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A quick win in the first minutes of the session gives a rush. Two pips in 20 seconds. The next setup looks even better. The trade size creeps up, or the bar for entry drops a little.

It's the reverse of the more familiar revenge trading after a loss. After a win, confidence rises, and with it the willingness to take lower-quality trades. The first trade was good. The next five, taken from excitement, are worse.

The data usually shows it. When trades are sorted by their position in the session, with results by the first, second, third trade, the early trades are often the best and the later ones decline. The system didn't change; the selectivity did.

A rule that sometimes helps is a mandatory pause after a winning trade, of one or two minutes, before the next entry. The pause lets the adrenaline drop and the rules come back.

Another is a cap on trades per hour, set in advance. It doesn't have to be strict, just enough to force a check when the count is high.

People tend to worry about losses and to discount the risks that come from feeling good.

Is there a pattern in your own history of worse trades following a run of wins?

Yes, very clearly. When I sorted my trades by their number in the session last year, my first two trades of the day were profitable overall and everything from the fifth onwards was a net loss. The worst pattern was a quick win at the open followed by a burst of trades in the next half hour.

Looking back at those sessions, I could see I was relaxing my entry rules without admitting it. A setup that I would normally skip because the spread was a bit wide or the move was already stretched suddenly looked fine. I also caught myself increasing size by a small amount after a good start.

The fix that worked for me is a hard cap of four trades in the first hour, plus a short walk to the kitchen after any win before I'm allowed to look at the next setup. It sounds silly, but those few minutes away from the screen make me notice when I'm chasing.