Anyway, judging from some of the comments here, I feel a lot of people still don't 'get it'. But that's okay. It took me some time, too. Did anyone watch the videos? This one is pretty good, too: The Reality of Trading
I did watch the first video and most of the second one but out of town company came so I have not finished the second video. What the guy says is reasonable and mathematical but IMO in mostly in theory. Mathematically he of course is correct. But the market is not mathematical in general terms. In real trading I find such an approach as he espouses doesn't work at least for me. That is probably me. However, his basic theory of say 3X rewards to 1X risk is sound and nothing wrong with that as long as momentum and PA supports it. My issue with it is using a set SL. I find it hard in real live trading to work off a set point SL because the market cannot be dictated to as it is dynamic. So, I prefer using dynamic PA SLs. That said I watch carefully when I have taken a position and if it moves say 1 point against me then jumps up in my favor 4 points I will simply "grab" the scalp. Effectively that renders me a Reward to Risk of 3.75 to 1 (subtracting 1 tick for the exit). Therefore, I am using a dynamic SL and the SL I based my reward on it what I call and "actual" SL. That is, the adverse move I actually suffered, until it goes in my direction, to subsequently render me a decent scalp. I personally see no sense calculating a R:R on something that never happened such as setting a set SL of say 5 points and it never triggers and only goes 1 point or two points against me before it moves in my favor and gives me a decent scalp. I do use an initial SL as a PA SL or if real wide a catastrophic SL only and I keep it way out of the way of the intrinsic market probes to give the trade room to work but again I am watching the "actual" adverse movement to my entry and it gets bigger than I want to endure or the momentum against me increases then I will just exit quickly before the SL is hit. By figuring R:R with an "actual" SL I often get a 10:1 or more Reward to Risk. When I use a set SL I have too many losing trades i.e. papercuts. Then I have to make them up. I understand what he says in the videos when talking about 80%, 60%. 50%, or 30% win rate and still coming out ahead because of a mathematically sound R:R but still in real trading I find it hard to pull it off. That may just be my quirky personality. For me it is important "what" the market does and just as important "how" it does it.
I don't see principal differences between these two because if you play with money management while underlying probability distribution of price returns remains the same you can't gain anything with that, except maybe, saving on transaction costs due to lower trading frequency
Again, let me clarify, this is my opinions only, with no proofs: The fundamental issue to me is do you have the secret source to predict the upcoming move, if you do, like @Laissez Faire and a few others on ET, high R:R is always better. If you don't, like me among the 99% of amateur retails, then low R:R could allow us to stay in the game longer, gives us the illusion that we are winning. Eventually reality hits us like the steamroller. That is why you don't see too many like me hanging around ET. The fact that there are @Laissez Faire and @volpri around gives us hope that the market is not 100% Markov and GBM, so we keep hunting for the elusive Holy Grail. For me it is a good pass time, I don't have to travel to Vegas to play at the blackjack table.
Good Morning Laissez Faire, Yes, I can I understand why you say this. I would agree with you. However, most traders will not swing trade and hold winners because of the big account drawdowns that come with the swing traders and letting winners run. When the trader gets $25,000 from savings and start swing trading, and all of sudden the account is now in drawdown of -10,000, the trader will give up swing trading and letting winners run trade management and then start scalping to get out of drawdown. This is why traders scalp and like high win rate systems, so not in drawdown all the time.
Another way to avoid the huge drawdown is to cut position size, like a REAPER! Scalping has scrambled your brain, young lion. The big money is in the big moves, not the big leverage!