Van Tharp – The Power of Position Sizing Strategies

Curriculum (Google Drive Proof)

# The Position Sizing Secret That Separates Winning Traders From Bankrupt Ones

If you’ve been trading for any length of time, you’ve probably encountered the frustrating paradox: you can pick winning trades consistently, yet your account still shrinks. You execute your strategy perfectly, catch the right moves, but somehow end up with less money than when you started. The culprit? You’ve been ignoring the one variable that accounts for over 90 percent of your trading performance.

Welcome to Van Tharp’s Introduction to Position Sizing Strategies Course, the educational foundation that transforms how professional traders think about risk, capital allocation, and long-term profitability.

## Why This Course Exists In the First Place

Van Tharp, a legendary figure in trading education, built his entire career on a simple but profound realization: most traders focus on the wrong thing. They obsess over entry signals, chart patterns, and technical indicators. They spend thousands on trading software, premium newsletters, and trading rooms. Yet they completely miss the variable that determines whether they’ll succeed or fail.

In 1991, research published in the Journal of Finance examined 82 portfolio managers over a decade. The findings were shocking. Position sizing—the “how much” variable—accounted for 91 percent of performance variability. That’s not a typo. Not entry timing. Not trade selection. Not indicator accuracy. The amount of capital you risk on each trade determines most of your results.

This realization changed everything. It means you could have an average trading system with excellent position sizing and dramatically outperform someone with a holy grail system but terrible position sizing. It means your profitability ceiling isn’t determined by how good your trades are, but by how much you risk on them.

## The Course Structure That Makes Complex Ideas Simple

This course doesn’t overwhelm you with unnecessary theory. Instead, it breaks down position sizing into 13 focused sections that build logically from foundational concepts to practical application.

You’ll start by understanding why position sizing matters in the first place. Then you’ll learn to define R and R-multiples, the language that professional traders use to quantify risk. R represents your initial risk per trade, and R-multiples show whether your trade generated a small loss, a moderate gain, or an exceptional win.

The course then walks you through calculating expectancy, understanding the CPR Model, exploring equity models, and discovering how to use the market’s money to compound your gains. You’ll see real examples applied to stocks, currencies, and options, so you’re not learning theory divorced from reality.

But here’s where Van Tharp’s course separates itself from typical trading education: it includes the famous Marble Trading Game.

## The Marble Game That Changes Everything

Imagine this scenario. You’re in a room with dozens of other traders. The instructor gives everyone identical trades. Same entry points. Same exit points. Same win rate. Same profit factors. Everything is absolutely the same. Then he lets everyone make their own decisions about position sizing.

By the end of the game, the room has as many different equity outcomes as there are players. Some traders have doubled their money. Others have tripled it. And roughly one-third have gone bankrupt.

Same trades. Different position sizing. Completely different outcomes.

Van Tharp has run this game thousands of times across the world, and the results are always identical. This experiential learning does something that lectures cannot accomplish alone—it shows you viscerally why position sizing matters more than anything else.

The Marble Game teaches you three critical lessons. First, you learn how to meaningfully measure your trading results based on what you actually risk in each trade, not just raw dollars gained or lost. Second, you discover a simple position sizing technique so straightforward that beginners can apply it like professionals immediately. Third, you understand how proper position sizing removes the emotional chaos from trading by replacing impulsive decisions with systematic logic.

## What Makes This Course Different From Everything Else Out There

The trading education market is saturated. New courses launch constantly, promising secret indicators, proprietary algorithms, and mysterious edge strategies. Most of them completely ignore position sizing, or treat it as a minor topic after covering entries and exits.

This course puts position sizing front and center because it’s the bottleneck. You can have perfect entries and terrible position sizing, resulting in poor outcomes. Or you can have mediocre entries and excellent position sizing, resulting in exceptional outcomes. The math doesn’t lie.

Unlike generic trading courses that try to be everything to everyone, this course stays laser-focused on one critical topic and explores it thoroughly. You’ll learn core position sizing strategies that work with any trading system. You’ll master risk management essentials that protect your capital. You’ll discover how to integrate these strategies into whatever system you currently use, whether that’s technical analysis, fundamental analysis, algorithmic trading, or anything else.

The course also addresses portfolio-level position sizing, showing you how to allocate across multiple positions and assets simultaneously. And it covers the psychological dimension of position sizing, because knowing the math and actually implementing it under pressure are two different challenges.

## Real Feedback From Traders Who’ve Completed It

Traders who’ve finished this course report several consistent themes in their feedback. They consistently mention how the course taught them to calculate position sizing strategies consistently, removing the guesswork and emotion from sizing decisions.

Multiple students highlight that the course forced them to reconsider when position sizing decisions should be made. Most traders think about position size after they’ve already selected which stock or currency to trade. This course teaches you to decide your position size first, based on your risk tolerance and objectives, then select trades that fit within those parameters.

Another major theme: students appreciate that the course shows position sizing applied across multiple trading instruments. Whether you trade stocks, forex, options, or futures, the principles remain the same, and you get examples across different asset classes.

Perhaps most importantly, students consistently report that the course made a genuinely complex topic understandable. Position sizing sits at the intersection of mathematics, psychology, and portfolio management. Many traders have attempted to learn it from academic papers or dense textbooks and given up. This course translates those concepts into clear, accessible language without sacrificing accuracy or depth.

## How Van Tharp’s Course Compares To His Definitive Guide Book

Van Tharp also wrote “The Definitive Guide to Position Sizing,” a comprehensive book that covers 93 different position sizing strategies. It’s a reference work that some traders return to for years, exploring different approaches as their trading evolves.

The course is positioned differently. It’s designed as an accessible introduction, perfect for beginners or traders who’ve never seriously studied position sizing before. The course uses audio-visual learning, interactive activities, and the Marble Game to engage your brain through multiple channels. The book is better suited for traders ready to dive deep into technical details and explore advanced variations.

Many traders find that starting with the course gives them the foundation to understand the book. Others prefer the course format entirely. The distinction is important: choose based on your learning style and how much depth you need right now.

## The Practical Impact on Your Trading

Here’s what this course ultimately delivers: actionable techniques you can implement immediately. You don’t need to completely overhaul your trading system. You don’t need new software or additional capital. You simply apply better position sizing logic to whatever you’re already doing.

The course shows you how a simple position sizing strategy could help you avoid catastrophic losses. It demonstrates how proper sizing makes trading easier by reducing emotional chaos. It reveals how bad position sizing makes trading harder, even when your fundamental strategy is sound.

Consider a concrete example from the course materials. If you start with a trading account and risk 1 percent on your first trade, losing it puts you at 99 percent of starting capital. That 1 percent loss now requires a 1.01 percent gain just to break even. But if you risk 2 percent and lose, you’re at 98 percent and need a 2.04 percent gain to recover. The math compounds, and position sizing either works for you or against you.

## Why The Timing Is Right To Learn This

Trading has become more accessible than ever. Commissions have disappeared. Account minimums have dropped. Retail traders now have tools that were available only to institutions a decade ago. Yet most retail traders still fail because they haven’t mastered position sizing.

The market environment doesn’t change this truth. Whether you’re trading in a bull market, bear market, or sideways market, position sizing remains the foundation of consistent profitability. This isn’t a temporary edge that works for a few years. It’s a permanent principle that applies to all markets, all timeframes, and all trading styles.

Whether you’re a full-time trader looking to improve your system, a part-time trader trying to build consistent gains, or someone considering trading as a career path, understanding position sizing is non-negotiable.

## Getting Access Through TSCourses

TSCourses offers this course at the most competitive price in the market, with immediate delivery via Google Drive link after payment. You get high-speed download with no account restrictions, and you’re backed by a 15-day satisfaction guarantee. If you complete the course and decide it’s not what you expected, you have two weeks to get your money back.

This course has already helped thousands of traders worldwide shift their perspective on what actually drives trading success. The Marble Game alone is worth the investment, as it delivers in one interactive experience what some traders never learn in years of trading.

Position sizing isn’t glamorous. It won’t make for impressive social media posts or exciting trading room discussions. But it’s the invisible hand that determines whether your trades become wealth or whether they become tuition payments for your education in what not to do.

The trader you become in the next year depends partly on your market luck and your system quality. But it depends far more on the position sizing decisions you make today. Van Tharp’s course gives you the framework to make those decisions with confidence and precision.

Your trading account has been waiting for this course. Get started today.