It is great to read those posts. Lot of learning here.

The only 3 general advice that come to my mind are :

1 - when you enter a trade you can't know for sure what to expect but you must know for sure what you don't want to see. If you see that exit don't wait.

2 - never enter a trade without a stop loss. It is an urban legend that the market is chasing stop loss order.

3 - never use your stop loss as an exit strategy. Your stop loss is like the airbag in your car. It makes you safer to have one but it not a reason to drive your car directly in the wall.

if you follow this 3 rules you won't be rich but at least you won't blow your account.

There's obviously a potentially significant difference between "blowing an account up" and experiencing a near 100% drawdown. If I fund an account with 100k, then take out 5k/month for 2 years before "blowing the account up" in month 25 I'm still up $'s and have in reality only experienced a 45% drawdown despite "blowing the account up".

I'm curious when people say they've blown 2 or 3 accounts do they actually mean they got wiped out, meaning a near 100% drawdown?

SMCJB 

There's obviously a potentially significant difference between "blowing an account up" and experiencing a near 100% drawdown. If I fund an account with 100k, then take out 5k/month for 2 years before "blowing the account up" in month 25 I'm still up $'s and have in reality only experienced a 45% drawdown despite "blowing the account up". I'm curious when people say they've blown 2 or 3 accounts do they actually mean they got wiped out, meaning a near 100% drawdown?

I took 'blowing out' to mean what @Big Mike meant at the beginning, i.e. bring your account down to a level where you're unable to trade any longer, so in effects it means the account must have less than the minimum margin allowed to trade... in which case if I want to trade again I need to top up my account.... that definition of blowing out fits what I personally experienced.

SMCJB 

There's obviously a potentially significant difference between "blowing an account up" and experiencing a near 100% drawdown. If I fund an account with 100k, then take out 5k/month for 2 years before "blowing the account up" in month 25 I'm still up $'s and have in reality only experienced a 45% drawdown despite "blowing the account up". I'm curious when people say they've blown 2 or 3 accounts do they actually mean they got wiped out, meaning a near 100% drawdown?

I've just read again your question and now I think I understand better what you are asking.

In my earlier post I had indicated that in my case I had opened a very small account to begin with.

So it follows that with very small accounts the chances of 'blowing out' the account are pretty high, especially if you're classed as a beginner.

On the other hand, I believe it would be very unwise for a beginner to throw a lot of money into a newly opened account. In my case it would have probably made me more reckless.
Best to keep things small. There's always the psychological barrier of a margin call to deal with if I have a small account, so I'll try and avoid that.

I hope it makes sense...

Blowing accounts is self-destruction and self-sabotage.
The real emotional control is to stop the rational side of the brain when the emotional is not good. If you can do this, you can trade safely.

rhtrader 

Blowing accounts is self-destruction and self-sabotage.

If that was the case many people who I understand are successful traders today would have never blown accounts out.

I agree with your second point about emotional control though.