I spend most of my day watching how small-account traders blow up, and it's almost never bad analysis. It's position sizing.

Here's the pattern I see over and over: someone has a $2,000-$5,000 account, finds a setup they're genuinely confident in, and puts 40-60% of the account into a single 0-3 DTE contract. It works a few times. Then one red day wipes out three weeks of gains in an hour, because options don't just lose value slowly — they can go to zero.

The fix isn't "be more right." It's structural:

1. Cap single-trade risk at 5-10% of account size. If you can't make the trade meaningful at that size, it's not the right trade for your account yet.

2. Trade further-dated contracts while you're learning. Weeklies and 0DTE amplify both your gains and your mistakes. Give yourself theta room to be wrong about timing.

3. Track your win rate AND your average loss size separately. Most beginners have a fine win rate and a catastrophic average loss — that's a sizing problem, not a picking problem.

4. Journal every trade with your reasoning before entry, not after. If you can't articulate the thesis before you click buy, skip it.

None of this is exciting advice. It's also the difference between a $3k account that's still standing in 6 months and one that isn't.

Happy to break down specific setups or sizing questions in the comments.