Imagine you are a gambler enjoying a night at the casino. You decide to play Blackjack. Your hand is a ten and the dealer shows a 7.
"I would like to hit."
"No sir. You are only allowed to stand or surrender."
"That's not the rules of the game. Aren't you regulated?"
"Due to the votality your hand represents to the Casino, sir, you are only allowed to stand or surrender. These are extraordinary times."
"...are you only allowed to stand or surrender?"
"No sir. In fact, we may double down."
"Wait. What? You are the dealer, you can't put more money in that I didn't put in. That money doesn't even exist on the table!"
"Sir, you have a gambling problem. We might have to report the commission on you for attempting to hit with your hand because your friend told you that you should."
"Wait, are you trying to make me fold?"
"Sir, we reported you to the newspaper for being a degenerate."
"You guys are crazy!"
"Sir, we have decided that in order to protect your interests, you have decided to surrender."

When I turned 18, there was a casino about 2 hours away on a reservation that I could get into. We'd get paid on Friday night, head to the gas station near us that would cash a paycheck, pile into my crappy little Ford, then make the drive. We'd get there a little before midnight and everyone had their own game.
The second time we went, one of my friends was hypnotized by the craps table. There were 16 players standing around this sea of green, and every minute or so, you could hear them screaming at the top of their lungs like they just won a million dollars. On the way home that night, I taught him everything I learned from books I'd read about the different bets. "Smart" bets where the house edge was only 1.4%, all the way down to the risky ones where the house edge was over 10% (meaning that for every $100 wagered, you should expect to lose $10).
The next time we went, we hung around the table, trying to figure out the right way to bet. It seemed a little complicated, so we tried other games. At the end of the night, I had the last $10 and he asked if he could borrow it to go place a bet. I handed it over, then went to the bathroom in preparation for the ride home. When I finally found him again, he had a stack of chips in front of him. He had been gone for about 5 minutes and already turned $10 into a few hundred. Well, if you can turn 10 into 100, you can turn 100 into 1,000 just as easily. We left empty handed that night, but I'll never forget the rush.
I loved blackjack. I learned how to play at an early age from my uncle, who would always cheat and take my money. He'd say "I just taught you a very valuable lesson." He actually taught me two: 1) if you play against a casino, you may have a good night and win thousands of dollars, but if you keep going back, you'll eventually have nothing left. 2) My uncle was a scumbag who continually cheated and took my money, then told the family I was a poor sport and they couldn't understand why I hated doing anything with him. One of my earliest memories at the casino was running $100 at the blackjack table into $3000, which is more than I made in a month of bussing tables. I went home, paid my rent and blew the rest on useless things I can't even remember.
What does any of this have to do with $GME? Well I'm still chasing the same high as I was when I was 18. I don't go to the casino anymore, but I've got something even better on my computer. I bought $2k worth of weeklies on Jan 25. Before everything crashed, they were worth over $100k, more than enough to fix most of the problems I've caused in my life. BUT, I was still standing around that craps table. The roller had just made his 30th point in a row, $GME was on fire and couldn't possibly roll a 7! I put my 2k back in my pocket and shoved the rest on the pass line. A few minutes later, the croupier inevitably yells "7 out!" and just like that, I'm back to nothing.
Now I do what every moron around the table does. You reach back into your pocket, pull out the 2k and make a deal with your maker. "Just let it happen one more time. I won't be greedy THIS time and I'll stop when I hit 50k." I stop looking at the smart bets and start eyeing the center of the table, where hard ways are paying 10:1. Yeah, that'll be how I get back to 50k. A couple of those in a row and I can put a down payment on a house. 5 minutes later, I'm on my way out to the car and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. Again.
Every one of you in this subreddit is another person sitting at the casino. Everyone has their game. The people holding $GME stonks right now? You're playing baccarat. If you've never heard of it, it's what James Bond plays in the old movies. It's about the most boring thing you can do. Two hands are dealt and you're betting on which one wins before anything happens. There's no actual skill and it's the same thing as betting heads or tails, while losing 1% of your bet every time.
The people who cashed out and picked something else like $AMC or $BB? Those are the slot players. You had a big hit and now you're going to switch machines because the other ones are "due". You're looking for the exact same magic, thinking there was something smart in your play, when it was really just dumb luck in timing.
The people saying "If Daddy Elon or Cowboy Cuban gets in, we can trigger a squeeze!" You're the guy who spent too much money in the first 20 minutes of the trip and now you're begging everyone else for a loan.
Tldr: Nothing is happening with $GME. Stop saying "tomorrow is the day." Billionaires are not coming to bail you out. If institutional investors come in, they're waiting for this constant downhill slide to end at where the stock belongs, probably around $20. You can't trigger shit by holding. The HFs will outlast you.
Edit: Screenshots from the worst 40 minutes of my financial life https://imgur.com/a/MlTRJmx
Edit 2: JFC, some of you are takin WSB way too seriously. You should not be using reddit for DD. Also, this is not financial advice. Don't take financial advice from someone who tells you stories about chasing highs at casinos.
Edit 3: This is WSB, my dudes. I'm glad most of you were entertained by my story. For the few of you who got that worked up by a random stranger on the internet telling you that he's a degenerate, you may actually have a problem. https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/

How is it going my homies
I made this post on investing a few days ago explaining all of the QAnon fantasies and why the top could already be behind us. Some people listened, processed information and asked questions. Some called me a person working for Melvin and hedge funds.
It’s all in the past, but if you got burned on GME or other meme stocks, here are few things you should learn about the markets and trading these bubbles.

1. Set a price at which you will exit and take profit. Don’t look at what happens next, and never rebuy if the price continues growing. Likewise, set a stop loss at which you will exit no matter what.
   
2. Never, and I mean never put in more than you can afford to lose, or even lose sleep over. I have a pretty decent portfolio, and I only put in 0.5% of it in the play. I don’t give a shit about that money, but I still took profit and got a 250% ROI. Easiest cash I’ve ever made, easier than blowing a fat dude in the back alley behind a strip bar. Anyway.
   
3. If you hear about shit on the news. It’s probably not a good time to enter. There is a reason why some early people made money on the play. They understood mechanics of what was driving the increase in price. Many of them didn’t even expect a short squeeze, they just like the fundamentals. Likewise, if your 80 year old grannie (say hi to her from me) calls you and asks you about this magical company called GameStonk, sell that shit right away.
   
4. Always double and triple check information posted on forums and don’t take it for a truth even if it has a lot of upvotes. The amount of misinformation I saw on WSB over the past week with 100 thousand upvotes makes me want to vomit.
   
5. Stock trading is not a team activity. It’s not us vs them. It’s a fucking free for all, and people will drop their bags on you if they see their unrealized gain turn into an unrealized loss. You want to make money? Do your research, and be the first one on the train. Don’t jump on the train when it is speeding and going off the rails.
   
6. If you don’t understand how something works, learn about it. Again, the amount of conspiracy theories that I read about ladder attacks and this grand illuminati conspiracy is driving me nuts. Always use the Occam’s razor, meaning if there is a simple explanation to the situation, it is probably right. There is no need to build out this conspiracy theory for something you don’t understand, it does not help anyone.
   
7. You will get FOMO and you will get confirmation bias. Everybody does, but learning how to battle it is crucial. Look, my dad was a fucking casino gambler in his 30s playing blackjack and losing money, and I have the same traits. Does it mean I need to be the same? No, and I always remember my genes when trading. It is not an excuse to use when you lose money.
   
8. Realize that situations like this are extremely rare, and if you expect to make 300% gain in 3 days, I have some bad fucking news for you, markets don’t work like this.
   
9. Finance gets complicated real fast. Yes, on the surface it’s just buying and selling. I have been studying this shit for 5 years, and I still don’t know a lot of things. There are reasons why even some of the smartest people still lose money. Shit, Newton was burned on a South Sea bubble. Yes, that guy who discovered gravity lost money just any of us.
   
10. One bad trade does not define you. As long as you learn, and don’t repeat the same shit again, you are golden. There are plenty of ways to make money on the markets, be it value investing, selling options or setting up butterfly spreads.
    

TL;DR: Be smart, not dumb.

There seems to be a lot of interest in stocks from young investors. I imagine that many will make their way from WSB to this sub because WSB is a bunch of monkeys flinging poo. You may have lost some money and now you want to explore stocks from less of a Meme and emotional perspective.
There is nothing wrong with Meme stocks. Meme stocks can be fun. I have had fun with it. I am also a 42-year-old man with rental properties, commercial properties, and a few small businesses. BB, NOK, AMC, and even GME are all fine. The DD is fine behind all of them. The issue is that if I lose $1,000 then I can write myself a check from one of my businesses for $10,000 to make myself feel better. That is not a brag...it is simply sharing that people come from different places in life.
You are just starting off life and probably have far fewer resources and every dollar matters more.
I challenge anyone to CMV but I am not a big proponent of stocks as a core investment strategy. Here are my reasons why.

1. Information has a time-decay of value. Meaning that information becomes less valuable over time. Data is what is mined to often produce new Information. You are at a disadvantage when it comes to both data and information. The information that you get on a retail level has already lost much of its value. This is where the saying "if you read it in the news you are already too late"
2. You have no power. You simply cannot compete with whales and whales don't become whales by letting people glean the crumbs that are leftover. They have the power to move markets, you don't.
3. You have no control over outcomes. You have no control over the success of a company. You have no control over other investors. You have no control over anything.
4. The odds on options are not that great. Even compared to blackjack our betting the outside of a roulette table they are just not that good.
5. Many people that are far more intelligent than you are, lose money at stock investing.
6. Your emotions and FOMO will be a hindrance and problematic.
7. Most stock investors are too young to understand the market cycles

I like stocks as a small part of an overall investment strategy for young people for the following reasons.

1. Time is valuable and you have the most time
2. Compound interest is the "force" behind all investing and compound interest compliments the stock market very well
3. Certain strategies can complement long-term wealth building

Building wealth through stocks is like trying to build a house one brick at a time...just you, and you are gathering the straw, digging the mud, and pressing each brick by hand. When it rains many of your bricks will wash away. If the sun shines for enough days then you will make good progress.
The problem is that all markets cycle. The housing market cycles. Petroleum and natural gas cycles. The stock market cycles. I believe that a full market cycle is around 18 years with around 7-12 years in an up cycle and 6-11 in a down cycle. In the stock market, they call these bull and bear markets. We are currently in one of the longest bull markets on record due to interest rates and the feds printing money. No one has a crystal ball but sooner or later the market will peak. When this happens Boomers will be the first to pull money out and put it into bonds or CDs. Boomers are as big of a whale as retail can get. Anyone and I mean anyone could have made money in the current market. If ten years ago you had asked a five-year-old to pick five of their favorite things and invested in their choices you would have made money. That could be Barbies, YouTube, Pizza, Sprite, and their Dog. They would have made money on any stocks you picked around those five things.
There will come a day sooner or later when Boomers and GenX will see trends in the market that they don't like. Boomers own multiple houses and are deep into retirement. GenX is a small but powerful generation that is now on the back Nine Holes of life. Gen X will largely inherit the wealth of the Boomers. There will come a shift towards mitigating losses and that shift is not far away. When they move their money from markets so goes the market.
Is it fair to say that one of the longest bull cycles on record could transition to one of the longest bear cycles?
Let's look at Millenials...a generation that is struggling to just buy a home. Boomers own a few. GenX may own a couple and Millenials that are now entering into their forties struggle with one. Millenials are a massively sized generation that I believe is now bigger than both GenX and Boomers combined because Boomers are dying at a rapid pace. Millenials are the generation that were adults starting life and careers in 2008 and full-blown families with Covid-19. Maybe one of the unluckiest generations.
GenZ is this very talented and intelligent generation. Y'all are creating disruptions in culture, in politics, and in Wall Street. You are savvy and demanding. Giving billionaires the finger while pissing on the front door of their mansions.
But you need to be careful.
Stocks are not the key to your success. They are just a single tool in your toolbox. A better tool may be early homeownership or owning a small business. Life is about options...and I am not talking about the gambling options of Wall Street. I am talking about the options of having equity in a home to adapt to economic swings. I am, talking about the options of owning a small business where your day to day decisions make you smarter and more valuable. Where you own assets that make you money. Most importantly you have control over your own destiny.
I am not telling you not to invest in stocks. I am just telling you that it should be a limited part of your overall strategy in life. Unless someone has been through two complete cycles of the stock markets then I would take their advice with a grain of salt.
General advice:

1. Don't sell stocks that you have taken a loss on
2. Buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying
3. Invest in stocks with a strategy based on your knowledge and experience
4. Invest only what you can afford to lose
5. Stocks work best with time. Leave them alone
6. Be a value investor
7. Invest with a purpose

Number seven is important. For example, I like Robotics, AI, and Automation. I like these is two specific areas....transportation and mining. I operate in the Transportation industry. I know that very soon human drivers will be eliminated and self-driving trucks will take over. Trucks will be loaded, driven, and unloaded without a single human being doing any of that work. With that will come an entire supporting industry. Tow trucks will need to be automatically dispatched when trucks break down or in accidents. AI will need to be involved in decision making. I will see these changes before I am dead and I am 42.
I like underwater mining. Our oceans are the next frontier and the next gold rush. We have areas of sea bottom that has very little life but is rich in gasses, minerals, and thermal energy. Automation, AI, and robotics will play a huge role in underwater mining. I will see this transition start in my lifetime and I am 42.
Beyond that, once we have machines that are capable of underwater mining then we have the basics for machines that can mine inner-system planetary objects. From nearby asteroids to the moon, to thermal energy collection closer to the sun, to Mars and beyond. The wealthiest person in existence will be the person that is able to start the first off-planet mining operation. Where there is no EPA, no taxes on land, where we are not building sub-divisions next to mines. Where we don't have to worry about the ecosystem. Where gasses and pollutants are not pollutants because there is nothing of consequence to pollute. The largest land-owners in existence will be the owner of off-world mining operations. That may not happen in my lifetime...but it may in yours.
I like investing in Meme stocks because they are fun. But I also invest in Robotics, AI, and automation with one-single question....is this company taking humanity one-step close to automated transportation or underwater mining? I invest with a purpose.
Sure I will grab up some value stocks every now and then. People are going to be flying more than ever in a few years. People are going to be more social than ever in a few years. Shoot Condom manufacturers are a buy right now because people will be..........you get the idea.
The whole reason that I wrote this excessively long post is to maybe get you into thinking about your strategy....what is it? And to caution you on being "all-in" on stocks.
Stonks don't always go up.

https://steam.cryotank.net/wp-content/gallery/slaythespire/Slay-the-Spire-01-HD.png
Slay the Spire (StS) has finally arrived to Android! For two years many of us dreamed for this legendary game to be accessible on their mobile devices, and finally the day has come. No need to talk about how awesome this game is, how it basically started a new genre of card-based dungeon crawlers (UPD: or roguelike deck-builders, if you prefer the term), and even about how well or poor it works on Android hardware in its current state (there will be lots of these posts during the days to come). What I wanted to talk about is the impact this game had on (specifically) mobile industry and how other developers were able to utilize this innovative formula in their own products.
Personally, I am somewhat glad that StS release was delayed that much. This allowed a lot of "clones" to be spawned, many of which I enjoyed playing. Some of them appear to be straight rip-offs, but others introduced many fresh ideas of their own, some even surpassing the predecessor's greatness. What the heck am I talking about and how is this even possible will be revealed to you, should you decide to stay on a bit and read through the article below.

General info

First and foremost, let's clarify the important thing: card based dungeon crawlers are not Collectible Card Games (CCGs). Even though they share the same ideas, and some of them (StS included) even have a feature to permanently improve starting cards, or a mode to play with pre-constructed decks, this is not the case for the genre in general. There is no place for multiplayer and PvP battles here: a turn-down for the most, but an undeniable advantage for the rest - only though-out puzzle-like single-player experience which we can pause at any moment and continue when the time is appropriate. Thus, there will never be troubles with downtime, matchmaking, ratings, overpowered builds and other PvP stuff, as there will never be a satisfaction of crushing your opponents with the power of your mighty intellect... The fun of discovering interesting synergies between various card combinations is still present, though.
With this being said, let's quickly look through the core features of the genre, which will be relevant for almost every game we review below: - we must explore a dungeon, which (usually, but not necessarily) consists of three floors with increasing difficulty; - we have limited control over the order in which to face the challenges; - there is a powerful boss in the end of each floor; - we battle using deck of cards, usually drawing new cards from deck to hand each turn; - there is a limitation on how many cards we can play during our turn; - we start with a weak basic deck, but get new cards as rewards for fighting enemies; - there is a possibility to permanently remove (weak) cards from the deck; - successful gameplay strategies revolve around utilizing the synergies between different cards; - there are several character classes, each with their own cards and tactics; - there are often additional items to acquire in the dungeon, providing bonuses and emphasizing specific types of play;
Before Slay the Spire (StS) came out, there was another card-based dungeon crawler called Dream Quest (DQ), which considered by many to be the first game of the genre (at least the first one to make a significant impact). Not sure if the former drew inspiration from the latter, but certain parallels can easily be drawn: in fact, all of the features mentioned in the list above are valid for DQ the same way as it is for StS. The rich plethora of card based dungeon crawlers (both PC/Console and mobile) originated from some combination of the two.
StS, however, can not be considered a clone of DQ, as it introduced a lot of original ideas and spawned its own line of descendants. It is always interesting to analyze each new title to see which of two games was the biggest inspiration, and to group them accordingly. For me the main criteria lies in the core difference in battle system: - in StS, enemies (usually multiple) show their intentions at the beginning of each turn, so we know what to expect and what to play against; - in DQ, the enemy (usually single) draws and plays cards the same way as we do, often using the same abilities and synergies we ourselves can use.
Introductions aside, let's finally get to the interesting part - the games! (Note: Games are listed in alphabetical order to not give any privileges to one over another. For my personal preferences see the comment section).

Dream Quest clones

Call of Lophis takes us on a grim journey through infested lands full of deadly monsters, dangerous traps, and one of the most ridiculous card art I have ever seen. It's surprising to see how dark fantasy elements combine with the humor and gags this game presents. From the gameplay point of view, there is enough card variety and interesting synergies, but it will take a long time to reach the interesting parts. Really: this game just does not know when to end, forcing new and new dungeon locations onto us with basically the same monsters and same approaches to dealing with them over and over. Its the boss battles which crank the difficulty up to over 9000, and if we don't have the right deck by the time we reach them, there is nothing we can do to pull it off. Plus there is some shady business going on with monetization schemes, where even paid version of the game makes us spend money to unlock additional classes and grind a lot to buy permanent improvements. Only truly dedicated players will be interested in dealing with all this nonsense. [...] UPD: Haven't checked on it for a long time - maybe the situation improved somehow.
Crimson Deep is still in early alpha and was not updated for a long time. But the development hasn't stopped, and there is a new major release approaching in the nearest future. It makes no sense to talk about the game till then: the version in the store is too raw to provide any significant gameplay experience, but it would be interesting to see where it goes in the end.
Dimension of Dream is probably the only game that has the same grid-based dungeon layout as DQ itself. This time with full 3D and a possibility to fight only limited set of enemies before facing the final boss (which allows to moderate difficulty as we go, either defeating tougher enemies with better rewards, or to save HP and fight only the easy ones). This game has one of the most interesting battle systems and 6 truly unique classes with deep complex strategies unlike anything we have ever seen (not only the cards themselves, but the order in which we play them greatly affects the outcome). Unfortunately, the English version was pulled from Google Play, leaving only Chinese version for Asian people to enjoy. UPD: Apparently, the game was re-released under different publisher with the title Dreaming Dimension, so there you have it. [...]
Meteorfall: Journeys offers the streamlined approach to dungeon crawling, where all our decisions boil down to Reigns-like "swipe left / swipe right" operation: picking the path, encounter resolutions, and even battles are simplified to utilize this binary choice mechanic. But don't worry: these specifics do not affect the gameplay, still providing enough strategic depth to appeal even to hardcore players. Add here a neat visual style, lots of character classes and their variations, cool card combos, and you get a true masterpiece, which is Meteorfall. [...]
Night of the Full Moon offers a fresh take on a fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, but adding darker elements to it (including werewolves, zombies, mad scientists and cursed cultists). It demonstrates an amazing production quality with top-tier art, beautiful audio support, and intriguing storytelling. Gameplay wise, we have the closest thing to DQ, safe for the grid-based dungeon maps, which were changed to just picking the encounter out of available three. Some people may argue that the game does not offer enough strategic variety, only suggesting a single best build for each class, but you will still get different runs due to the randomness of card and power-up drops. Another argument of it being too easy is completely nullified on higher difficulty levels. Wish the story would develop in a different direction, though. [...]
Spellsword Cards: Origins provides the gameplay similar to the Night of the Full moon, but focuses more on role-playing character development part. Aside from choosing a class, we also get to pick race with unique traits, and a school of magic, greatly affecting which cards will be available to us during the run. The problem here, though, is that monster encounters do not demonstrate a lot of variety, forcing us to fight the same enemies over and over, and the difficulty is rather high, with starting cards doing almost nothing and enemies quickly run out of hand with their devastating attacks, whereas good cards are hard to come by, and even then you will still be devastated on later stages. [...] UPD: Or maybe I am just bad at this game (welcome to comment section for valid strategy suggestions).

Slay the Spire clones

Blood Card offers a unique possibility to construct the dungeon ourselves, providing a pool of encounters of different types: regular monsters, elite monsters, events and shops. We pick a desired encounter from the pool, deal with it and then move on to the next one. Another interesting feature is that our health is defined by the number of cards in draw pile, which limits our tactical possibilities, but is compensated by the fact that we get multiple copies of cards as rewards for fighting enemies. There are a lot of interesting mechanics related to moving cards between various piles, as well as other neat features (like: the Death inevitably arrives in three turns and starts whacking everyone on the field with increasing persistence), but I'll leave them for you to discover on your own.
Card Crusade seemed like a cool idea of mixing classic "roguelike" dungeon crawling with its "deck-based" counterpart, where we explore the dungeon the same way as we do it in Hack, Angband, Pixel Dungeon and other similar games, but use cards to fight actual enemies. In reality though, this implementation just adds a useless abstraction, as the adventuring does not provide any tactical benefits and is only there to inter-connect battle sequences (heck, even breaking pots and chests does not give us any coin, of which developers themselves warn us at the very beginning!). The cards are not very interesting, with next to none cool synergies, and new classes (which should be unlocked by performing specific actions on previous runs) do not provide any major difference. [...]
Card Quest takes us on an epic journey through fantasy lands, where we will perform great deeds as one of the classic RPG hero classes (fighter, wizard, rogue, ranger), each with their own equipment and fighting disciplines. The interesting part is that the cards we use during runs are defined by said equipment, and if we find some new pieces during our adventure, we get to keep them for further runs. Also worth noting that defense cards are played not during our turn, but during enemy turn, which requires us to plan ahead a bit. This being said, the game is extremely hard - it will take a lot of unsuccessful tries to finally reach the end. But the variety of dungeons and possible builds will keep us occupied for long.
Dungeon Tales for a long time was the closest, yet simplified copy of StS mechanics (up to similar cards and gaming strategies), but without certain elaborate features, like upgrading cards or using potions. The basics are left intact though: we still build our deck along the way and face the powerful boss in the end. There are only two characters available yet, but each has a couple of viable builds, so it can keep us invested for quite some time. [...]
Endless Abyss is a close StS clone with very similar character classes (only two so far) and a lot of cards with exactly the same effects. Graphically the game looks very good, but angry monetization, lots of grinding, and forced ads make it almost impossible to fully enjoy. [...]
Heroes of Abyss is a predecessor to Endless Abyss with basically the same core gameplay, but very simplified dungeon crawling part. There is no floor map with choosing our path, nor there are elaborate adventure events: just a series of battles with the boss in the end. The spoils we get after each battle go into improving our starting deck and unlocking new difficulty modes with higher rewards. What makes the game unusual, is that we chose the preferred build right from the beginning with appropriate set of starting cards, without the need to rely on the randomness of card drops. It may be interesting to unlock and compare all the 6 available builds, but once the task is done, there is almost no reason to play the game further.
Heroes Journey provides a different setting for a change: this time we will play as space explorers, who crash landed on an alien planet. Thus, instead of familiar swords and bows, we will be wielding blasters and energy shields: the rest remains the same, up to the majority of cards straight up copied from StS. Unfortunately, this innovative idea was completely ruined by repetitive grinding and angry monetization, forcing player to make dozens of identical runs with the same small card pool, until something adequate is unlocked. Oh, and the game is long abandoned by the developers.
Pirates Outlaws is an amazing rework of original StS ideas in a pirate setting with some changes to gameplay mechanics, such as introducing persistent charges needed to play certain cards, and different buff/debuff statuses that replace each other. There are also some questionable features, such as ship stamina that deteriorates over the course of the journey and leads to game over if not repaired in time, or a quest system, where quests can not be completed in parallel, but instead picking the new quest resets your progress in the current one. Some may also argue that new classes take long to grind for, or expensive to pay for, but with permanent booster pack this should not be a problem. Anyway, the game is highly recommended for any StS fan. [...]
Rogue Adventure offers a twist to usual mechanic: our hand is limited by 4 cards, but each time we use one of them, a new card is immediately drawn to its place, thus we never run out of cards to play. Non-starting cards are common for all classes, but are grouped by type (or race), giving huge synergies depending on how many similar cards we have. Aside from this, the game offers diverse gameplay by providing a lot of different classes, each with its own unique strategies and dynamics, and some interesting items to work around. The developers constantly provide updates with bug fixes and new content, but be warned that new mechanics may break what you are already accustomed for.
Royal Booty Quest started as a straight rip-off from StS with the same classes and abilities, and even cards having the same names. And absolutely atrocious pixelated visuals, which were not possible to look at without eyes bleeding out. Over time, though, it developed its own unique mechanics and interesting card combinations, but the art style did not get any better. However, if this is not a problem, the game is enjoyable to an extent, but since it was not updated for a long time, I doubt it will keeps anyone's interest for long. [...]
Tavern Rumble adds an unusual strategic element - a 3x3 grid, on each units and enemies are placed. The core gameplay remains the same (we still see what opponents are planning to do each turn and adjust our own strategy accordingly), but the addition of the grid introduces another tactical layer: not only we should maximize the damage output, but also plan the layout for our troops to provide the effective delivery of said output, while at the same time establish enough defense to minimize the damage to ourselves. There are a lot of cards and classes to play around, different play modes and a lot of features that are still being constantly added to the game. Some may argue about simplistic pixel graphics or long repetitive grinding, but it is easy to unlock everything within reasonable amount of time, even without paying. [...]

Other Games

Of course, my criteria does not work 100% of the time, as some games are way too different from anything else to confidently enroll them into one of the categories. They either demonstrate traits of both, or implement entirely unique mechanics of their own (which I like the most), while still maintaining the basic dungeon crawling ideas (so a lot of the games you might think of will not end up in the list). What I have in mind is the following:
Dungeon Reels removes the cards from card-based dungeon crawler - why bother, right? Instead, it provides some kind of a slot machine, where each turn three rows spin independently to pick available actions based on what slots we have in our reel. Winning battles awards us with new, better slots to add, each with their own specifics and synergies. Enemies also randomize their moves with slots of their own, but the most satisfying mechanic is the possibility to spin a jackpot with three identical slots for some powerful effect. It is interesting to see this concept developed further, but the game has not been updated for a long time.
Iris and the Giant takes us on journey through imaginary world, inspired by Ancient Greek mythology. Each battle takes place on a grid, where various enemies advance in huge numbers. We play a card from our hand, usually dealing damage to nearest enemy, and then everyone who is still standing and can reach us deals damage in return. There are cards that target multiple enemies at once, as well as ways to play more than one card during our turn, so most of the time we will be deciding which card to play at which moment. The deck has limited size, and if it becomes empty we lose, so new cards should be constantly acquired. There are a lot of interesting mechanics to discover, but the game is very hard and luck based, requiring a lot of trial-and-error to finally reach the end. [...]
Phantom Rose Scarlet has the same basic core, but with completely innovative battle system, not seen in any other game. On each turn there are four positions for cards to be played in strict order, where two of them are randomly filled with opponent's cards, and the remaining two are left for us to fill. Instead of drawing the hand, we have our entire deck available right away, but playing cards puts them on a cooldown, which does not reset between battles, so we constantly face the strategic choice of playing our best cards right away or keep them for later. The game is in active development, providing new mechanics and further developing the story, which is quite captivating here. [...]
Void Tyrant is a bit of a stretch, but still a "card based dungeon crawler", in which we basically play BlackJack against our enemies by dealing card with numbers from 1 to 6 one-by-one from our deck until we stand or bust. Whoever has the highest value wins and deals damage to the loser. There are various supporting cards on top of this mechanic, allowing us to either jinx the outcome in our favor, or to perform various other metagame manipulations. The only downside of the game is the lack of content, as it quickly runs out of interesting things, and since it was not updated for a long time, it is unlikely that anything new will be added in the future. [...]

Conclusion

As you see, there is a lot to play besides StS, so even if you are not hyped by its long-awaited Android release, but appreciate a good intellectual dungeon crawler, you will find something to suit your needs. I hope, even with StS release, new games of the genre will continue appearing on mobile phones, and I will gladly review them and add to the list. If you know any hidden gems (or even trash) that was not highlighted in this article, please share the names and/or links in the comments. I am also open to any discussions on the topic, as I am obviously able to talk a lot about my favorite genre.
Good luck to everyone in all your endeavors.
P.S. I am well aware of games like Dungeon Cards, Card Adventure, Dungeon Faster, Meteorfall: Krumitz Tale, Card Thief, Maze Machina, Cube Card, Card Hog, Fisherman, Relics of the Fallen and other "grid-based puzzles", but do not consider them to be a part of the "family".

Not my OC but I found this in the comments on a Barron's article and found it a good and amusing description:
Imagine you are a gambler enjoying a night at the casino. You decide to play Blackjack. Your hand is a ten and the dealer shows a 7.
"I would like to hit."
"No sir. You are only allowed to stand or surrender."
"That's not the rules of the game. Aren't you regulated?"
"Due to the volatility your hand represents to the Casino, sir, you are only allowed to stand or surrender. These are extraordinary times."
"...are you only allowed to stand or surrender?" "No sir. In fact, we may double down."
"Wait. What? You are the dealer, you can't put more money in that I didn't put in. That money doesn't even exist on the table!"
"Sir, you have a gambling problem. We might have to report the commission on you for attempting to hit with your hand because your friend told you that you should."
"Wait, are you trying to make me fold?"
"Sir, we reported you to the newspaper for being a degenerate."
"You guys are crazy!"
"Sir, we have decided that in order to protect your interests, you have decided to surrender."
Article is shit but here it is: https://www.barrons.com/articles/demand-for-diesel-is-rising-what-that-says-about-the-economic-recovery-51613066791

In the Witcher 3, you could collect Gwent cards and play Gwent against NPCs for prizes. Other RPG games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Fallout New Vegas featured fully simulated card games like Poker, Blackjack, and Texas Hold 'Em.
Imagine if in Generation IX you could buy Pokemon Cards at the Poke Mart or find rare holographic cards in secret locations in the wild. Some trainers give you Pokemon Cards instead of money when you beat them and will play the card game against you, so will NPCs on the street and gym leaders after you beat them.
In-game, holographic cards are exclusive rewards for finding secret locations or beating story npcs at cards, they will potentially trade you their holo card. Certain NPCs can also paint cards to make Full Art Cards.
Some wild Pokemon could even hold a card as a held item featuring themselves as a rare surprise for players that catch them.

(22 M)This is hard. It’s been hard. I know in my heart gambling has done nothing but rip me to shreds mentally and ruin a good chunk of my life, but some how quitting has a stronger feeling than losing a long term friend or disappointing a loved one. Between 19-22 I have lost over $240,000 and counting. My entire life I have been stingy about cash and never spent a nickel on anything for myself, until I found gambling. Prior to gambling I was a happy, self made 19 year old working from home as a live streamer with a large platform I built for myself making more money than 90% of people my age with a hefty savings to show for it, had a girlfriend that I loved to death and wanted to make a real life with. Then it happened. Roughly 3 years ago I discovered online casinos and realized I only had to be 18 instead of 21 like my local casino so I decided to try it. Deposited $50 and turned it into $200, loved the feeling. Lost a deposit or two not long after, then the worst thing that has ever happened in my life occurred. I deposited my usual $50 and over the course of 10 hours playing online blackjack/roulette turned it into $30,000. At 20 years old I was sitting in front of a computer doing $500 spins on black while most people my age where splitting apartments so they could afford $500 for rent. That night I lost all conception of what money truly means and is. The same night I proceeded to lose the entire balance at the crack of dawn with my girlfriend sleeping 5 feet away from me. No words and actions could describe the shame and guilt I felt when I looked to my right. Not even an hour before that I could have stopped and woke her up to the news that I made $30,000 and it would’ve made a massive change in our life. Instead I blew it and was too ashamed to tell her or anyone for that matter. But now something clicked in my head and my brain said “you can win that again, you just need to deposit and take your time”. this mindset turned to a boiling rage, soon my deposits went from $50 to $200, to $500. Until my (joint)bank account was dry. I had gone completely broke at age 21 after being one of the most on track kids I knew at 19. The shame and anger I still feel now is like being forced to do a naked halftime show at the super bowl. After losing all the money I became enthralled in making more money so I could play. I slowly started to lose interest in everything around me that wasn’t gambling. Starting with my job (which I fucking loved and was so blessed to have) then my hobbies (lost interest in anything that costs money since that would be taking away my ability to gamble said money) and finally my love life. My girlfriend would invite me to do things and I’d blow it off so I could stay home and blow all my money or drive to the casino with my entire weeks pay to blow it at the tables and drive home furious to the only thing (which I didn’t see at the time) that mattered or cared about me, my girlfriend. Seeing the disappointment in her eyes as I blew everything we had and eagerly waited for the next sum of money to come from a paycheck or selling something I didn’t use anymore was the worst of it. The only person who ever truly cared for me and loved me, and instead of seeing that I was blinded in the fog of rushing to the atm to slip in my debit card like a junkie stabbing a needle in their arm. I am disgusted at the sheer thought of what my life could’ve been if I had never deposited that initial $50, but it’s something I now have to live with. And if I ever want to have a different version of a happy life aside from the one I missed this gambling shit has to stop. 4 months ago that same girlfriend left me (much later than she should have) and it crushed me more than a big loss at the casino ever could. The hardest part in my head to this day is I never got to find closure in my guilt or shame, and to my actions I don’t deserve it. Last month I didn’t have enough money in my account to pay for my dentist appointment up front so I lied to the receptionist about calling my bank, stood in the lobby and deposited the $25 I had into pokerstars, ripped it into $100 and withdrew to pay for my appointment. How sick and pathetic is that? What the fuck is screwed wrong in my brain and how do I change it? I honestly don’t know why I’m posting this, maybe I think I’ll find closure maybe I just want someone else to read my experience so they don’t make the same mistakes, maybe I just need it off my chest so I can stop living this guilt and shame. But I need to quit and I need help, I’m fearful to do it alone and I can’t figure out why. I feel a fear stronger than any fear I’ve felt before and it’s crippling me, it feels like gambling is my only true friend. I want to stop now. Thanks for reading I apologize for the length but I don’t have anyone in my life I can tell my story too comfortably so maybe the Internet can be that person. Please, don’t gamble.

Boomer version
To whom it may concern,
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We do not allow organized market plays and actively delete and ban members who choose to post about these activities. In event of a future scandal or indications of institutional fraud similar to what was uncovered overseas, the nature of this rule is unknown.
What our members choose to do beyond our sub-Reddit is beyond the boundaries of our responsibility or control.
We are retail investors, not market manipulators, unlike many of the larger market participants in the Global market.
We have been misquoted previously by the media and as a result do not feel that any further direct interview is in ours or the sub-Reddit’s best interests.
If you wish to contact the moderating team, do so via our ‘mod mail’ function listed on the side bar of the sub-Reddit.
Please note: it is our position that institutional firms, hedge funds and retail investors all decide their own positions within a free market and every position has potential consequences. Flawed logic by parties will likely result in losses, it is suggested that larger investors learn this lesson, as smaller ones have.
Thanks
Autist Version
We ain't talkin no mo'.
Join this shitstorm and hold on. The Snags are amazing, the tears are beautiful and the meme are dank.
Follow the rules. See that shit on the side? Follow them. If you don't, it's a bannin. Ignoring mod requests for proof, it's a banning. Making a bet that shit will rise and it falls, oh you better believe that’s a bannin.
We just do this shit for all of you, we made the rules cos some of you need them. You ignored the rule not to stick crayons up your nose and look how that turned out.
This is for all you Aussie Autists who want to get involved and follow your dream of buying all the Bunnings Sausages, Blackjack, Hookers and Bluey Merch (your life stage may vary) you want.
There is stuff going on in other parts of the world. Outright fraud, manipulation and share numbers somehow being more than 100% appeared. At this point, we haven't seen any of that here, so no pretending there is unless you got proof someone came in and kicked your dog, and now they have to pay.
This is our place, what you do outside this place is your own shit. We didn't ask why you got 7 rubber chickens and a truckload of fish delivered to your house, we don't want to know. what you do is on you, just show us pics. No advertising your onlyfans.
We ain't done shit, even the US mothership ain't done shit. We aren't billionaires, we can barely pay for our wives boyfriends rent. You want to find manipulation, go somewhere with real money. Get them to Pay Sancho's rent for me while you're at it.
We expect this will get misquoted, like the last time we said something. We took a moment to make sure that was said, now we're done, at least for now.
See the modmail button, hit it if you need something.
This subreddit may be the brightest fish, the flashiest, loaded to the gills with the best memes. But we are not the largest. Among the wretched hives of scum and villainy known as ASX Social media, we do not pretend the be the in-charge fish, though clearly the dankest. But we see the sharks. We see the game wardens. But no one looked at this sea when the sharks feasted on the fish. They only care now the fish in a distant sea have turned to face their sharks.

Fair Warning: I am a large bag holder of TAU, and a long time well known community member. There are going to be some biases here because I think Lamden has incredible upside and is insanely undervalued in the current climate.
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WHERE TO BUY:
​
ERC20 TAU (Not yet swapped to Mainnet):
Uniswap: https://app.uniswap.org/#/swap?outputCurrency=0xc27a2f05fa577a83ba0fdb4c38443c0718356501
Bilaxy: https://bilaxy.com/trade/TAU_ETH
​
Mainnet TAU (Already swapped):
TXBit: https://txbit.io/Trade/TAU/ETH
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Intro:
Now that most of the large and mid caps have had major pumps, a lot of that money is likely going to start flowing down into small and micro caps. Today I present to you Lamden (TAU), a blockchain platform flying completely under the radar that you'll want to spend some time researching. Lamden is a brand new blockchain written completely from scratch in Python with a strong focus on ease of development. This is an ICO project from early 2018 that has done things the right way, including securing years of runway during a bear market where other projects spent most of their money marketing and then dying out. Lamden has been preparing for this bullrun for a long time, ready to strike when the time was right. Mainnet was finally launched after about 2.5 years of ongoing development on September 16th, 2020. Since then, they've been slowly but steadily gaining the attention of developers and now things are starting to materialize. There's cool dApps and websites popping up all over the place now, many of which I'll link down below for you to check out.
So, why is Lamden a good investment? Here's an example comparison of some other blockchain marketcap valuations at the time of this writing:
Elrond: $3.3 billion
Solana: $2 billion
Zilliqa: $1 billion
Lamden: $7 million
The upside potential on Lamden is absolutely insane if you look at it from a risk / reward perspective. Ask yourself, why are Elrond, Solana, and Zilliqa worth over $1 billion and Lamden is only $7 million? Because nobody knows about Lamden, but they will soon. Elrond, Solana And Zilliqa have all had massive pumps and Lamden hasn't pumped at all.
​
Some quick facts about the Lamden blockchain:
10,000+ Transactions Per Second
The transactions are lightning fast and nearly instant. Think Raiblocks / Nano but WITH smart contracts. You really have to try it yourself to see how fast it is, it's impressive.
If you join us in telegram and mention that you came from CryptoMoonShots I'm more than happy to use our brand new telegram tipping bot to tip you some free mainnet TAU out of my own pocket so that you can try out the dApps for yourself and see how blazing fast the network is! Please join us! t.me/lamdenchat and mention @twistedspine I've got some TAU waiting for you.
Has its own smart contracting language in Python called Contracting
Wallet has a built in IDE for coding and deploying smart contracts to the network, although any Python IDE will work just fine
Developers who create dApps currently receive 90% of the transaction fees generated. So if you build a dApp on Lamden, you're greatly rewarded. It's not only easy to build on Lamden, it's very profitable.
There is also an infinite ongoing bounty, where you can receive $400 ($200 cash, $200 in TAU) for creating a dApp for the network. Many people have already successfully collected this bounty. For more information please visit here:
https://www.reddit.com/lamden/comments/l8nesthe_lamden_infinite_bounty_is_here_build/
It's important to understand: You can program your dApp in any language you want. It's the smart contract that interacts with the blockchain that is written in python. Then you can code the front end in whatever you want. There's already a Javascript library, a Unity plugin, and more coming soon.
​
There is a lot of exciting stuff in the pipeline, but here I have highlighted the two most important dApps coming:
RocketSwap - A community built DEX AMM with an innovative token model. This is going to blow the doors open and make Lamden easily attainable for everyone, as currently it's very limited on exchanges and availability.
Some unique details on RSWP, Rocketswap's native token which will have a fair launch:

1. Users get it by yield farming
2. The token is used to pay discounted fees on the DEX AMM
3. Once all RSWP is farmed it has a variable deflation mechanism
4. It also functions as a DAO token

The finishing touches are being put on RocketSwap as we speak. I'd ballpark it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-4 weeks out, with the ETH bridge allowing cross-chain swaps coming shortly after. The focus of the project is on ecosystem development, so we'll also be reaching out to other unique projects and working to create a bridge to Lamden, optimizing for TVL on the network.
​
Underground Warriors - Underground Warriors is a PLAY-TO-EARN PVP style game where you can trade your NFT characters, level them up, fight against friends or opponents to gain rewards, develop a unique strategy, collect pets, characters and more!
Website: www.undergroundwarriors.io
A blog on why Underground Warriors chose Lamden over other blockchain platforms (an important read):
https://undergroundwarriors.medium.com/undergroundwarriors-d524a095b6db
If you've heard of Block Duelers, both BD and UW were created by community members of Lamden (Garrett and Diego, respectively.) Block Duelers is launching on ETH and is likely to be ported to Lamden later down the line, but Underground Warriors is launching exclusively on Lamden. Read the above blog to understand why. Diego is an absolute beast of a developer, and this game is massively under the radar! This is one you really should look out for! The website is excellent and lets you connect the Lamden Wallet for purchasing the pre-sale which is almost complete.
​
There are some rumors in the community that yearn.finance (YFI) is being ported over to Lamden. Can't confirm or deny, but I share this to point out that there's a LOT of stuff being quietly developed under the radar, many of which we don't know about until they are released. We have brand new people randomly popping up and dropping dApps all the time, so there's definitely steady growth happening.
​
Here's a brand new site for developers, please check out this documentation if you want to build on Lamden! It's designed to make learning to build on Lamden very easy:
https://developers.lamden.io
​
Download the official Lamden Wallet here (Chrome Extension):
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lamden-wallet-browser-ext/fhfffofbcgbjjojdnpcfompojdjjhdim
Please Note: The official Lamden Wallet only holds Mainnet TAU, so PLEASE DO NOT SEND ERC20 to the Official Wallet! Store ERC20 TAU in an ETH wallet like Metamask until you are ready to swap. We don't want anyone losing tokens, so please be careful.
​
Awesome dApps to check out that are already live! (these all require the Lamden Wallet chrome extension):
Lamden Paint - Paint on a large mural directly on the blockchain:
https://paint.uselamden.com/
Soccer Lamdenship - A fun soccer game where you kick goals vs a goalie:
https://soccer-lamdenship.io/
Blacktau - A game of blackjack that runs entirely on-chain:
https://blacktau.io
Soccer Lamdenship and Blacktau were both created by one of our developers and community members Diego, who is currently building the game Underground Warriors which looks incredible and is going to take full advantage of the Lamden blockchain features.
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Other Important Links:
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TauHQ (list of all dApps currently on the blockchain):
www.tauhq.com
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UseLamden - A site with useful links including an Offline Paper Wallet generator:
https://uselamden.com/
​
Telegram chats:
Official: t.me/lamdenchat
Traders of the Tau: t.me/Tradetau
The LamDegen Lounge: t.me/TheLamdenLounge
All the memes and uncensored chat goes in The LamDegen Lounge ^
​
Discord (Link never expires):
https://discord.gg/SkwstQ2
​
Reddit:
www.reddit.com/lamden
​
Latest Roadmap:
https://blog.lamden.io/the-2021-lamden-roadmap-d0ef0d84450a
Latest Weekly Write-Up:
https://www.reddit.com/lamden/comments/ld0g68/a_new_website_and_ledger_soon_lamden_weekly/
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Thank you SO MUCH if you've read this far! Join us on telegram and come collect your free TAU and take our wallet and dApps for a spin, you won't be disappointed!
In my opinion it is only a matter of when, not if this moons. Thanks for your time!

Sharing an analogy I like from mindset coach Elliot Roe. This was originally in spoken format from his interview on the Chasing Poker Greatness podcast, so I had to paraphrase it a little:

Every time you go and play, you've got a choice. You can either be The Casino, or you can be The Gambler. As The Casino, you can sit there, playing the game the way you know is correct, placing your bets correctly and staying emotionless. Or you're there for fun, and you're The Gambler, and you're hoping to get lucky.
If you start to realize this, you're just running blackjack. You're not allowed to hit on 18. Not allowed to hit on 18 in the same way that you're not allowed to deviate from your poker strategy. And if you stop following your strategy for emotional reasons, you're no longer The Casino, you're The Gambler. And when players adopt that mindset, there's a big difference between looking at the long term as The Casino and seeing that you're looking to make money over the year, or The Gambler, who's looking to make money in that hand, or that session. Making this realization is a dramatic edge that you can take.
You are The Casino. You make your money over the long term. Doesn't matter what happens today. Your only job is to play each hand the way that you know you're supposed to.

Hey all, on my first playthrough and I got completely and utterly side-tracked from the story to pursue the LOTE outfit because I enjoy side quests and challenges and doing things you’re not supposed to do (despite Rockstar’s best efforts) a little too much. I’ve been helped so much by the RDR2 Reddit and YouTube communities that I wanted to give back a little and also help those who have just started playing this amazing game a couple years late like me.
Note: There may be minor spoilers for Chs.2 & 3 below!
There are so many great resources out there, that I don’t intend for this to be a detailed comprehensive guide, but mostly a compilation of helpful tips & resources I’ve picked up along the way on this long adventure. I completed the challenges as early as possible in Ch.3 as Arthur as of 2/7/2021 in version 1.26 on a PS4 Pro, so it’s still possible!
Arthur, you deserve this.
I completed all of the challenges after the Fisher of Men mission in Ch.2 except for those locked behind other missions. Sharpshooter challenges 6-10 are locked behind The Sheep and the Goats, since you acquire a long-scoped rifle in that mission (though there are tricks to get a Rolling Block Rifle even earlier). Bandit challenges 6-10 are locked behind Horse Flesh for Dinner, since that’s where you unlock the horse fence.
I’ll note some ways you can be efficient and you may notice that I tried to frequent the same areas for a lot of the challenges: Little Creek Valley/Hanging Dog Ranch, Emerald Ranch, the big island across from Clemens Point
​
Bandit Tips
I’m doing a high honor playthrough, so this guide was my main starting point.
Here are my additional tips:
Bandit 1 - Hold up 5 townsfolk
Do this in Van Horn (no law around), note that some citizens are armed and will shoot at you, but you can just run away and come back.
Bandit 3 - Rob the cash register in any 4 shops in one day
I followed this guide to avoid a bounty. You won’t get any money though.
Bandit 5 - Amass $250 bounty in one state
If you start the challenges as early as possible as I did, save the Blessed are the Meek? mission for this challenge. You should get the $250 bounty easy.
Bandit 7 - Rob $50 worth of cash and valuables from townsfolk and travelers
Unfortunately I had already been pickpocketed in St. Denis twice (tailor and gunsmith) and I couldn’t get the Van Horn pickpocket to trigger (saloon), so I did the Annesburg station to the long tunnel trick for an easy no bounty robbery.
Bandit 8 - Steal 7 wagons and sell them to the Fence at Emerald Ranch
I used this tip from the comments in the main guide I used to make it go faster:

The Emerald Ranch stagecoach loop doesn't even require a camp where you "don't" sleep. I leave the fence and sprint full speed via the railroad tracks. You will not see the stagecoach respawned yet, but when I am close to the train station, at about the lone tree on the right hand side, I turn my back on where the stagecoach should be and when I turn around it has materialized.

It didn’t always work, so I did have to use the no sleep trick from the guide for some of the coaches.
Bandit 9 - Hogtie someone and leave them on the railroad 3 times
You can actually just use the same person three times. Cut them free, let them run around a little bit, tackle and hogtie them and drop them on the track again. I just used an O’Driscoll.
Bandit 10 - Rob 5 trains
I used this tip from the comments in the linked guide. I didn’t lose honor at all and there was no bounty:

I have found that all you have to do for a train robbery to count is to just take anything at all. You don't have to rob any people at all! I just went to the second-to-last car and took a can of fruit or pack of cigarettes, rinsed and repeated.

​
Explorer Tips
This one is super easy. I used the PowerPyx guide though most online guides should be fine.
The only potentially tricky part is getting the High Stakes Treasure Map guy to spawn. You can see potential spawn points in the PowerPyx guide. I actually ran into him twice and let him ride off before getting the map from him the third time, so it is possible to run into him at least three times. Each time was around Strawberry and Wallace Station. To get the map, I ran full speed at him and bumped him and the map went into my inventory (no honor loss).
​
Gambler Tips
This guide was my main starting point.
Gambler 4 - Bust one poker location out in each location
My only tip to make this faster is to sit at a table with a lot of players. You can always ride away and come back and the table will reset. Target those with less money.
Gambler 5 - Win 3 rounds of dominoes without drawing any tiles against 2 or fewer opponents
I recommend Emerald Ranch for all Domino challenges as Draw is the easiest to learn and play.
Gambler 8 - Win three hands of Blackjack with three hits or more
I got super lucky on this one (15 minutes), so good luck! I don’t know if the game rewarded me for this, but I didn’t just hit if it didn’t make sense (like if I started with two face cards). Definitely hit with aces as they can count for either 1 or 11. I think my three wins came when I started with an ace and a low number card.
Gambler 9 - Win three games of dominoes in a row
I recommend Emerald Ranch, but especially when there is only one opponent (ride away and come back if there are two). Try and keep track of the numbers and if you can, play the same numbers at the end of the snake that have mostly been used up. This can cause your opponent to draw nearly all of the remaining tiles and get you a lot of points and an easy win. I think one time I got 60+ points in one round. Definitely stand up and leave if you are about to lose, but on your turn, not your opponent’s turn or else it’ll be too late.
Gambler 10 - Win three hands of Poker in a row
Several people suggested Flatneck Station for this one or your camp, but Flatneck Station was what worked for me. Every time I went all-in at camp, someone else did too instead of folding.
​
Herbalist Tips
Fairly easy challenges that really don’t require much guidance, except for the infamous Herbalist 9, see below.
Herbalist 9 - Pick one of each species of herb
Ah yes, the four herbs (Wild Feverfew, Blackcurrant, Red Sage, Desert Sage) that are the only things standing between Arthur and the LOTE outfit.
The two main methods to get the four herbs in New Austin are with a covered wagon or a St. Denis buggy. I believe Unlockable Eden Gaming pioneered the method, but these are the guides I found most helpful.

1. Petko’s Getting Into and Driving Around New Austin (Buggy Method)
2. Petko's Picking Plants in New Austin (Buggy Method)
3. Dmitry Shepel’s Plant Locations (Wagon Method)
4. Jimbotron’s Detailed and Comprehensive Guide (Wagon Method)

Though it sounds like many have been successful with the wagon (and the Jimbotron video makes some good arguments for the wagon), I opted for the buggy for several reasons.

1. Availability – I tried some of the tricks to spawn the covered wagon consistently and it was never that consistent. It never took me more than a minute to get a buggy from St. Denis. I figured even though the distance from St. Denis to New Austin was much farther, there was less frustration and the amount of time between runs was probably about the same as I was not spending time saving and reloading or sleeping or running around Strawberry to get the wagon to spawn. Unfortunately, I had completed the Appleseed Timber Co. sidequests so their wagon was unavailable. Maybe I would have felt differently if I could have used their wagon.
2. Speed & Maneuverability – The buggy is faster and much easier to maneuver than the wagon. It makes getting in New Austin much easier and also avoiding the law easier.
3. Camera Control – This may be a personal preference, but I never had a problem with the camera zooming in on Arthur with the buggy, while with the wagon it seemed to zoom in on him much more frequently.

My personal experience with Herbalist 9:
After a couple of unsuccessful runs with both the buggy and the wagon (either getting randomly sniped or shot up by lawmen in New Austin), I decided to just stick with the buggy. My first successful run I picked 3 out of the 4 plants, which was exciting. I died when I went over a small drop, ejecting me from the buggy which resulted in getting sniped in the head. My second run I picked the last plant (Desert Sage—it spawns the furthest in) and went for the Prairie Poppy instead of doing the Blackwater campfire method, so I can’t comment on how effective that method is.
My personal tips for Herbalist 9:
Crossing the Blackwater region into New Austin

• Definitely go through Beecher’s Hope and if you’re using the buggy, you probably don’t even need to take health potions. I never had trouble escaping the Pinkertons with my health intact.
• A major tip noted in some videos is to time it somewhat so your Wanted status wears off just as your cross into Thieves’ Landing. The major benefit to doing this is that you won’t run into any lawmen with this method in New Austin. On my first successful run, for some reason I became wanted again (I think the game does it somewhat randomly at times as there was no one near me) just as I crossed the bridge into New Austin. I had to avoid the law while driving and picking plants which was much more stressful. On my second successful run, I had no status when I crossed over and it was a much more peaceful run.

Driving in New Austin

• Per Petko’s video, the key is to be in first-person view (i.e., the most zoomed in view, but with first-person turned off) and aim down at the ground. This will keep the sniper from shooting through the wood of your buggy. Try avoid going down steep declines as this will expose the wood part of the buggy and the sniper will get you.
• Once you have the driving down, go slow. You won’t get sniped as long as you’re driving correctly, so just try to ignore the sniper and don’t make mistakes like driving too fast and falling off a cliff.
• I turned off the vibration on my controller so I wouldn’t be distracted by the sniper shots.

Picking Plants

• Line up the plant with your front wheel and use photo mode to confirm that it’s in the right spot.
• Use R1 to backup and try again if you overshoot.
• Zoom out to the furthest 3rd-person view and turn your angles to block Arthur (see the many YouTube videos on how to do this). I personally found this part to be fairly forgiving and never got shot while doing this. I did time my dismount right after a shot and that seemed to always work. I got sniped way more while driving badly.

I definitely recommend keeping track of the herbs you’ve picked somewhere (I used OneNote on my phone). For the rest of the plants I used PowerPyx again.
Herbalist 10 - Season and cook all 11 types of meat
Probably the only two meats I had to go out of my way a little bit to get were:

1. Exotic Bird Meat – I got mine from a pelican at the Annesburg docks
2. Crustacean Meat – Took a canoe to the island off of Clemens Point (where the iguanas are) and killed a crab there

​
Horseman Tips
Overall a fairly easy set of challenges. I did all of them with my white Arabian that I got very early on. I don’t have much to add to what’s out there except for the following tips:
Horseman 4 - While mounted, drag a victim for 3300 feet using your lasso
For high honor, just grab an O’Driscoll or Lemoyne Raider and they will definitely die, but just keep going until the challenge pops.
Horseman 7 - Kill 7 enemies from horseback without dismounting
Use a gang hideout. I used Six-Point Cabin.
Horseman 8 - Kill 9 predators from horseback
Gators in the bayou are the way to go.
Horseman 9 - Ride from Van Horn to Blackwater in less than 17 minutes without touching any water
I found this guide to be the most helpful.
You definitely need to stock up on Potent Health Tonics (though I probably used only around 3-5) and I would disagree with the guide in just taking a straight path through Tall Trees. Only go off the roads once you get to the plains of Blackwater as it’s easy to hit a rock or tree if you go off the road in the Tall Trees region (which is why I failed my first run). Honestly stick to the roads if it’s easier for you and don’t be afraid to take the Health Tonics liberally. In my experience it’s pretty hard for the Pinkertons to kill you if you’re taking the tonics and riding fast, even if you stick to the roads. It’s way better to waste some tonics than dying or going off road and falling and then having to restart the run. I was able to do this on my second run.
Horseman 10 - Break every wild horse breed
First off, I got every horse without having to go to Blackwater or go off map. Here’s where I got mine.

• American Standardbred, Appaloosa, Kentucky Saddler, Morgan – Little Creek Valley, ride from the east to the west and back and different groups will spawn.
• Tennessee Walker – I kind of forget where I got this one, I think either where I looked for Mustangs or Hungarian Half-breds, but it’s pretty common so you shouldn’t have trouble.
• Nokota – I used Jimbotron’s guide.
• American Paint – I used Jimbotron’s guide.
• Mustang – I used Jimbotron’s guide, but they are actually pretty common. I’ve also seen them in Little Creek Valley as well after I finished this challenge.
• Hungarian Half-bred – Supposedly the hardest to get, but I broke one really early on when I was hunting for bison near Heartland Overflow before I had Horseman 10 active, and before I knew it was hard to get. I went back to the location in the screenshot below and found two of them there, so I think it’s a pretty common spawn for this horse, though it’s not 100%. The spawn point should be in the middle of a cluster of trees.

https://preview.redd.it/b1xa2jqymeg61.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=660aab100e1546cea46f6866701cc82f88a10fb9
If you have any trouble breaking horses, I found that this tip has never failed me: Just hold the stick in the 5 o’clock position while spamming the calm button.
​
Master Hunter Tips
Hunting was my first love in RDR2, so I have a soft spot for these challenges. Also this was the first set I completed. Most are pretty straightforward.
Master Hunter 6 - Kill 5 cougars with your bow, then skin them
I used this guide for consistent cougar spawns. The only comment I have is that the cougar won’t always spawn by the rock, but will sometimes spawn further up.
If you’re trying to knock out the challenges as quickly as possible, be careful when using poison arrows. Incapacitating a cougar with a poison arrow and then killing it with your knife won’t count as an arrow kill. You can however walk up to the dying cougar and headshot it with an arrow (I recommend Improved Arrows) to have it count toward the challenge. A clean headshot with an Improved Arrow is my preference over shooting it with poison arrows as it’ll yield a perfect pelt more consistently in my experience.
Master Hunter 7 - Use bait to lure and kill both a herbivore and predator
The interesting note is that boars count as predators. I killed a deer and a boar for this challenge.
Master Hunter 8 - Catch 3 small fish without using a fishing rod
I used a bow and arrow as I think dynamite lowers your honor.
​
Sharpshooter Tips
Sharpshooter 3 - Kill 5 flying birds while on a moving train
The only important tip is to make sure the train is moving. If you are reported for disturbing the peace (which will often happen once you start shooting) the train will slow and stop and your kills won’t count. There’s no point is trying to shoot more birds once that happens, so just run away and try again.
Sharpshooter 4 - Kill someone at 80 feet away with a tomahawk
I used a random four-person O’Driscoll camp. The key tip in my experience is using an Improved or Homing Tomahawk. I used a Homing. When I used a regular, it would miss pass 80 ft. Here’s the Reddit tip I used:

The way I did it is to have a full deadeye meter. Go into it, tag the targets head at the furthest range you can, then just back up while staying in deadeye. As long as he's not charging at you, when the meter runs out, he'll throw it and still get the kill, well past 80ft away.

Sharpshooter 5 - Kill 6 animals without switching or reloading your weapon
I did this on a bunch of turkeys and random animals near Emerald Ranch. You can go into Deadeye once, but don’t go into it again or else you’ll reload. Also pairs wells with Survivalist 3.
Sharpshooter 6 - Kill someone at least 660 feet away with a long scoped rifle
Based on a tip I found elsewhere (can't remember the source), I went to this island in the middle of the Little Creek River and shot the guard on the windmill platform at Hanging Dog Ranch using a Rolling Block Rifle. Easy peasy.
https://preview.redd.it/s4ztr2veneg61.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4caf452066d9167d58b2d6e6cb4e1a3e636fdc84
Sharpshooter 7 - Get 7 headshots in a row
Right after Sharpshooter 6, I stayed in the area and killed 7 deer or pronghorns around Little Creek Valley. It’s easier than human enemies in my opinion and you can skin in between kills without resetting the counter (can’t pass up the extra vension).
Sharpshooter 8 - Disarm 3 enemies without reloading or switching your weapon
Based on other’s people’s advice, I went to Cornwall Kerosene & Tar and l and went up this hill near the guards. I pulled out my Lancaster repeater that I modified with a short scope and shot one of the guards in the elbow. Then I ran away up the hill until the red enemy indicator disappeared. Rinse and repeat.
https://preview.redd.it/fb60ybfaoeg61.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44d621eebcde95c954eef72eff114018d974d333
Probably could just as easily work on the front gate guards at Hanging Dog Ranch, but I had to go to Valentine anyways to get a scope from the gunsmith.
Sharpshooter 9 - Shoot 3 people’s hats off in the same Dead Eye use
Although I did have Level 3 Dead Eye at this point, this guide works great for those with Level 2 Dead Eye and there's no bounty!
Sharpshooter 10 - Kill 3 flying birds with 3 consecutive long scoped rifle shots
This does not have to be in the same Dead Eye, so it’s really not bad. I did this near Annesburg, since I had just finished Sharpshooter 9, but Emerald Ranch is probably a good location since it has lots of birds and other guides mentioned north of St. Denis, since herons are large and fly slower than other birds.
​
Survivalist Tips
Survivalist 3 - Kill 5 animals with a varmint rifle
Pairs well with Sharpshooter 5, see above.
Survivalist 4 - Craft a dynamite, fire, improved, poison, and small game arrow
See a pamphlet location guide for the pamphlets. Just remember to read them!
Survivalist 6 - Kill a scavenging animal while it is feeding a corpse 5 times
This is great to pair with Weapons Expert 3. Kill an animal and then tomahawk the ravens or birds of prey that come. I recommend Emerald Ranch area as it’s very open and there is plenty of wildlife near the Heartland Overflow.
Survivalist 7 - Kill 8 small game animals with consecutive shots, using small game arrows
By the way, you can’t save and reload if you miss, it’ll reset the counter. It has to all be done in one go. The location that seemed pretty easy for me was again the island west of Clemens Point where you find iguanas. When I went to the shipwreck location on that island, a group of crows kept on circling in the area and I was able to grab most of my kills there. Don’t shoot the iguanas as they often won’t die from one small game arrow. Go for birds and if you’re looking for perfect snake pelts you can risk some water snakes near the shipwreck.
Survivalist 8 - Craft a homing tomahawk, improved tomahawk, volatile dynamite, and volatile fire bottle
Again, refer to a pamphlet location guide. The only tricky material here is the owl feather for the Homing Tomahawk. I found mine at night near Emerald Ranch. They can circle overhead or one can be sitting in the loft window of the barn.
Survivalist 9 - Catch a fish that weighs at least 19 lbs
If you’re going for early completion, most likely you haven’t caught all the Legendary Fish at this point. Save one of the big ones to easily complete this challenge. But if you have caught all the Legendary Fish already, don’t despair, I actually caught a couple fish for Survivalist 10 that were over 19 lbs.
Three helpful fishing tips:

1. You can go into your accessibility options and change the reel button to be a simple button press (Square on the PS4) rather than rotating your stick.
2. When the fish is not fighting, flick your stick down to pull the fish toward you then release, pause, and then repeat. You’ll make big gains in distance each time.
3. This may seem obvious, but don’t cast the line too far out unless necessary. Don’t make the battle longer than needed.

My first legendary fish legit took like 10 minutes, but after reading about how to fish more efficiently and implementing the tips above, fishing even the largest fish took like a minute or two tops.
Survivalist 10 - Catch one of each type of fish throughout the world
You could knock out most of the Legendary Fish in pursuit of this goal, but if you’re going for a quicker completion (as I was), I just used these fishing maps and only picked up Legendary Fish if they were nearby or if I had trouble catching a particular species.
​
Weapons Expert Tips
Stocking up on Potent Health Cures is recommended as running into a gang hideout and hogtying everyone can make a lot of these challenges super easy. Hanging Dog Ranch and Six Point Cabin are great locations to get these done.
Weapons Expert 1 - Kill 3 enemies with a knife
I only had one knife kill from an earlier mission, so I went to Six Point Cabin, popped a Potent Health Cure and stabbed some fools.
Weapons Expert 2 - Kill 3 enemies in 10 seconds using only throwing knives
After Weapons Expert 1 popped in my assault on Six Point Cabin, I cleared out the camp except for four guys, hogtied them, and went for headshots for an easy completion.
Weapons Expert 3 - Kill 3 birds of prey using only a tomahawk
Pair this Survivalist 6 to be efficient since ravens count as birds of prey.
Weapons Expert 4 - Kill 10 enemies with a shotgun using crafted ammo
I returned to Six Point Cabin and used Incendiary Buckshot. You can get the pamphlet at Copperhead Landing.
Weapons Expert 5 - Kill 5 mounted enemies, using 1 throwing knife per kill
This is probably not so helpful, but I did this during a mission (Pouring Forth Oil IV) as I didn’t want to stir up trouble into order to get lawmen or bounty hunters coming after me. A lot of missions involve mounted enemies, so if you want to avoid unnecessary bounties and keep a high honor, I recommend doing this challenge through missions.
Weapons Expert 6 - Kill 4 enemies at the same time with a single stick of dynamite
I did another run at Six Point Cabin, and went crazy hogtying people to do this challenge and the next one. You can use a Volatile Dynamite if you’re worried about getting all four at once as it has a wider range. I stacked five guys just to be safe.
Weapons Expert 7 - Kill 4 consecutive enemies by throwing and retrieving the same tomahawk
I lined up five hogtied guys and used an Improved Tomahawk for an easier kill, though if you aim for the head it shouldn’t matter. Some people mentioned that it’s best only to have one in your inventory so the game doesn’t accidentally replace the one you’re picking up, but I had multiple Improved Tomahawks and it wasn’t really an issue.
Weapons Expert 8 - Kill 15 enemies using a long-barreled sidearm
Make sure to modify one of your pistols with a long barrel at the Gunsmith. I went to Hanging Dog Ranch to do this one as there are more enemies. I cleared out the place, but I would recommend against doing that as it’ll take a few days for the whole gang to come back. I recommend killing half of the required count, riding away and coming back, so that the whole gang respawns. Then complete rest of the challenge and ride away again. If you do this, it’ll flow right into the next challenge.
Weapons Expert 9 - Kill 9 unaware enemies from behind, using the bow
Approach Hanging Dog Ranch from the west and use Improved Arrows if you want to ensure your kills, though Regular Arrows should work fine. There are two easy kills. One is the O’Driscoll that wanders outside of the stables. Make sure his back is at least mostly turned to you (head-on kills won’t count). The other is the guard on the windmill platform who is always in the same stationary position. You should get at least two kills each time, though you can sometimes get more depending on the patrol patterns.
Weapons Expert 10 - Kill a grizzly bear without taking damage, using only throwing knives
There’s a consistent grizzly spawn point not too far east of Hanging Dog Ranch between Watson’s Cabin and Wallace Station, so you can flow right into this challenge after the last one. Here’s what I did. I let the grizzly charge me, went into Dead Eye and threw a Poison Throwing Knife to incapacitate him. Then I switched to an Improved Throwing Knife and did a headshot. Boom. Done.
​
Bonus: Silver Dapple Pinto MFT in Chapter 2
I don’t think the Moonstone Pond glitch works any more as of 1.26. I tried for about an hour and could never get it to work.
The Arcadia for Amateurs – III method does work though! I didn’t have any luck with the tracking method, though from YouTube comments, it looks like people aren’t having any trouble even as of last week. Here’s the method I used and it was pretty easy. I was able to do it on the first try.
​
Thanks for reading and now it's time to do other things in the wonderful world of RDR2!

Hello investors,
(for pictures, please refer to the original post)
https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/l3ugu7/market_commentary_how_about_that_gme_and_bb_craze/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Wow... Like everyone else, I'm mesmerized by the stratospheric price action in the past few days. Look at the below numbers.
GME (GameStop) made so many people happy and wealthy. Congratulations to everyone who participated in this amazing movement!!
GME has been the topic of conversation for literally every single robinhooders and traders.
I'm sure by now that most of you are familiar with what happened to GME but for those who don't know, the short story is that the market markers and the short-sellers were "squeezed", aka forced, to close/hedge their positions.
These positions would have helped drive the stock price down in the past but since they closed them now, those downward pressures have evaporated. This basically lifted the ceiling and then the price skyrocketed.
I know this phenomenon has created bipolar views on the stock markets right now.
One group of people are advocating for the continued run-up in GME, BB, and PLTR (the folks on the next door) by squeezing the market makers and short-sellers, while the other group of people are talking down on those "yoloers" who are acting crazy and irrational.
The reason why I'm mentioning GME? For two reasons:

1. I see an asymmetric opportunity in these crazy stocks.
2. It serves as an important indicator for the overall market conditions.

1) In my view, there is a good risk/reward situation in GME, BB, and so on.
To preface my argument, I like to consider myself very conservative, risk-averse, and value-oriented investor. I emphasize on fundamentals, the stock price playing true to the company's earnings, and the actual cash flows.
I'm very like-minded with those group of people who think this GME run-up is crazy and irrational.
However, many people forget that being a "rational" investor doesn't mean you should just ignore those hot tech stocks, crypto-mania, or GME price action.
As a "rational" investor, you also don't need to feel jealous and anxious about those people who became wealthy from GME. I would like to go even a step further to compliment them for getting in at the right time.
Afterall, we are playing a game of probability.
If your friends or neighbors win lotteries in millions of dollars, should you feel jealous? Should you feel the FOMO? Absolutely not. No one could've seen this coming and some people do get lucky. You can't blame a guy for winning a jackpot.
Now, let's talk about what actions we can take to benefit from this situation.
The way I look at it, we now have confirmed that lots of short-sellers in GME and BB have already realized their losses, aka covered their shorts.
The market makers also have realized losses from their gamma squeeze, which is a more complicated concept but to simplify, it means that the downward pressure on the stock has weakened.
It's rather a simple idea. We are looking at a situation where the stock can move further up due to the lifting of these ceilings.
If I had to put numbers, it would certainly be more than 1:1 payout ratio but more like 3:1 ratio.
Why wouldn't anyone participate in a game of blackjack that gives you 3x or 4x your money?
To be extremely clear, I mention blackjack because buying these stocks is pure gambling, nothing more. It is not "investing".
Yet, it's gambling where the odds are tilted in our favor and thus, risk/reward is relatively high.
Therefore, I have bought BB calls for 2% of my portfolio, specifically BB because the short interest is lower than GME.
Furthermore, I'm going to try to be cute and buy more GME call options come Monday.
I would think that GME price would tank on Monday due to the excessive price run-up last Friday so that creates a buying opportunity.
If I lose that 2% BB? I'm totally okay with that. If it goes up 5x? Lucky me.
ONLY BET AN AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU ARE OKAY LOSING!
2) What do all of these tell us about our current position in the market?
Typically, these types of manias are observed during market-tops.
Howard Marks and David Einhorn list out the typical signs of market-tops.

1. Initial public offering mania
2. High valuations and new metrics for valuation
3. Market concentration in a single sector and a few stocks
4. S&P 500-type market capitalizations for second-tier stocks that most people haven’t heard of
5. A situation where the more fanciful and distant the narrative, the better the stock performs
6. Outperformance of companies suspected of fraud based on the belief that there is no enforcement risk, without which “crime pays”
7. Outsized reaction to economically irrelevant stock splits
8. Increased participation of retail investors, who appear focused on the best-performing names
9. Incredible trading volumes in speculative instruments, like weekly call options and worthless common stocks
10. A parabolic ascent toward a top.

(for those who don't know Howard Marks, I highly encourage to follow his "memos" on his website https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos. He is a legendary bond investor.)
Of the above ten signs, roughly all of them describe the situation today very well.
We are seeing IPO mania, high valuations, market concentration in a few stocks, outsized reaction to economically irrelevant stock splits, increased participation of retail investors, incredible trading volumes in speculative instruments, and parabolic ascent toward a top.
It's no doubt we are "near" the market top. But how near? 3 months, 1 year, 5 years..?
How can all of these happen in less than a year after the steepest GDP decline in history?
The answer is monetary and fiscal responses.
I mentioned in this commentary (https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/knxgex/market_commentary_2021_outlook_12312020/ towards the bottom) that right now, the two biggest driving factors in the markets are the gov't and the JPow & Co.
The government is spending like there is no tomorrow, which makes total sense because it is much more dangerous for our economy to under-spend than over-spend.
Jerome Powell is also providing massive purchases of Treasuries and zero rates policy, for the foreseeable future.
As long as these two massive forces are in action, we will see even a greater hype and craze in the markets.
We just started a bull-market run. Look at the below graphs.
Given the fact that we just started a bull market and also observed lots of bubbles happening everywhere, I believe that we will see one of the greatest bubbles in history (if not already) until every last one of those the market bears are proven wrong.
When every single person at the cocktail party is expecting a market rally, it is at that moment that the market is truly at the top and the bubble bursts.
That doesn't mean that market corrections of 10% or more can't happen in the meantime. In fact, I have been saying that there will be market corrections in the very near future and we should be ready for that as well.
To summarize today's post, I would say there are opportunities in these maniac stocks and we should take advantage of them with limited risks. The manias also indicate that we are near the top of another market cycle and we should closely monitor the actions of the government and JPow & Co.
Quick report card for 2020
Below post was my first market commentary one on Reddit, where I said I was bullish on tech names (BABA, PDD, STNE, FUTU, AMZN, FVRR, W, and SEDG).
https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/jtaze1/market_commentary_11122020/
I've gotten winners and losers, the losers being BABA and W. The winners were the rest.
Obviously, I would've never thought that FUTU would double in less than a month. I held call options on them but it was pure luck.
I also called for rise in long-term treasury yield. Although I got the direction correct, the yield curve took way longer than I expected to steepen significantly. Now, I am even more bearish on the 30-year than before due to the rates breaking the technical levels.
I was also long gold. I have unrealized losses on this one but I plan on getting back in as this is a 2-3 year play.
Thanks for reading and if you would like to receive emails for the posts, please fill out this form.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZ6J9pFUq3At2yncsQ_L4XalvVEVa-BW2nbHR7-bJ9BRKplA/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0&gxids=7628&fbzx=4409293954243517011
As always, please feel free to share your ideas!

TLDR; buy/hold AMC/GME and lick my balls if you think this isn’t a casino.
This is my first post to wsb but I have had a fucking blast over the last week with all the ups and downs. I’ve known from the beginning that this is a casino and have been buying amc and gme in small amounts every day for the past two weeks.
A lot of people are down on all of this bitching about all the money they’ve lost but obviously they don’t know how to gamble.
This is better than playing poker or blackjack or baccarat at the casino but there are a Fuck load of people who don’t see how much this market is all about gambling smart.
Don’t gamble more money than you can afford to lose. Pretty obvious one if you’ve ever seen any idiot bottomed out at the chino maxing out their credit cards and getting pissed off at every dude who makes a bad play at the table because they think it is the one reason they lost all their money.
Anyway I’m having a fucking good time and can’t wait to get to the moon.

1What retiring early is like

It's fucking great.
I wake up happy, I do pretty much whatever I want during the day, I go to sleep happy.
I indulge my limited passions and hobbies, I plunge down fascinating rabbit holes of knowledge, I bugger off to places for months at a time (harder with Brexit, you xenophobic malcontents), I spend time with people I want to. I feel smug.
I don't have an alarm waking me up, I don't need to take any shit off anyone, I don't burn 90 mins a day on a loud bus screeching stop announcements at 90db in my ear.
In the summer I sometimes pop over to the local greenery, have a pint and meal, read a book, soak up the sun. Great stuff.
My phone is always on silent. It can wait.
People occasionally ask me “what I do all day”. If your imagination is so limited, living in such an incredible time, with so much at your fingertips, that the question even crosses your mind, then carry on working and bitching about it, you don't know how to be happy.
“Scipio used to say that he was never less idle than when he had nothing to do “ - Cicero, On Duties.

2How to get there

2.1Difficulty modes

2.1.1Easy mode: Get free university education, get a good job, buy a cheap house

Not too difficult if you were born in 1972. Easy mode is now disabled in the UK. Maybe available in foreign versions of the game, such as in Greece or Denmark.

2.1.2Medium mode: Don't have kids

I swear to god, I have been pretty lucky not to accidentally father a crotch goblin, and believe me, little Goocho often vetoed my brain. Use contraceptives. Notice how all the shit hole countries don't give women control over their reproduction.
If I had foolishly crapped out a kid, I would have had to work another 10 years at least I reckon. Ugh.
Borrow kids to play with them, and return when they start crying.

2.1.3Hard mode: Have kids

Look, if you are spending 100k or whatever to raise a kid I don't know what to tell you, at least you got laid eh?
I hope you enjoy working like I didn't. Seriously, if you have a job you like, great stuff, things will be much easier for you. The impetus to leave it won't be so great. The point of all this is to be happy after all!

2.2Control your costs

Filling your house full of nonsense is consumerism at it's worst.
I practice a kind of minimalism. So I don't own a freezer, a cooker or a dish washing machine. Guess what? They will never need repairing or replacing! But I do own an amazing OLED tv, a solid speaker system, loads of films and books. Minimalism is a whole other subject, and attracts the mentally ill who take it to extremes. Spend money on a decent mattress you fools.
Subscriptions are death by a thousand cuts, and will weigh you down. However Netflix and Amazon Prime are great. Shades of grey.
Screw charities, charity workers get paid salaries and you are supposed to give for free? Nope. Begging scum. “it is only the price of a coffee”, bitch please, I pay 10p a cup for my lovely coffee.
Pay your taxes. Don't be a leech on society.
Live in a small house.
Aldi is great.
If you don't get married, you can't get ruinously divorced, .
Insurance is generally a scam, if you are drunkenly fucking up so regularly than you need your phone insured, sort your life out.
You really need that car? Hmmm. If you are driving to the supermarket and paying for the gym, you are an idiot. Those two cancel each other out.
Only unhappy people play the lottery.
Buy a decent phone for £200, pay £5 a month for service. You think iFruit users will look down upon you? Comparison is the thief of joy.
DIY accomplishments are mentally rewarding, great exercise and cheap – or you can throw money at a problem to make it go away, this is the point of money after all, we sell and buy time with it. Before I buy anything big, I ask myself, is this worth x days sitting in an office for​?
Spend your money how you like, I am not your mum.
Enjoy what you have.

2.3Plan a little

Write down (don't guess) how much you spend a month over a couple of years.
For investments, assume inflation cancels out general increase in non distributing equity value. This is all a rough guessing game anyway, don't pretend it isn't.
I think there are two ways to look at when you can stop working:

2.3.1Cash drawdown per month until death

If you assume you are going to die around 85 (actuarial tables available online), divide your cash + private pension wealth + state pension amount will pay you until age 85 by the number of months left to live, this tells you how much you can spend a month before you die. Sounds like enough? Investment appreciation means you might have more than that.

2.3.2Cash dividends per month

You have a lumpsum of wealth. Flexible uk pension rules means you no longer need to take the annuity gamble. 4% returns a year seems conservatively doable. Can you live on that? Means you die with a load of cash. Stash it in your silk lined coffin.

2.4Play it safe, but not too safe

Assume laws and taxes will change. Don't count too much on that state pension.
If the NHS falls ill itself, you might need some cash to go private. Good luck getting that hip surgery in the next 12 months post covid!
If the stock market takes a 10% dump, you must still sleep soundly. Don't live too close to the edge.
Assume and hope your parents will spend all their wealth on themselves, having a happy end of life in an old folks home. Points off as a human being for relying on your parent snuffing it for free money.
What if your body conks out and you start shitting yourself and have to pay 4k a month to be served Dickensian gruel in a nursing home? Trust in the societal safety net? Work another 5 years just in case? Keep a cyanide pill by the bed? Sell your house I guess? I'm rolling the dice on this one. Maybe dancing in VR and these 50 degree Victorian terrace stairs will keep me fit (or kill me).

2.5Personal Story

Went to Uni, got a Computering degree, got a job I liked, autistic-ally worked at it, got paid lots of money, bought a house at 26 for 48k, parents threw in 10k to get rid of me, paid off the mortgage in 30 months.
After 8 years in said job, started to dislike it, took 6 months off work. Worked another 2 years before I got made redundant, 15k for doing nothing? Yes please!
Worked about half the time from age 32 to 46 as Contractor scum, in jobs I generally disliked or eventually hated. Had 2-3 years between jobs. Snatching retirement chunks from the future. I figured, why leave retirement until I am too old to enjoy it? Took around 3 months to get a new job each time, I didn't care, I loved not working!
Played casino blackjack for a couple of years for ~8 hours a week, made £12k. Shuffling machines have stopped all that now, was bored of it anyway.
Decided at 40 I had better get a pension, threw money at it when working.
So at 46, when I walked out on the pathetic management at my last gig (FIS Birmingham, you see when you are retired, you really don't have to give a shit!), I had worked for a total of ~15 years, thoroughly enjoyed not working and was sick of working.
At 47 I realised maybe I don't actually need another job? Started paying real attention to my finances.
At 48, I have 110k cash & 140k pension = 250k. 4% a year dividends = 10k a year. I can live happily on that.
£800 a month is enough. I spent £350 a month in December and January, had a great time. Will get a PS5 when available, boiler is bound to break eventually. It all evens out.
My state pension fortells a sickly £117 per week. Meh. Forgive me for not factoring that in too much. Who knows where I will be in 20 years? Hopefully sleeping in late without an alarm clock.