I remember this too. I decided I'd only try it with $1K. Soon, I'd tripled my money (despite trading fees), decided that I'd proven I could do it, and then put it all for long-term into a company I liked and believed in (Red Hat).

Later, I learned that winning being easy was the nature of the market at the time, rather than it being a personal achievement worth proving.

I also was lucky that I didn't discover a compulsive/addictive weakness for the activity, which could've turned a $1K experiment into personal ruin.