How are you guys managing delta/theta decay during these massive IV crushes?

Worth separating two different problems you have bundled together here. At 0DTE and 1DTE there is barely any extrinsic left for IV to crush, so the thing eating you is not vega, it is gamma plus the clock. The position needs direction, magnitude and timing all at once or theta wins. That is the gamma game the others described, and it is a different sport from harvesting decay.

The earnings and event IV crush you mention is a real thing, but it lives on longer dated options where vega is large. Buying a 30 day call into earnings and watching IV collapse the next morning is a vega loss. Getting chopped on a 0DTE is a gamma loss. Same frustration, opposite cause, and they call for opposite fixes.

If the goal is to actually benefit from decay rather than fight it, the standard answer holds. Sell defined risk around 30 to 45 days where theta is meaningful and gamma is not whipping you on every half percent move. Are you on the short dated stuff for a specific reason, or is that just where you ended up?

Don't focus on ODTE or 1DTE

You’ve basically diagnosed the problem yourself. On 0DTE and 1DTE you’re long theta’s worst enemy and short gamma’s best friend at the same time, and you can’t have it both ways. If you’re buying premium that close to expiration, you need the move to happen fast and big, because theta is brutal in the last day or two. Being right on direction isn’t enough. You have to be right on direction AND timing AND magnitude, all in a few hours. That’s three things to nail when most traders struggle to get one.

The core issue: as a net buyer of short-dated options you’re paying for gamma, and gamma is expensive precisely because the clock is screaming. When the move is slow, theta wins every time. You already feel this. The frustration is the strategy working as designed, just not in your favor.

So the honest answer to your question is that the people consistently making money in this part of the curve are mostly net sellers, not buyers. They’re harvesting that exact decay you’re fighting. Iron condors, credit spreads, broken wing flies on indices, that kind of thing. They want the slow grind and the IV crush because both work for them. When you sell premium, theta is your paycheck and IV crush after an event is a gift, not a punishment.

That doesn’t mean abandon directional trading. It means matching structure to what you actually believe:

If you have a real directional conviction and you want the move, stop buying it so close to expiration. Go out to 7 to 21 DTE so theta isn’t strangling you while you wait. You give up some leverage but you stop bleeding out before your thesis plays out. Slightly ITM debit spreads also reduce the theta drag versus naked long OTM calls or puts, and they cap the IV crush damage because you’re long and short vol at the same time.

The OTM thing you tried is a trap and you found out why. Further OTM lowers your cost but also guts your delta, so when the move comes you don’t participate enough to matter. You traded one problem for another. The fix isn’t strike distance, it’s time. More DTE gives you breathing room without killing your delta.

On earnings specifically: never be a naked premium buyer into a known IV crush event unless you’re explicitly betting on a move bigger than the implied. The market has already priced the expected move into that fat premium. If the stock moves exactly as expected, you still lose because vol collapses. That’s not bad luck, that’s the structure. If you want to play earnings, structure it so you’re either selling the inflated vol (with defined risk) or using a calendar/diagonal that benefits from the front-month crush.

What I’d actually try if I were you: pick a liquid index product, run defined-risk credit spreads or iron condors at like 0.15 to 0.20 delta short strikes, and let the decay work for you instead of against you. Take profits at 50%, manage the tested side, don’t hold to expiration chasing the last few bucks. You’ll trade direction less and probability more, and the clock stops being your enemy.

You’re not bad at this. You’re just running a strategy that needs everything to go right on a stopwatch. Flip to the other side of the trade where time pays you, and a lot of that frustration disappears.

I wait for the strong moves to hit resistance then sell spreads. If the price is bullish, I sell the call spread and capture profits on the pullback. I don’t exit the whole day, I take the profit when the pullback first hits resistance. It’s usually 30-50% profit and takes less than 15 minutes with 0dte.

If you are great at predicting direction, you can exploit theta and gamma using credit spreads.

They profit from those things instead and are directional.

I think this guy is buying options and not selling them

I just use ThetaPal and the alerts/dashboard make it easy to manage all my trades and nothing gets lost in the sauce.

The very nature of theta is not going to change because of high IV at 0 or any single-digit dte. In that arena, theta rules. Period. Unequivocable. Your reported outcomes are testimony of your knack for not interpreting the future movement correctly, and perhaps misunderstanding that wild gamma has to manifest itself via price action movement to help you at all.

the issue is that 0DTE and 1DTE aren't really theta-decay products in the traditional sense -- theta accelerates to expiration but so does gamma, and at those DTEs you're basically trading gamma against theta, which is a different game. the 'textbook' thetagang play is 30-45 DTE where theta decay is meaningful but gamma isn't spiking on you with every 0.5 percent move. selling a 30-delta CSP at 30 DTE on a ticker you're happy to own at the strike gives you defined theta capture with manageable gamma. fighting IV crush on 0DTE is not a thetagang strategy, it's a different sport.

Same thing I always do. Nothing.

I've been working some delta neutral setups/iron condors in SPY. It has been whippy, so it's almost though it's not worth it to do intratrade adjustments (i.e., roll in a side) until there's an actual side test or a side is approaching worthless. To try and deal with this, I'm delta hedging in longer duration and using call side half doubles (i.e., twice the number of contracts, but at half the delta for the short leg) so that I at least don't get bitch slapped on the call side.

There is naturally a BP cost to this, so it isn't fabulously ideal. Unfortunately, I'm somewhat delta/theta ratio anal, so gotta do what I gotta do so that shit doesn't get too directional while theta pisses out and so that I don't get spanked on one cheek then the other.

I'm talking 45 DTE, 25 delta setups, btw, not 0 days. You can't do shit for adjustment in such short duration; it either works or it doesn't. You should also be benefitting from being short Vega, not being "nuked" by it, so it could be your setup that is part (or possibly all) of the problem.

Vertical spreads

I just mainly trade credit spreads or if the setup is right iron condors