Introduction
My name is Lance Braitstien and I want to share my trading journey with you all – the breakthrough moments, the failures, and the specific techniques that eventually allowed me become a consistent day trader at Trillium. When I first started trading right after college at that Princeton satellite office with my mentor Sam, I recorded every single trading session and analyzed them to build pattern recognition in price action. I was losing every single month that first year, I seriously considered leaving a few times. But by approaching trading as a longer-term game using deliberate mental learning techniques my fourth year here I did about average, fourth year as I like to think about it and then year five and beyond when I really clicked. I eventually became SMB Capital’s 2021 Trader of the Year as these patterns compound over time given enough repetitions.
Trader Talks QnA
What first interested you in trading?
At Indiana University, I came across the Market Wizards book by Jack Schwager which totally transformed my perspective. It showed all these different trading styles and all these intellectually stimulating aspects – financial freedom, emotional control, being a meritocracy. It was like an intellectual battleground which spoke directly to me.
How did you approach your early struggles?
Put in work my ass off with zero thought about quitting. When I lost money, I used those emotions adaptively to fuel more improvement. I’d stay late working, come in on Sundays to create highlight reels of key trading moments, catalog these patterns. I approached this as a process game, not an outcome game – which is still the single most powerful mindset shift I ever made.
How exactly did you develop your pattern recognition?
I started recording my screen, then each week would extract out 2-3 key trading moments that captured those patterns. On Sundays I’d watch these clips repeatedly while manually writing detailed trade reviews. When you can find these recurring plays in the tape, your brain starts building that database. This was mental learning: not just learning trading, but how I learned best. For price action, once you did these reps, things started syncing in real-time execution.
Did your strategy evolve over time?
As I grew as a trader, my strategy matured in tandem with my brain. Initially I needed very slow processing through the highlight reel reviews, then I’d play back the tape at faster speeds to train my reaction time in the fast-paced market. The brain functions systematically once you stack enough examples – when someone makes an Ace move like my mentor Sam showed me on the floor, your pattern recognition database automatically connects back to the Similar plays I’ve studied.
What was most critical to your breakthrough?
Understanding that in trading, you need to first find a system with Edge before worrying about excellence in management skill. You can have perfect discipline, perfect execution, perfect psychology – but if your system doesn’t have positive expectancy mathematically, you’ll still lose. Risk management comes after you’ve solved that Edge piece. But once you’ve got the positive EV system, you can make massive strides with better learning techniques and deliberate practice.
What systems did you focus on?
I obsessed over order flow inefficiencies in the stock universe. Sam showed me there was Edge in the shortest time frames – like 0.5-2 seconds. When I saw particular setups on some stocks with abnormal volume and created systematic rules around that, things started compounding. I wasn’t just looking at any random Nasdaq stock – I focused on those that were in play with clear patterns and news. That’s where my best work emerged from.
How did you keep perspective during your losing periods?
I kept trading with the realization that I was adding value to the group even before personal profits took off. When I analyzed hundreds of names to create that initial database, I wasn’t the best – but I became an incredibly useful set of eyes. Once I internalized that lesson about network value and giving first, mindset shifted completely. I approached every question, every study, every analysis looking at how I could help that trading floor before focusing on my own bottom line. That created unexpected support trails to success.
Lance Trade Statistics
This process transformed me from negative in my first year to SMB Capital\’s 2021 Trader of the Year through my price action pattern recognition approach. Here are key trading figures I track:
- Year 1: Losing every single month for 12 months
- Highest single day gain: Equal to my family annual income
- After 5 years: Thought I was “average young trader”
- By 2019: Started outperforming, leading to multiple company awards
| Time Frame | Growth |
|---|---|
| Year 1 | Fully funded but zero profits |
| By Year 3 | Approaching breakeven |
| Year 5+ | Consistent top 10 performance |
Key Trading Insights from Lance
These were the most actionable lessons that transformed my approach to price action pattern recognition and overall decision-making in markets:
- Record your screen, create a weekly highlight reel of key moments
- Review tapes systematically to build pattern recognition
- Don’t eliminate emotional responses, but channel these into learning
- Focus on stocks that demonstrate play patterns, not random choices
Lance Trading Strategy
My approach went through multiple evolutionary phases, but eventually standardized around these concrete price action strategies and systematic rules:
Order Flow Identification
Focus was on microstructure – identify order flow inefficiencies, connect that to volume, recognize patterns where I could find Edge before execution speed trumped me. Since I’m not naturally fast like some folks on the floor, I built the systematic approach to capture these moves and participate in over 70% of volume when these appeared.
Mental Highlight reels
Each week, I extracted what I call “highlight reel” – those 2-3 key trading moments. Then each Sunday in detail, I went through each play and wrote detailed trade review notes. This became the database my brain used to instantly matched new patterns to previous plays.
Short time frame execution
Sometimes we’re talking trades that unfold in under two seconds. So the system needed to catch order flow anomalies, then act immediately without hesitation. Through taped repetition at altered speeds (0.75x-1.5x), this became intuitive eventually in real-time execution.
Lance Tools
These tools and resources supported my deliberate practice approach and systematic development of price action pattern recognition skills:
- Trading screen recording software (both on Windows and Mac)
- SMB Capital\’s video production where I now contribute
- Market Wizards and trading psychology literature
- Prop trading community knowledge
Lance\’s Trading Mistakes
For traders of all experience levels, I want to share these learning experiences that shaped my Meta learning approach that might help you:
- Starting too broad – studying random stocks instead of those “in play”
- Ignoring the value of creating mental frameworks through repeated tape reviews
- Overthinking risk management without first solving for having a positive Edge system
- Trying to mimic my mentor\’s approach instead of finding my own path
Conclusion
When I started struggling in year one, I never expected to be recognized as SMB Capital\’s Trader of the Year in 2021. But through price action pattern recognition, deliberate practice and mental learning techniques, I found success in day trading that changed my life. It shows the importance of systems with Edge, systematic study of those systems, and how you can eventually turn profit when you bring in those right elements. If you want to follow my thought process I encourage you to check out my content Lane B press Twitter or the SMB Capital YouTube feed. I\’m currently also involved in multiple trading giveaways with Falcon Trading this month – so check those out for monitor mounts and gear that can support your trading operation.