Which patterns hold up
How to check a pattern instead of trusting its name.
Judge any candlestick pattern by where it appeared — location, trend, session — before its name. Tell a confirmed pattern from an anticipated one and say what each costs. Read a "ranked by data" table by asking which definition, which market, which outcome and compared with what, and understand why honest tests disagree. Then keep a tally of your own that counts every instance you marked in advance, not only the ones you remember.
5 chapters · 6 quiz questions · 12 terms · included with a plan
Otus, on this module
By now you can name dozens of shapes. That is the dangerous part. A name feels like knowledge, and every chart you have ever looked at is full of the ones that worked — because those are the ones you noticed. This module is about the ones you did not notice, and how to count them.
The chapters
Each module ends with you doing what it taught — a written answer Otus reads, and a quiz.
- 01 · Read
A name is not a context
Location, trend, session — and why the same shape does nothing in a range.
- 02 · Read
Confirmation or anticipation
Counting a pattern that finished, or one that was only forming — and what each costs.
- 03 · Read
"Ranked by data" — and why the rankings disagree
What published tests tend to find, why their numbers differ, and how to keep your own tally.
- 04 · Watch
Watch: The 10 Candlestick Patterns That Actually Work
A full course. The step ticks itself when it reaches the end.
- 05 · Write
Write your tally rule
One pattern, one rule, before any chart. Otus reads it.
- 06 · Quiz
Six questions
A wrong answer still pays. It costs the combo, not the XP.
12 terms this module defines
The same definitions Otus uses in the lessons. All of them are in the trading glossary.
- Pattern context
- Where a pattern appeared: at a level or in open space, inside a sequence or a range, in a quiet or an active session. The definition ignores it; the reading depends on it.
- Location
- Whether a pattern formed at a level where finished bars have reacted before, or in open space. The same shape records different things in the two places.
- Something to reverse
- A shape read as a move being refused. It needs a real move to refuse — a sequence on a stated timeframe — or it is answering a question the chart never asked.
- Pattern in a range
- A reversal shape formed in the middle of a trading range. It meets the definition and records almost nothing, because there was no move for it to reverse.
- Anticipation
- Counting a pattern while its last bar is still forming. Nearer in price, and sometimes a pattern that never existed, because the bar closed differently.
- Confirmation
- Counting a pattern only once its defining bar has closed. Certain that the shape happened, and paid for in the distance price has usually moved by then.
- Never-completed pattern
- A pattern that was forming and then did not close as one. It rarely gets remembered, and a count that leaves it out makes the completed ones look better than they are.
- Definition drift
- Two sources using one pattern name for different rules — gap or body gap, open or high. Their counts are of different things, so their numbers cannot be compared.
- Base rate
- What an ordinary bar in the same place is followed by, with no pattern at all. A pattern has to be measured against it, not against zero.
- Data mining
- Testing many patterns or rules on the same data and keeping the best. Some will look impressive by chance alone, and will not repeat on new data.
- Outcome rule
- The single fixed rule, written before the next bar, that scores every tally row the same way. Chosen after the result, it is not a rule but a verdict.
- Pattern tally
- A journal record of every instance of one pattern marked in advance, with its definition, context, anticipation or confirmation, and the result by a fixed rule.
Finishing it pays 150 XP and 3 keys on the game board, on top of what each chapter earns. XP measures what you learned — never what you earned. How levels work.
Education only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything; the school teaches reading charts, never predictions.
Start with lesson one.
The first modules, Otus as your tutor and the game board are free. No card needed.