Well this decision was made for me when I won the 50K 10 day combine. I was looking into the combines before winning the prize and thought I'd share my thinking. This is what I see as the TST Combine criteria
Here is how I analyzed the combine options. The first thing I did was to evaluate how close to the Max Size allowed I would actually trade. Since Im going to trade the ES, I converted the max loss dollar amount into a maximum number of points that could be lost in a day. I call this the Daily Loss SP Points.
Base on a not to distant day (where my Monkeys helped me trade), I want to allow for 3 consecutive losing trades before stopping for the day. My stop varies from 1 - 2 points from my entry. I start with a default 2 points from entry and can tighten the stop once I believe I have a good entry price. I used 2 points max stop to determine my Loss Points per trade .
To keep my Monkeys from helping with my trading, I scale out of a position. This means I take the added risk of a larger position when I enter a trade, but "scale out" or take half of the position off at a close probable target. As I have stated before, this leaves the second half of the trade as a "free trade" that I can let run or decide where to take profits and look for the next entry. I divided the Daily Loss SP Points by my maximum stop size of 2 points to get "My Max Contracts" column. When compared to the TST Max Allowed contracts, I should only be trading two thirds of what is allowed.
I owe a Thank You! to @kevinkdog for helping me to understand the TST Max Draw Down meaning:
The TST definition of Max Draw-down allows one to use profits earned to increase size. I still need to consider if or how I take this into account as I still have to work with the Max Daily Loss. For the moment I'm going to leave this thought process for another post.
Next I looked at the Profit target by doing a similar process. I calculated what percentage the Profit Target was of the Starting Balance. PT % This did not do much for me. So then I converted it into ES points, ES PT Points and then calculated the average daily points needed to reach the profit target using my max contracts. Ave ES Pts per day at max size in the table
Analysis time.
$30K combine - Ruled out as I can not trade 2 initial contracts.
$100k combine - Out due to size truncation in calculations, need just more points per day than $150k combine. Might as well go bigger.
The Choice is between $50K and $150K since they have similar average points per day.
My personality would press for the $150k combine to be able to trade larger sooner. I also lean towards the 10 day period to be able to get through the "test period" sooner. If I was buying the combine, my decision would be $150k 10 day.
But I have the $50k 10 days prize to enjoy for now. I have not signed up for the Free Trial yet as I have to pick my platform when I register and Ninja is not yet listed. I'm just impatiently waiting and trying real hard to keep the excitement emotions out of trading until then.