Introduction

Let’s talk about patterns.

Michael Larson was an ordinary man from Ohio who became famous for his incredible win on the game show Press Your Luck in 1984. The show, hosted by Peter Tomarken, featured contestants answering trivia questions to earn spins on a large electronic game board known as the Big Board.

The Big Board had various prizes and cash amounts, but it also had a few squares that were labeled “Whammy.” If a contestant landed on a Whammy, they would lose all their accumulated winnings and receive a comical animation of a cartoon character called the Whammy. The goal of the game was to accumulate as much money as possible without hitting a Whammy.

Michael Larson, an unemployed ice cream truck driver, became intrigued by the show's patterns during his extensive study of recorded episodes. He noticed that the random patterns on the Big Board were not entirely random. The show used five different patterns that would cycle through randomly during each episode. Larson recognized that he could potentially memorize these patterns and predict the movement of the lights on the board.

In the spring of 1984, Larson made the decision to try his luck and become a contestant on CBS's Press Your Luck. He applied to be on the show and, after being accepted, traveled to Los Angeles for the taping.

During the show, Larson's strategy was to press the button to stop the flashing lights on the board at precise moments when he knew they would land on cash or prizes rather than Whammies. He successfully avoided the Whammies and managed to amass an astonishing amount of money.

Larson's approach was risky because if he hit a Whammy, he would lose all his winnings. However, he had meticulously memorized the patterns and was confident in his ability to anticipate the board's movements. As the game progressed, Larson's winnings grew rapidly, reaching unprecedented amounts. He won a total of $110,237 in cash and prizes, which was the largest one‐day total in the history of daytime television at the time. In 2023 terms, this is over $330,000.

Larson's winning streak stunned the show's producers and staff, who suspected him of cheating. They reviewed the footage extensively but found no evidence of wrongdoing. Larson had simply exploited a flaw in the game's design and outsmarted the system.

The show's producers initially refused to pay Larson his winnings, alleging that he had cheated. Larson threatened legal action, and after several months of negotiations, he received his full prize money. The incident prompted the show to revise its game board patterns to make them more difficult to memorize and predict.

Michael Larson's incredible win on Press Your Luck made him a brief celebrity. Larson passed away in 1999 at the age of 49, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most memorable and controversial game show contestants in history.

Aside from identifying a pattern, another thing stands out about Larson. I suspect that Larson was not looking for the pattern when he watched this game show initially, but that it leapt out at him. For everyone else these flashes were random, with no discernable pattern, but to Michael, there was a pattern, a sequence. The lights shown in a specific series over exact periods. Hundreds of thousands had watched and many had played on this game show, and yet it seems no one but Michael saw this, or if they did, they decided not to monetize it.

When he first thought he had identified this pattern, he could have been a realist and simply said to himself, “I'm sure I can't predict this pattern. Someone would have noticed this by now,” and refused to admit to himself that he was capable of knowing when these flashes would land in the winning squares.

But he didn't. He tested himself, recording episodes of the show in a beta or VHS VCR, playing it back, and learning how these predictable motions transpired.

That's how I felt in November 2019, never having looked at a single stock chart, or bought a single stock, or learned a single thing about the stock market … and yet I saw this thing happening that seemed completely obvious to me, in which a stock dropped and rose rather predictably, every day around the same time. I never thought it would help catapult a series of successes so soon after.

And here I am, just a random new trader. Not an ex–Wall Street fancy pants that had been apprenticed by Warren Buffet, or some super nerd who worships algorithms. I trade predictable patterns every day. In fact, as I write this sentence, I just looked at my account and noted that I made around $99,000 in the last three weeks of trading. In the last year, hundreds of thousands of people the world over have learned about the 20‐Minute Trader, and perhaps by the time this book is published it will be millions.

Here's the weirder thing: I cannot even call myself an amateur on the subject of trading. If a Cub Scout learns first aid and you compare him to a doctor, I'm less educated at trading strategies than that kid is at medicine. I have no academic qualifications to consider myself an authority, and if you are looking for that, get a refund on this book before it's too late, and find someone with a PhD in trading who was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for years, or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for decades. Someone who knows the Greeks, and the indicators, and the Relative Strength Index plus dozens of other formula … who has five screens around their desk facing their face. The only thing I trade with is a small laptop and my smartphone.

I know a few dozen or so words and symbols simply and precisely. I know how to buy and sell and some simple math. But the one ace‐in‐the‐hole I have, that's best of all, is a way to predict a tiny jump in a stock price. I also know every single detail on how to explain this method in full.

What amazing code‐breaking, glitch‐causing method did I use to find this pattern? Actually, I did use a special technique, called NSBG. Have you heard of it? It's a very powerful technique. It stands for Non‐Subconsciously‐Biased Glancing.

Experts, PhDs, and philosophers down the ages have … never talked about this at all actually. I just made it up. But that doesn't mean it's not true.

Basically, I was glancing. And I noted it. Repeatedly.

We have all seen the phenomenon where a person, independent of the scene comes in, who knows nothing, notices something the whole company, family, group or civilization failed to notice, which was headlight‐brightness obvious to them.

There's the story of the explorer who found a drought‐stricken tribe, that had been there centuries, avoiding a nearby cave because it was occupied by an “evil demon.” This was a collective certainty because the cave croaked out scary sounds continuously. It was therefore group knowledge that this cave was deadly dangerous, occupied by a demonic spirit that must be avoided, appeased, and feared. It was discussed and prayed about and dances were formed to fend off destructive effects. Committees, elders, and experts spoke on the matter with great authority, while the whole tribe was endlessly dehydrated due to no good water source. Children were taught at a young age to fear and avoid the cave (this actually sounds like the stock market to me, by the way, since “wise” elders naysay all new methods they see, and sneer at any innovation from new people).

This explorer decided, “I'll go inside and check it out,” and found out it was an underground water source growling in its depths, as water churned in a whirlpool and mini‐waterfall, echoing up to the mouth of the cave in deep grunts. He informed the tribe and solved their drought. And yet this mystical creature was a dominant factor in the lives of these people for possibly hundreds of years.

Now the drought was solved and the evil demon was gone. The explorer had employed NSBG, Non‐Subconsciously‐Biased Glancing. In other words, he wasn't subconsciously biased into believing in the demon. He just glanced with no preconceived ideas.

This was how I glanced at stock market charts.

I was 42, broke, just lost my job of 22 years and had no place so I was staying with my older brother, Kris, at the time, living in a spare bedroom he had. One day, I brought my laptop out and placed it on the coffee table.

I said, “Hey Kris, do you see that?” while pointing at the chart.

Kris is the first person who showed me stock charts a month earlier since he was experienced. He also introduced me to trading options.

“See what?” he asked, as he looked at the stock charts I showed him.

“I can tell you when that stock is going to go up,” I said.

“Oh yeah, let's see,” Kris said.

“Now,” I said, and the line jumped up.

“Holy crap, you did it,” he said.

Now you're about the throw this book out the window because people are paid millions and billions to predict market stuff, with the most detailed and complex algorithms in the universe, with an army of quantitative analysts dissecting everything in every detail. You don't want to hear the mutterings of some lucky idiot who stepped on a lottery mine by accident and who now thinks he's an expert.

I agree with you. I'd rather hear from a tried‐and‐true expert on anything. But let me be a...