The trick with trading Iron Condors is not so much the entry. Entries are relatively easy, and setting up a trade that looks good and matches all the requirements for a safe trade is not very difficult. There are two major challenges to Iron Condor trading: the first is managing your trade (and especially the exit), and the second is doing it consistently enough to maintain a steady growth on your portfolio.

Iron Condors are attractive to options traders, because they require very little margin, and because they present the potential to produce a steady income of 7-10% on your portfolio. The danger is that when they do go wrong, they have the ability to wipe out several months of carefully accumulated profit.

The single biggest area in which iron condor traders need help is in this key factor of trade management and trade exits. Of course, everybody learning a new trading technique should paper trade — right? In reality, almost nobody does this for longer than three or four months. They get three trades right, think they now understand iron condors, and start trading — only to be hit be a major drawdown a few months later.

This is where the Iron Condor Training game comes in. This is a deceptively simple game that in a relatively short time takes you through hundreds (or even thousands) of trades using real historical data, so that you can have as much practice as you need before launching out on real trades.

I downloaded the Iron Condor Training game, and at first felt a little insulted. I am used to playing complex PC Games like Civilisation V or Medal of Honour, and the game at first seemed overwhelmingly too simple — until I started using it. In the first few days, trading on the RUT and NASDAQ, my theoretical portfolio (starting at $100,000) got absolutely hammered. I then started trading on the S&P500, and after about 4 hours of play, I managed to start making a regular return of about 7% per trading cycle.

The Strength of the Iron Condor Training Game

This game focuses on getting you to learn the two things that can make a difference to your trading: how to monitor and manage a trade, and how to know when to exit. Play this for an hour each day for six weeks, and you go beyond detailed knowledge to instinctively good trading. This narrow focus of the game is its absolute strength, and is does it really well.

The game runs from real historical data, so while the curves and the profit/loss are simulated, the data that drives the motion of the price line is actual data from the S&P, Nasdaq and Russell Indexes. This is important because it pits you (the player) against the reality of the market, and gives you a realistic view of how your instincts will serve you when you trade with real money.

Gameplay

You can start the game at the basic level (level 1), where are given a randomly selected trade that runs for 21 trading days. Over about one minute, you watch the trade unfold as the countdown to expiration progresses. You can see clearly how the profit profile changes graphically. You can (if you wish) turn on the guides, which give you an alert to say ‘Close your trade’ when the market slips over the mark. I started without these guides at first, but later learnt the value of using them.

You have the option to speed up the cycle at any time, but it gets pretty intense when you do that and start losing trades because you did not react quickly enough!

Level 2 of the game allows you to buy calls or puts to make adjustments to your trade. This is helpful if the market really tanks or blows out of the water, but if the trade goes only slightly out of the ‘safe’ zone, this strategy serves mainly as a loss limiter. You get a feel for when to adjust, and what it means to your final profitability.

What you get with Iron Condor Training Game

You get the opportunity to manage a randomly selected iron condor trades on the S&P, RUT and NASDAQ exchanges, using real historical data. With or without the use of guides, you can, in a relatively short period of time, run several thousand ‘paper trades’ in order to build up your skill in trade management.

Once purchased, you have lifetime access to the game, and access to all its upgrades and improvements for free. I have corresponded with the game developers, and they have plans for future upgrades to the game, so this relatively new game will likely see huge improvements in the future.

What you do not get with the Iron Condor Training Game.

Do not buy this game if you are looking for the following:

• Practice at trade entry. This is not too complex anyway, and is not the point on which successful iron condor training is hinged. The game focuses on teaching you how to manage a trade once you are in it, which is critical. Placing the trade takes about 5 minutes, and then you have to manage it for a month, which is where the game is focused.
• Complex trade adjustments. such as closing out one side of the trade, rolling trades forward, laying additional iron condor trades on the top of the original one, or adjusting the delta of the trade. At the moment, these are beyond the scope of the game, but could be included in later iterations.

Top Tip: If you are wanting to learn more about Iron Condors, how to enter a trade, and how to make complex adjustments, then the best option is to get the Iron Condor Training Course . This incredibly detailed course has everything you could possibly want, and answers many questions that you probably haven’t thought of!

Conclusion

Do not be deceived by this game’s simplicity. It has relatively few components, but it does those really, really well. If you are new to trading iron condors, than this game will save you a ton of money — most people lose more on one bad trade than on the cost of this game! I have used it, and continue to use it, and it has restored my faith in iron condor trading after a few bad hits when I first tried them out.

Get the Iron Condor Trading Game by clicking here!

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