The whole buy at the bottom of the zag and sell at the top is the whole trick of course
I've only done short term trading with fake money as part of a competition, it's too time-consuming and risky for my blood (I leave it to poker to provide risk-fueled excitement). I found very quickly it was extremely difficult to predict in reality where the bottom and top were. By pure luck I made more than I started with in the end after having a very rough plummet 1.5 months into the two month competition. You really have to be willing to accept volatility.
All this being said I'm very interested in hearing about your results. You've already acknowledged that you may lose the entire $1000 so there's absolutely nothing wrong with experimenting with your theories and having some fun with it.