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Fairman wrote:Fair Value Gaps (FVGs) get treated like a guarantee in a lot of SMC content — “price always fills the gap.” It doesn't always, and trading it like gospel is how scalpers end up holding a bag on a trade that had no business being taken.

Good to see that written plainly. Gaps are probability maps, not IOUs.

On the desk an FVG only earns a ticket if three things line up: session permission, a clear invalidation beyond the gap, and a reason the imbalance should matter now — usually a reclaim or a failed break nearby. “Gap exists” is never enough. Unfilled gaps that travel are not personal insults; they are samples for the journal.

Practical filter: I mark the gap after the candle closes, not mid-formation. If price is already mid-gap when I notice it, I do not invent a late fill trade. Target is partial at the midpoint or the opposite side of the imbalance, with the stop where the thesis is dead — not “a few pips past the wick because SMC said so.”

When an FVG refuses to fill for a full session, I leave it on the chart as context and move on. Stubbornness dressed as confluence is still stubbornness.

Fairman wrote:A fair value gap forms when three consecutive candles leave a visible imbalance — when the wick of the first and third do not overlap.

FVG language is useful when it stays subordinate to bias and session. From this desk I will trade a fill only if the gap sits at a level I already cared about upstairs and spreads are normal. Naked gap-chasing on M1 is how I used to donate money to liquidity.

Desk rule: mark the gap, wait for reaction or acceptance, define invalidation beyond the gap extreme, then size. No mid-gap hope averages.

Prop flavour: gaps during news blackouts are sightseeing, not tickets.

Imbalance language without a higher-timeframe reason is just a shape. I need the gap to sit where liquidity should matter, or I pass. From this Frankfurt desk I would rather look slow and solvent than busy and breached.

Do you require a reclaim candle before entry, or will you limit-enter the gap with a hard time stop?