.

Instead of taking fees on the front end in the form of commissions, Tenev and Bhatt would make money behind the scenes, selling their trades to so-called market makers—large, sophisticated quantitative-trading firms like Citadel Securities, Two Sigma Securities, Susquehanna International Group and Virtu Financial. The big firms would feed Robinhood customer orders into their algorithms and seek to profit executing the trades by shaving small fractions off bid and offer prices.
Robinhood didn’t invent this selling of orders—E-Trade, for example, earned about $200 million in 2019 through the practice. Unlike most of its competitors, though, Robinhood charges the quants a percentage of the spread on each trade it sells, versus a fixed amount. So when there is a large gap between the bid and asked price, everyone wins—except the customer. Moreover, since Robinhood’s customers tend to trade small quantities of stocks, they are less likely to move markets and are thus lower-risk for the big quants running their models. In the first quarter of 2020, 70% of the firm’s $130 million in revenue was derived from selling its order flow. In the second quarter, Robinhood’s PFOF doubled to $180 million.
Given Tenev and Bhatt’s history in the high-frequency trading business, it’s no surprise that they cleverly built their firm around attracting the type of account that would be most desirable to their Wall Street trading-firm clients. What kind of traders make the most saleable chum for giant sharks? Those who chase volatile momentum stocks, caring little about the size of spreads, and those who speculate with options. So Robinhood’s app was designed to appeal to the video-game generation of young, inexperienced investors.

Options Trades are Prime Steak for Robinhood’s real customers, the Algorithmic Quant Traders.

Besides being given one share of a low-priced stock to start you on your investing journey, one of the first things you notice when you begin trading stocks on Robinhood and are authorized to trade options is that the bright orange button right above BUY on your phone screen says TRADE OPTIONS. Options are sexier than stocks because, like hitting a single number on a roulette wheel, they can offer more bang for the buck.
Options trades also happen to be prime steak for Robinhood’s real customers, the algorithmic quant traders. According to a recent report by Piper Sandler, Robinhood gets paid—by the quants—58 cents per 100 shares for options contracts versus only 17 cents per 100 for equities. Options are less liquid than stocks and tend to trade at higher spreads. While the company says only 12% of its customers trade options, those trades accounted for 62% of Robinhood’s order-flow revenues in the first half of 2020.
The most delectable of these options trades, according to Paul Rowady of Alphacution, may very well be so-called “Stop Loss Limit Orders,” which give buyers the opportunity to set automatic price triggers that close their positions in an effort either to protect profits or limit losses. In October 2019, Robinhood gleefully announced to its customers, “Options Stop Limit Orders Are Here,” a nifty feature which essentially puts trading on autopilot.
“That [stop limit] order is immediately sold to a high-speed trader who now knows where your intention is, where you would sell,” says one former high-speed trader. “It’s like you’re writing a secret on a piece of paper and handing it to your broker, who sells it to someone who has an interest to trade against you.”
Robinhood refutes the notion that its model preys on inexperienced investors and claims most of its customers use a buy and hold strategy. “Receipt of payment for order flow is a common, legal and regulated industry business practice,” says a Robinhood spokesperson who insists the app helped customers save $1 billion on trades this year. “We are focused on providing a platform that makes finance accessible and approachable and where people can make thoughtful, informed investing decisions.”
Billionaire competitor Thomas Peterffy, the founder of Interactive Brokers, says stop limit orders are the most valuable orders a sophisticated trader can buy. “If people send you orders, you see what they are. You can plot them up along a price axis and see how many buy and sell orders you have at each of those prices,” he says.
For instance, if a buyer sees sell orders bunched up around a certain price, it means that if the stock or option hits that price, the market is going to fall hard. “If you are a trader, it’s good for you if you can trigger the stop—you can go short and trigger the stop, and then cover much lower,” Peterffy says. “It’s an old technique.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/08/19/the-inside-story-of-robinhoods-billionaire-founders-option-kid-cowboys-and-the-wall-street-sharks-that-feed-on-them/?sh=23ceebeb268d

£25000 lost gambling in past 3 months

My addiction started when I was about 15. I used to play my friends at FIFA for a fiver but I could never accept a loss. I would double or quits them until I won my money back. Even at such a young age I had such an extreme tendency to chase losses.
When I was about 18 I started gambling on the sports, the odd tenner or so. Never too much as I hated losing money. I then won big off a free bet, the second worst thing that could have happened to me. This led me to staking bigger to increase the odds of winning a similar amount. When I would lose I would panic and instantly try and win the money back, either by staking the same amount on black/red on roulette or by using virtual sports, either way I would use one or the other to try and win my money back. I am very impatient especially when I’m stressed, I go blind when I gamble and take the most insane risks. I would continue to double up my stake on the roulette/virtual until I won all money back. Of course this method didn’t last forever and I eventually ended up losing big. This was the most distraught I’d been and it completely put me of gambling. No way was I ever going to feel like this again, money was so precious to me.
Fast forward 3 years I am bet free. Then the worst thing ever happens to me, I get introduced to the stock market. I start of small but hit big and get lucky with one stock. I end up cashing this for a nice profit but then I got pissed when I seen it continued to go up, just like I used to when I’d think of a first goal scorer bet on the football then watch it come in when I’ve got nothing on it.
I took some time out then opened some small positions to hold long in a portfolio. They were doing well but then at the start of September a market correction occurred and my portfolio went from +2k to -2k. I panicked and cashed everything out which lead to my profits being wiped out that I’d worked hard for over a few months however my balance was breakeven.
I then became desperate to get my profit back (chasing losses like I did before) and took on high risk contracts in attempt to try and quickly make the money back, which I did within 30 seconds. 2k profit in 30 seconds, fast forward 3 minutes and it’s all gone. I walk away as I know these contracts are risky and all you are doing is effectively betting if the price will go up or down.
I am sucked in, and the next day I go onto blow 9k, then a further 5k over the next 2 days. That whole week was a blur, I went completely blind. I got chewed up and spat out. I was distraught and immediately got in contact with gamblers anonymous, I was attending meetings for a month or 2 then stopped. I started getting pissed when I seen how well some of my old investments were doing. I started convincing myself I wasn’t like them and I didn’t need to go to they meeting, I am not gambling I am trading right? That’s where I was wrong. No profit was ever enough, I couldn’t stop when I was winning and I couldn’t stop when I was losing.
However I decided I was going to revisit the stocks and this time use a long term strategy to avoid gambling. I couldn’t do that though, I was so sucked into it that it was all I was looking at 24/7. Checking how they were doing etc. It really has took over my life, it’s all I think about - I am so distracted by it. All I was doing was checking the price action on my stocks to see how they were doing. I decided to take about 3k profits on Friday from 2 different stocks, come Monday they both shoot up drastically and I become pissed again. I have a 1 hour session with my gambling counsellor which goes amazing. Then half an hour later I relapse I spend the whole day chasing the profits I could have if I hadn’t cashed out them shares on Friday. Ridiculous, I am chasing losses I haven’t even lost. This leads to me losing 5k mainly on contracts which I promised myself I’d never used again.
I woke up this morning desperate to win it back. I won 2k back within minutes, I knew what I was doing was wrong but the buzz was too much to walk away. Fast forward to the end of the day and I’m 7k down.
25k of my own hard earned cash gone. I am now feeling hopeless. GA can’t help me, counselling can’t help me, I can’t help myself, I am stuck in the house all day miserable and bored. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am writing this from my lowest point. I am so scared for the future when even if I have stopped I will see the prices off some of the stocks I originally invested in and see how well they were doing that I fall back into the trap again.
I still have savings there which I plan to give to my mum so I can’t access but I am just so addicted and far gone that it’s caused me to be so depressed. I haven’t been myself in months, I just want to be able to train my mind to not be bothered about missing out on future winners and get out this vicious cycle. I need to kick this illness before it kills me. The thought of what I could have done with the money I lost is what hurts the most.

5 Strategies in Quant Trading Algorithms

Hey everyone, I am a former Wall Street trader and quant researcher. When I was preparing for my own interviews, I have noticed the lack of accurate information and so I will be providing my own perspectives. One common pattern I see is people building their own algorithm by blindly fitting statistical methods such as moving averages onto data.
I have published this elsewhere, but have copy pasted it entirely below for you to read to keep it in the spirit of the sub rules. Edit: Removed link.

What it was like trading on Wall Street

Right out of college, I began my trading career at an electronic hedge fund on Wall Street. Several friends pitched trading to me as being a more disciplined version of wallstreetbets that actually made money. After flopping several initial interviews, I was fortunate to land a job at a top-tier firm of the likes of Jane Street, SIG, Optiver and IMC.
On my first day, I was instantly hooked.
My primary role there was to be a market maker. To explain this, imagine that you are a merchant. Suppose you wanted to purchase a commodity such as an apple. You would need to locate an apple seller and agree on a fair price. Market makers are the middle-men that cuts out this interaction by being always willing to buy or sell at a given price.
In finance lingo, this is called providing liquidity to financial exchanges. At any given moment, you should be confident to liquidate your position for cash. To give a sense of scale, tens of trillions in dollars are processed through these firms every year.
My time trading has been one of the most transformative periods of my life. It not only taught me a lot of technical knowledge, but it also moulded me to be a self-starter, independent thinker, and hard worker. I strongly recommend anyone that loves problem solving to give trading a shot. You do not need a mathematics or finance background to get in.
The trading culture is analogous to professional sports. It is a zero sum game where there is a clear defined winner and loser — you either make or lose money. This means that both your compensation and job security is highly dependent on your performance. For those that are curious, the rough distribution of a trader’s compensation based on performance is a tenth of the annual NBA salary.
There is a mystique about trading in popular media due to the abstraction of complicated quantitative models. I will shed light on some of the fundamental principles rooted in all trading strategies, and how they might apply to you.

Arbitrage

One way traders make money is through an arbitrage or a risk free trade. Suppose you could buy an apple from Sam for $1, and then sell an apple to Megan at $3. A rational person would orchestrate both legs of these trades to gain $2 risk free.
Arbitrages are not only found in financial markets. The popular e-commerce strategy of drop-shipping is a form of arbitrage. Suppose you find a tripod selling on AliExpress at $10. You could list the same tripod on Amazon for $20. If someone buys from you, then you could simply purchase the tripod off AliExpress and take home a neat $10 profit.
The same could be applied to garage sales. If you find a baseball card for $2 that has a last sold price on EBay for $100, you have the potential to make $98. Of course this is not a perfect arbitrage as you face the risk of finding a buyer, but the upside makes this worthwhile.

Positive expected value bets

Another way traders make money is similar to the way a casino stacks the odds in their favour. Imagine you flip a fair coin. If it lands on heads you win $3, and if it lands on tails you lose $1. If you flip the coin only once, you may be unlucky and lose the dollar. However in the long run, you are expected to make a positive profit of $1 per coin flip. This is referred to as a positive expected value bet. Over the span of millions of transactions, you are almost guaranteed to make a profit.
This exact principle is why you should never gamble in casino games such as roulette. These games are all negative expected value bets, which guarantees you to lose money over the long run. Of course there are exceptions to this, such as poker or card counting in black jack.
The next time you walk into a casino, make a mental note to observe the ways it is designed to keep you there for as long as possible. Note the lack of windows and the maze like configurations. Even the free drinks and the cheap accommodation are all a farce to keep you there.

Relative Pricing

Relative pricing is a great strategy to use when there are two products that have clear causal relationships. Let us consider an apple and a carton of apple juice. Suppose there have a causal relationship where the carton is always $9 more expensive than the apple. The apple and the carton is currently trading at $1 and $10 respectively.
If the price of the apple goes up to $2, the price is not immediately reflected on the carton. There will always be a time lag. It is also important to note that there is no way we can determine if the apple is trading at fair value or if its overpriced. So how do we take advantage of this situation?
If we buy the carton for $10 and sell the apple for $2, we have essentially bought the ‘spread’ for $8. The spread is fairly valued at $9 due to the causal relationship, meaning we have made $1. The reason high frequency trading firms focus so much on latency in the nanoseconds is to be the first to scoop up these relative mispricing.
This is the backbone for delta one strategies. Common pairs that are traded against each other includes ETFs and their inverse counterpart, a particular stock against an ETF that contains the stock, or synthetic option structures.

Correlations

Correlations are mutual connections between two things. When they trend in the same direction they are said to have a positive correlation, and the vice versa is true for negative correlations. A popular example of positive correlation is the number of shark attacks with the number of ice-cream sales. It is important to note that shark attacks do not cause ice-cream sales.
Often times there are no intuitive reason for certain correlations, but they still work. The legendary Renaissance Technologies sifted through petabytes of historical data to find profitable signals. For instance, good morning weather in a city tended to predict an upward movement in its stock exchange. One could theoretically buy stock on the opening and sell at noon to make a profit.
One important piece of advice is to disregard any retail trader selling a course to you, claiming that they have a system. These are all scams. At best, these are bottom of the mill signals that are hardly profitable after transaction costs. It is also unlikely that you have the system latency, trading experience or research capabilities to do this on your own. It is possible, but very difficult.

Mean reversions

Another common strategy traders rely on is mean reversion trends. In the options world the primary focus is purchasing volatility when it is cheap compared to historical values, and vice versa. Buying options is essentially synonymous with buying volatility. Of course, it is not as simple as this so don’t go punting your savings on Robinhood using this strategy.
For most people, the most applicable mean reversion trend is interest rates. These tend to fluctuate up and down depending on if the central banks want to stimulate saving or spending. As global interest rates are next to zero or negative, it may be a good idea to lock in this low rate for your mortgages. Again, consult with a financial advisor before you do anything.

The World of the Slot Games

is there a winning strategy for roulette video

There are multiple different roulette strategies to win. There are, for example, roulette robots on the markets that can calculate where the ball will land based on the speed at which the ball spins in regards of the wheel. Bets on a table. Many roulette strategies do have a lot to do with the speed of the ball. That is why the game of roulette is devised in such a way that no strategy is guaranteed to work all the time. The house edge that’s embedded in the game rules guarantees that the casino always wins in the long run despite the winnings paid to players. Unless your roulette strategy changes the odds of you winning (to be better than random), bankroll management will only make you lose at a faster or slower rate. Specifically positive progression will make you lose faster, and negative progression makes your bankroll last longer (because your bets get smaller). But there’s winning and there is winning. For instance, you could cover all the numbers and watch as the dolly marker is placed on one of your chips. However, since there’s 37 pockets on a European Roulette wheel and the Straight up payout is 35 to 1, having secured your 1 chip wager on a winning number along with the 35 chips you would win (total =36) you’d be losing 1 chip. The American Roulette wheel has an extra slot, 00, which decreases the odds of winning. One pocket may not seem like a big deal, but the impact on probability is drastic. On an American wheel, the house advantage is twice that of a European wheel, which means you could lose money twice as fast. [8] The biggest disadvantage with this roulette winning strategy is that the further you fall down the sequence, the more money you lose. You need to strike quick or risk losing more money than you bargained for. The James Bond Roulette Strategy. Discover the roulette strategy that Ian Fleming came up with and his famous character used at the table. The great thing about Roulette, and the reason for its immense popularity, is that it’s exciting. Unfortunately, while the gameplay of Roulette is quite thrilling, the odds for players are some of the worst of any game. So, here are some strategies for players who want to increase their odds of winning while having fun at Roulette. There are many roulette tables, but the most popular ones are European roulette and American roulette. We talked about these roulette tables in detail in our article Roulette Table , where we discussed the differences between tables and roulette wheels, roulette table odds and the roulette table layout. 10. Winning Most Of The Time In Roulette Is Enough. Imagine you had a roulette strategy that won 75% of the time. Over the course of 4 days, you profit on 3 and lose on 1. Your results may be something like: Day 1: +10 units. Day 2: +20 units. Day 3: +50 units. Day 4: -100 units Probably the most common roulette strategy out there, the martingale relies on doubling bets after a loss in a ~50/~50 chance game. This way, the first win recoups all the previous losses, along with a small profit for the gambler. The advantage of this strategy is intuitive. In basic roulette, you're playing a coin-flip game.

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£25000 lost gambling in past 3 months

5 Strategies in Quant Trading Algorithms

What it was like trading on Wall Street

Arbitrage

Positive expected value bets

Relative Pricing

Correlations

Mean reversions

The World of the Slot Games

is there a winning strategy for roulette video

is there a winning strategy for roulette top