A trading playbook is the short list of setups you have decided to trade, written down so the decision is made before the market opens. Each page describes one setup: when it applies, how you enter, where the stop and target go, what disqualifies it, and how it has performed.
What goes on a playbook page
- Name and a one-line description.
- Criteria: the conditions that must all be true. These become the pre-trade checklist.
- Entry, stop and management rules.
- Chart examples: two or three clean instances and one that failed.
- Statistics: trade count, win rate, expectancy in R, best session.
Building it from the journal
- Tag every trade with the setup it belonged to, or "none".
- After 50 to 100 trades, sort by setup and compare expectancy in R.
- Keep the setups with a positive expectancy over enough trades. Write their rules down.
- Retire or retest the rest. Trades tagged "none" are usually where the money goes.
- Review the statistics every month; a setup that stops working should leave the playbook.
Why it helps
A playbook narrows the question "should I take this trade?" to "is this one of my setups, and are all the criteria met?". That turns discipline from willpower into a checklist, and it makes every broken rule visible in the journal.
In SetupBook
The Playbook screen holds your strategies, each with its criteria and its live statistics (trades, win rate, average R, net), and your checklist rules. Strategies are picked in the trade form, and the checklist rules are ticked there while the position is open, before the result is known.