Nod,
Yes, you were impatient entering that first trade. (if you would post the trade times of the bar along with price we all could follow it easier). Pre-open at 0810 est area Es dropped from 950.50 area down to 943.50 that proved to be the low of the day (no one knew it at the time). then price consolidated in a rather narrow range for a bit, then at 0900 it had a false BO to 947.00 and fell back into and to the bottom of the narrow range just before the open of RTH at 0930. then as the mkt opened price went back up and made a HOOK up past the failed BO high of 947.00 bar at 0910. I was not trading this because it was pre-open, just reviewing it for you.
Well, young Lady why did you even consider a short at 947.50? Thats what you need to ask yourself. Well, maybe you already did by saying you did not wait for a proper setup. I think you will remember from chat that i said in the morning, i will grab a 5 handle profit to start the day if it is presented. Today it was and i grabbed it. Then it completly reversed down to 947.75 at 0945. That makes the coffee taste really good .
Then the ORB was over and reverted back to regular TA for rest of the day. Agree with you about wanting to become mechanical or at least what we could call a well oiled trading machine. The ES must be the best to mechanize because of the high volume which means many players and that means many sets of eyeballs all looking for the same stuff. Thats why simple works in a nutshell. That also explaines why volume itself is not looked at, we know the players are there and when something happens there will be others to take all our orders. (and keeps the spread to just a single tick 99% of the time. Some other instruments have a smaller tick value but in a fast move the spread gets thicker, not cool. )
Yeah, that double top seperated by 4 bars in a small consolidation was a short waiting to happen if price dropped below the bottom of said narrow range. You are good at seeing what is happening even in this small daily range stuff . Todays RTH range was only 12 1/4 handles.
The more you become familiar with ES (this is the value of trading less for more) you will see how well TA works with such a well followed instrument. Even todays small range had volume of 2049033. Thats a lot of range swingers in there. We adjust trading style relative to what the mkt offers.
Nod, just imagine trading the SP when it had a tick value of $50.00 a tick, traded in 10ths and you had to call in your orders to the pit. A handle was $500.00 Hell, this is easy now.

Just kidding, i know it is hard in the beginning. As i have said before though, a computer in a traders desk is like a slot machine. But when we get back to basics and wait for our GOLD signals, we can beat the casino.
PS: I hope Obama wears blue jeans in speech tonight, haha. Funny how many are picking on our brand new president wearing jeans to a baseball game. That must mean he is doing a good job as they try to find fault.
PSS: one fighter pilot said." the japs had a better plane than we had, we had to adjust. I had to anticipate what his plane would do in a dogfight before he made the move. I did not strap myself into the plane, i strapped the plane to my back, i anticipated instead of following"