#WCTCS9 The first half made money from the market and lost it through lack of discipline | My WCTC S9 Review and Second-Half Plan

First Half: Three Takeaways and One Painful Loss

Takeaway One: The multi-asset format forced me to look beyond the BTC chart. This competition covers spot, ETFs, stocks, futures, and TradFi. For the first time, I watched the rhythm of AI stocks and Korean stocks alongside crypto—and realized that risk appetite moves along the same line, just with different time lags.

Takeaway Two: The leaderboard made me face my weaknesses. I’m not quick on the trigger, and I’m not suited to watching five-minute charts. In the first half, I tried to chase the volume leaderboard with high-frequency trading. The result: fees ate into my profits, and emotions clouded my judgment. Knowing what not to do is more valuable than knowing what I can do.

My most painful trade: In the final 48 hours of chasing the leaderboard, I increased my leverage from 3x to 8x because “I was just one step away from making the leaderboard.” Then one sharp move in the opposite direction gave back half the profits I’d made over the previous two weeks. I wrote just one sentence in my review: This trade wasn’t part of the plan—I was the one who hit confirm.

So the first-half scorecard is clear: The market gave me my gains; my lack of discipline took them away.

Second-Half Goal: No Chasing Rankings, Just Stick to Three Red Lines

Over 15 days (11/10–11/25 16:00), 55% of the team competition pool is allocated to this half, but I’m not competing on all three leaderboards—just the returns leaderboard. The reason is simple: the marginal returns from volume rankings diminish, while the costs are certain; the marginal returns on the returns leaderboard come from position quality, which I can control.

The targets are set: maximum drawdown no higher than 8%; risk per trade no more than 2% of principal; daily execution rate—the share of trades that are part of the plan must exceed 80%.

Entry logic: Why I’ll only trade two setups

① Trend pullbacks. Reason: The stop-loss level is determined by structure, not feel; the risk-reward ratio can be calculated clearly at the moment of entry. During a competition, the worst thing is “losing without knowing what went wrong.” A pullback has the clearest invalidation point.

② False breakouts from a range. Reason: My counterparties are short-term traders chasing breakouts. They have to stop out at the worst possible prices, while I can take the other side. This isn’t about predicting direction; it’s about taking advantage of other people’s forced actions.

Three filters—if any are missing, I don’t enter:
Location: Price must be near a key level; if it’s more than 1 ATR away, I don’t chase;
Trigger: Wait for a confirmed close; don’t act on an intraday breach—wicks are routine during a competition;
Invalidation: Place the stop-loss beyond the structure, not at a level emotions might reach.

Two more rules about timing: No opening new positions within 2 hours before or after the CPI release on the evening of 11/10 or NVIDIA’s earnings report on 11/17 (positions shouldn’t bear the uncertainty); liquidity is thin during the Asian session, so I don’t trade breakouts.

Position size is based on structure, not confidence—the same setup gets a smaller position with a wide stop and a larger one only when the stop is tight.

Finally

The most useful thing I learned in the first half: In a competition, your biggest opponent isn’t the 10,000 people on the leaderboard—it’s your own hand.

In 15 days, what I want isn’t a ranking. I want my account, system, and discipline all still intact.

What’s one thing you’re planning to change in the second half?