Beeker,
Thats a really great book. Its the only trading book that I must have read a dozen or more times. It sounds like it has given you a great grounding. There are really solid principles behind the anecdotes.
btw I can confirm it is a fact (for futures markets at least) for every sell order there must always be one buy order. A buyer and seller trade to form a single contract. That is how it is 'by definition'.
Personally my difficulties are not with the 'theory' its with recognising the gyration twists and turns of the live tape as they happen. Thing happen pretty quickly at that level and it is sometime difficult to remain right side up.
Currently I use a very fast tick chart instead of the tape which is a bit more visual. It also has the advantage that you dn have to remember the levels as you have a graphic representation. I would still love to be able to read the tape consistently though. Of course rolling the DoM in gives a complete new layer of information.
EDIT: Smwinc been through your example a couple a couple of times and am now with the program
both of the types of behaviour you mentioned their are certainly recognisable. However there are all sorts of other similar but different behaviours to confuse the confusable. As you mention this all happens in seconds often enough. Anyway thanks again for going to the trouble to map it all out.