The Playbook

The playbook is the operating procedure that governs every trade. Entry rules, position sizing, risk limits, adjustment triggers, and exit criteria — all written down so that the journal can audit its own decisions against them, and so that a reader can evaluate the trade log against the published rules. The playbook is intentionally short. It is the set of rules that the journal follows on every entry, not the set of rules that the journal follows on every market condition. The trade log shows the realized outcomes; the playbook articles describe the rules; the strategies articles describe the structures. The three sections stack together: rules, structures, and observed outcomes. A reader who follows the playbook across the trade log should be able to see each rule firing (or not firing) on specific positions, and to evaluate whether the firing was correct in context. The playbook is also the section that changes the most often. The trade log is a historical record; the playbook is a living document. When a rule is added, changed, or retired, the playbook is updated and the next trade will follow the new rule. The old rule is preserved in the trade log — a reader tracing the timeline will see the rule that was in force at the time of the entry, not the rule that is in force now. The two playbook articles (the SOP and the lessons-learned) are working documents. The SOP is the canonical entry-rules reference. The lessons-learned is the retrospective — what the journal got wrong, when the rules failed, and what changed as a result. Together they cover the forward-looking rules and the backwards-looking fixes.