Quote from rallymode:
Unfortunately, there is no viable road to generating expectancy w/o making bets on direction or vols. Positive theta(ticking time as you put it) comes at a cost - gamma risk. My suggestion would be to work on your pattern recognition skills be it spot direction or vols and use that as a stepping stone for the use of strats/greeks. If you cant do that, no matter what strategy you use, you will likely fail. Good luck.
