Lose 50% and you must gain 100% to get back to even, because the recovery is earned on the smaller, post-loss base. The formula is required gain = loss / (1 - loss), and it accelerates viciously: 10% down needs +11%, 50% needs +100%, 90% needs +900%.
Calendars reveal what percentages hide. At an honest 1% per month, a 50% drawdown takes nearly six years of flawless compounding to unwind — and plugging a fantasy recovery rate into the math is just the over-aggression hump entered from its worst starting point, with a shrunken base.
Volatility drag is the same asymmetry taxing every period: +20% then -20% averages zero but leaves the account down 4%, since compound return is roughly the average minus half the volatility squared. Double the position size and the drag quadruples — which is why growth-versus-size humps over instead of climbing forever.
The capstone rule of the whole Options School: size every position so the worst plausible drawdown is one you can recover from — in money, in time, and in nerve — and then keep playing. The farmers who last aren't the ones who planted every acre in the best year; they're the ones still solvent in the worst one.
Educational, not investment advice.