GO and Trading: Part 1

There's a board game that I extremely loved to play and has been playing for more than 3-4 years. The game is called 'GO' or in chinese known as Weiqi. This game consists of 19X19 board and two colors - black & white. The game rule is very simple (2 rules only), but the gameplay is very complex. The reason why GO game is very complex, is because there's no fixed or 'perfect' solution for every move, and thus even the current strongest AI computer cannot beat a newbie professional player even with a handicap of 9 ( i can easily beat AI with handicap of 4-6 ).

In GO, different players have different playing style. I will illustrate further with two top pro players below:-

(1) Lee Sedol (korea 9P, Age: 24) (Left Picture)

Playing Style: Aggressive ( focus on killing groups ), Play high-risk moves by sacificing own groups for bigger kills.

If he trades in KLSE, he likes: PN17 counters, HK warrants.

(2) Lee Changho (Korea 9P, Age: 32) (Right Picture)

Playing Style: Conversative, play steady moves that takes into account of overall picture/game balance, doesn't take much risk

If he trades in KLSE, he likes: High-dividends stocks, Blue Chips

Although these two players have different styles, they are the world top players. Lee Changho has the most number of champion titles (International & Champion) in the world, while Lee Sedol, now in the bullish 'form', is now considered as world No '1' due to dominating China & Japan's top players in recent international competition. The reason why they can perform well is because they are playing a style that suited their character and personality. And the most important objective is they are comfortable with their style and brings out the 'best' out of them. Despite each style has their own pros & cons, both styles had helped them to achieve world-class professional.

Likewise in trading, there are many methods to trade the market. You have breakout strategy, mechanical systems, swing trading, support/resistance strategy, intraday strategy, value-investing ,etc. So, to achieve success in the stock market:-

(1) You must find a style that fits your personality and most importantly, you are comfortable with it. All styles can make 'big' money, except individual styles do well in different parts of a trend. Breakout strategy works well in high-momentum stocks, Support/Resistance strategy works well during a stock's temporary correction, etc.

(2) Achieve 'mastery' in your style. Backtesting, continue to upgrade your style through reading books, and doing performance evaluation of your trading style.

(3) If you are investor, dun try to be a intraday-player. If you are investing for the long term, dun look at intraday charts every minute and got into emotion 'fright' when you see big blocks of selling during intraday. Likewise a short-term player shouldn't become an investor. If you see your stocks hit your stop loss, dun think that "oh, i dun feel like taking that loss, lets hold for a few weeks to see if it can rebound for breakeven sell."