A hammer at support looks decisive until the next candle opens lower and keeps walking. Pattern names are useful shorthand; they are not commitments. In our Pattern Recognition Workshop we grade candles by what happens after them, not by how textbook they look in isolation.
When you spot a reversal shape, write three lines in your journal before you size a trade: the structure that makes the location meaningful, the close that would invalidate the idea, and the earliest bar you will allow to confirm. Confirmation is usually a close back inside the prior range or a follow-through bar that holds the midpoint of the signal candle.
Students often over-weight long lower wicks on thinly traded ASX names. Those wicks can reflect a single print rather than a genuine rejection. Cross-check with volume relative to the twenty-bar average and with the same level on a higher timeframe. If the weekly chart shows no reaction history, treat the daily hammer as provisional.
The goal is not to abandon candlestick language. It is to attach each story to evidence that survives contact with the next session.