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Riz sits down with “Sniper Adz” on the Words of Wisdom podcast—an in-person UK interview with a prop-funded trader known for six-figure payouts and a straight-talk approach to gold. Adz went from warehouse shifts and demo reps to consistent results by cutting the noise, focusing on one pair (gold), one session (New York), and a data-backed playbook. Why he matters: he’s proof that disciplined execution beats flashy algorithms, and his path is refreshingly replicable for newer traders.
In this piece, you’ll learn the core of Adz’s strategy: simplify to amplify. He shows how to combine basic structure, support/resistance, and supply/demand with strict journaling, then scale by taking fewer, higher-quality trades—often just one or two a week—risking ~2–3% when the stats justify it. You’ll see why a high win rate with modest R: R can outperform over-refined, over-traded systems, how to ignore group-chat noise, and how to trade probabilities instead of chasing a “holy grail.” The goal: a clean, beginner-friendly blueprint you can actually execute tomorrow.
Sniper Adz Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Philosophy: Keep It Simple, Repeatable, and Measured
Adz doesn’t worship indicators—he worships repeatability. His edge is built on simple structure, clean levels, and a small, tight playbook he can run every week without guesswork. The goal is fewer decisions, less noise, more consistency.
- Trade one primary market (gold/XAUUSD) as your “home court” and learn its rhythm.
- Restrict yourself to 1–2 core plays (e.g., breakout–retest and liquidity sweep–reversal).
- Use only the timeframes that serve the setup: HTF (H1/H4) for bias; M15/M5 for execution; M1 only for precision, not for inventing trades.
- Journal every trade the same day with a screenshot, bias, entry, exit, R multiple, and a one-line lesson.
- Hard rule: if the setup isn’t in your playbook, you don’t take it—no “near misses.”
Market & Session: Hunt When Liquidity Shows Up
He prioritizes the hours when gold actually moves so he can let volatility do the heavy lifting. That means planning around the most liquid windows and skipping the dead zones where spreads bite and fake moves multiply.
- Primary instrument: XAUUSD; primary window: New York (including London–NY overlap).
- Don’t trade the first 2–3 minutes after a major data release; let the initial spread and whipsaw settle.
- Pre-mark key session levels: prior day high/low, Asia range high/low, NY open, previous NY session high/low.
- If ATR (H1) compresses below your 30-day median, lower size or pass entirely.
- Two-strike rule: if the first two ideas don’t trigger cleanly, you’re done for the session.
HTF Bias: Structure Before Signals
Adz builds bias from simple structure—trend, momentum, and where price sits relative to key levels. This trims down false positives and keeps you aligned with the path of least resistance.
- Define trend on H4/H1 using swing structure (higher highs/lows = uptrend; lower highs/lows = downtrend).
- Mark supply/demand zones where impulse legs began; valid only if followed by a displacement move.
- If the price is mid-range between HTF levels, require extra confluence (e.g., session high/low + liquidity sweep) or skip.
- Only look for longs above the HTF pivot/200 EMA zone with rising swing structure; shorts below with falling structure.
- No countertrend entries unless you have (1) liquidity sweep of a key high/low and (2) rejection back inside range with momentum.
Levels That Matter: Support/Resistance Done Right
The backbone of his execution is clean horizontal levels—no spaghetti. He tracks where real orders cluster and makes those prices do the filtering for him.
- Plot these daily: previous day high/low, weekly high/low (Mon), 4H supply/demand edges, round numbers (e.g., 2300/2325/2350).
- A level is “active” only if it’s clean (≤3 decisive touches) and produced displacement; messy levels get deleted.
- Prefer entries that interact with two levels at once (e.g., round number + prior day high).
- If the price chops through a level 3+ times within the session, stop using it that day—the market has accepted it.
The Two Setups
A tiny playbook beats a messy toolbox. Adz leans on two bread-and-butter entries so execution becomes muscle memory.
A) Breakout–Retest (Continuation)
You’re joining strength, not predicting it. Wait for proof, then participate with controlled risk.
- Precondition: HTF bias aligned; session volatility present; clean range edge identified.
- Trigger: 5–15m displacement candle closes through the level; no top/bottom wick “doji” breaks.
- Entry: Limit/market on the first orderly retest; invalidate if retest wicks > 0.5× ATR(15m).
- Stop: A few ticks beyond the broken level or the impulse candle’s opposite wick (whichever is tighter).
- Management: Scale 50% at +1R; move stop to breakeven; trail under/over M15 swing structure for the runner.
B) Liquidity Sweep–Reversal (Fade to Structure)
This catches the stop run that snaps back into the range—powerful, but only when framed correctly.
- Precondition: Price at a key high/low (prior day, session extreme, weekly level).
- Trigger: Wick breaks the key level and closes back inside on M5–M15; bonus if it rejects a round number.
- Entry: Next candle open or limit at 50% of the rejection wick.
- Stop: Just beyond the sweep wick; invalidate if price re-accepts above/below the swept level.
- Management: Take 70% at the first opposing structure (mid-range/POI); let 30% ride to the other side of the range.
Risk & Money Management: Account Survival First
He treats risk like oxygen—guarded and rationed. The aim is smooth equity, not storybook R multiples.
- Risk per trade: 0.5–1.0% by default; max 1.5–2.0% only when both setup and session conditions align.
- Daily loss cap: 2R or 2% (whichever hits first), then stop trading.
- Max trades per day: 1–3; if you’re on trade #3, it must be A+ or you walk.
- No widening stops—ever. If volatility spikes and the stop looks too tight, cancel and re-frame; don’t “hope.”
- Weekly target: stop trading after +4–6R banked; protect mental capital.
Pre-Market Checklist: Get Your House in Order
A quick ritual avoids sloppy decisions. Adz front-loads thinking, so execution can stay simple when the market opens up.
- Mark HTF bias, key HTF levels, and news timings; write a one-sentence plan for each scenario (trend, range, or reversal).
- Define the two exact setups you’ll take and the invalidation for each.
- Set alerts at levels; remove all indicators that aren’t directly part of your playbook.
- Pre-commit risk per trade and total daily cap; write it on your chart or sticky note.
- If you’re distracted, fatigued, or late to the desk by >30 minutes, reduce size or skip the session.
Execution Rules: What You Do in the Heat of Battle
Clarity beats courage. Adz codifies the moment-to-moment decisions so emotions can’t rewrite the plan.
- No market entry without (1) pre-marked level, (2) confirmed trigger candle, (3) measured stop, (4) defined first target.
- If price “teleports” through your level on news, don’t chase; wait for a structured retest or pass.
- If the entry candle closes against your bias, stand down—don’t “scale in to fix it.”
- Move stop to breakeven only after partials at +1R or after structure forms in your favor.
- If you catch yourself explaining why “this time is different,” cancel the order and re-assess after 5 minutes.
Journaling & Metrics: Turn Trades into Data
He credits journaling as the turning point. Numbers kill narratives and reveal the real edge hiding inside your charts.
- Log every trade within 30 minutes: screenshot, setup type (A or B), HTF bias, session, R multiple, emotions (1 line).
- Tag outcomes by context (trend, range, news day, ATR percentile) to see where your edge actually lives.
- Weekly review: delete the bottom 10% of patterns/contexts; double down on the top 20%.
- Track “time in trade” and “heat taken” (MAE). If heat routinely >0.7× planned stop, your entries are late—fix triggers.
- Create a personal “Do More / Do Less” list each Sunday and pin it to your chart.
Prop-Firm Discipline (If You Use Them)
He treats funded accounts like compliance drills—strict rules and zero drama. The objective is consistent payouts, not leaderboard glory.
- Respect the daily drawdown math: size positions so worst-case loss stays inside the daily cap, even with slippage.
- Don’t stack correlated positions (gold + USD pairs) inside the same daily risk budget.
- Stop the second your daily loss or daily trade limit is hit; trade review > revenge trading.
- Withdraw on schedule; reset size to baseline after payouts to avoid “house money” bias.
- Keep a separate personal account for experimentation; the playbook is for funding, not for testing.
Size Risk First: Let Volatility Dictate Your Position, Not Ego
Sniper Adz lays out why sizing is the foundation of survival. The trader—who keeps his legal name private on the episode—frames risk as a fixed cost and volatility as the throttle, not a mood ring for courage. He explains to host Riz Iqbal that consistency comes from pre-defining max drawdown and letting ATR or session range dictate how big you swing on any given day.
He’s blunt about the math: smaller risk per trade, capped daily loss, and a volatility-adjusted position size prevent one idea from nuking a month. When markets expand, he scales—not by guessing direction, but by letting wider stops pair with proportionally smaller size. When they compress, he cuts risk or sits out entirely, proving that discipline beats bravado across any playbook.
Diversify Smarter: Mix Underlyings, Strategies, and Holding Durations for Resilience
Sniper Adz argues that diversification isn’t about buying everything—it’s about offsetting your strategy’s weak spots. He suggests pairing your primary market with one or two non-correlated instruments and running two distinct play types so one isn’t responsible for your entire month. He also varies holding duration—scalps for flow days, swings for trend days—so his edge isn’t dependent on a single regime.
According to Sniper Adz, this mix reduces variance and emotional tilt without diluting focus. He pre-allocates risk by “bucket”—underlying, setup, and duration—so losses in one lane can’t spill over into the others. He reviews performance by bucket weekly and cuts the worst performer while pressing the best, keeping the portfolio of tactics lean and adaptive.
Trade the Mechanics: Rules, Checklists, and Triggers Over Market Predictions
Sniper Adz says prediction is optional, but mechanics are mandatory. He builds every trade from a prewritten checklist: HTF bias defined, level pre-marked, trigger candle confirmed, stop measured, and first target mapped. If one box isn’t ticked, he skips—no “gut feel” exceptions. His setup language is simple and binary, so he can execute fast: either the candle closes through the level with displacement, or it doesn’t. That clarity keeps him from narrating markets and forces him to trade what’s on the chart.
He also time-boxes decisions so he doesn’t invent trades mid-session. If the trigger doesn’t appear within his planned window, Sniper Adz cancels the idea and resets, protecting focus and capital. He moves, stops only for structural reasons—new swing form, partials banked—not because a candle looked scary. By treating entries and exits like assembly steps, he converts a noisy market into repeatable actions, which is why his worst days are controlled and his best days compound.
Define Your Risk: Stop-Losses, Max Daily Drawdown, and Weekly Cutoffs
Sniper Adz sets the boundaries before he hunts for entries. Every trade has a pre-measured stop based on structure, not feelings, and he sizes the position so that a full stop equals a fixed fraction of the account. He sets a hard daily loss cap—hit it, stop trading—and a maximum heat per position so a single candle can’t wreck the week.
He also imposes weekly cutoffs to protect mental capital: reach the loss limit or hit the profit target, and he shuts it down until Monday. Sniper Adz never widens stops; if volatility makes the planned stop unrealistic, he cancels the trade instead of negotiating with risk. By keeping losses small, predefined, and terminal, he ensures that execution quality—not luck—decides his month.
One Playbook, Two Setups: Repeatable Entries, Consistent Exits, Fewer Decisions
Sniper Adz runs a tiny menu: breakout–retest for continuation and liquidity sweep–reversal for fades. He pre-marks levels, waits for a confirmed displacement close, and only then looks for the retest or the rejection wick—no exceptions. Each setup has fixed invalidation and a first target mapped before entry, so he’s never improvising under pressure.
Exits are just as standardized: partial at +1R, stop to breakeven, then trail behind fresh structure. If the retest is disorderly or the sweep fails to re-enter the range, he cancels and moves on. Sniper Adz caps attempts at two per idea per session to avoid churn, and he never “upgrades” a B setup to A just to get a trade. By keeping to two repeatable entries with mechanical exits, he trades faster, cleaner, and with far fewer mistakes.
In the end, Sniper Adz’s edge is refreshingly simple: one primary market (gold), tight session windows, and two repeatable setups he can execute without second-guessing. He builds bias from clean structure—prior day highs/lows, weekly extremes, and obvious supply/demand—and only acts when price interacts with those levels alongside time-of-day confluence. His bread-and-butter is a displacement break with an orderly retest, or a liquidity sweep that rejects back into range; both have fixed invalidation, pre-mapped first targets, and mechanical partials at +1R before trailing behind fresh structure. He’ll layer common confluences—round numbers, fair-value gaps, breaker blocks, even a simple fib zone (61–79%)—but never to justify a trade that isn’t in the playbook.
Risk is non-negotiable: a small, volatility-aware position size, a hard daily loss cap, and weekly cutoffs prevent one idea from wrecking the month. He avoids dead zones and hunts New York session moments that consistently deliver clean moves, ignoring the urge to “be active” for activity’s sake. Journaling is the glue—screenshots, context tags, and ruthless weekly reviews that double down on what works and delete what doesn’t. And perhaps the most transferable lesson: mute the noise, kill the hero trades, and let a tiny set of mechanical rules do the heavy lifting—because consistency comes from repetition, not prediction.
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- Trader Psychology Strategy: Rande Howell’s Playbook
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- Trader Strategy Deep Dive: Lessons from a Pit Legend
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