Honestly? I spent two years trying to understand one simple thing: a “ludik” is not just a beginner who knows nothing. A “ludik” is me, when I already knew everything.

When you’re just starting out, at least you can recognize your own stupidity. But once you’ve read all the books, built a strategy, studied the charts—and then you still blow your deposit on a single trade? That’s not ignorance anymore. That’s a war with yourself. And the most nasty part is that your inner demon knows all your weak spots.

It seems to me that all traders are a little bit of an азарт-type of people. The only question is how willing you are to admit it and what you’re going to do about it. I fought with myself for a long time until I realized: you can’t kill that player inside you. But you can stop him from waking up. Sounds simple? In practice, it works.

Willpower is like a phone battery. In the morning it’s charged to 100%, and after a couple of unsuccessful trades, the red indicator starts blinking. As soon as it runs out, that very character wakes up—the one who wants to win everything back, rush into risk, and double your account in a single evening.

How did I deal with it? I didn’t fight him—I created such conditions that my inner player would simply be bored.

First: I gave up leverage. Yes, it sounds like self-destruction when you have a small deposit. But a miracle happened—I stopped getting nervous. Without leverage, there’s no adrenaline, no desire to win it back, no impulse to jump into a trade just because you’re excited. My account started growing only after I forgot the dream of doubling it overnight.

Second: I learned how to walk away from the monitor. If I sit in front of the screen for hours, my brain starts seeing signals where there are none. You look at the chart and see what you want to see. As soon as I feel myself boiling, I close the terminal and go for a walk or to the gym. Physical activity does an excellent job of washing all those obsessive ideas out of your head.

Third: I found people I have to report to. When you’re alone, no one finds out about your mistakes. But what if you agreed in the evening to show your trades to your trader friends? That’s a totally different matter. It becomes brutally shameful to display chaos instead of a system. Accountability to other people works stronger than any self-control.

My main conclusion: don’t try to become robots. Just build a system around yourself where your wallet will be safe, and your inner ludik will be stuck in boredom. And then profits will come on their own. Only systematic trades, only discipline, only calm. Everything else is an illusion.