Blog · Playbooks

Trading playbook: turn your best setup into written rules and check them against your results

How to write a trading playbook with four groups of rules, tick the rules on every trade and see which rule you break most often. Simple steps with an example.

2026-11-07 · 3 min read · ICC Zillas

Many traders say they have a strategy, but when you ask them to write it down, it turns into a feeling: "I wait for a good reaction at a level." A feeling cannot be tested. A playbook can. It is one setup, written as rules, that you can tick on every trade and measure later.

What a playbook is

A playbook describes one setup you trade, not your whole trading life. If you trade two setups, you have two playbooks. Keeping them apart matters, because mixed results hide which setup works and which one does not.

The four groups of rules

In ICC Zillas a playbook has four groups. They are a good frame even if you use paper:

  1. Market conditions. When is this setup allowed? Example: only in the London or New York session, only when the higher timeframe trend is clear, not on the day of major news.
  2. Entry criteria. What must be true before you click? Example: price swept a recent high, then closed back inside, and the entry candle confirms the move.
  3. Exit criteria. Where is the stop and where do you take profit? Example: stop above the sweep, first target at the nearest opposite level, no moving the stop further away.
  4. Risk management. How much do you risk? Example: 0.5% per trade, maximum two trades per day, stop after the daily limit.

How to write rules you can really tick

A good rule is a yes-or-no question. Compare these:

Aim for 8 to 12 rules in total. Fewer than that and the playbook is vague; many more and you will stop ticking them.

Start from a template, then make it yours

You do not need a blank page. ICC Zillas offers starter templates (ICT Silver Bullet, Opening Range Breakout and VSA Imbalance Shift) that you can change. Treat them as examples of the format, delete what does not fit your style, and add your own rules. The free trading plan template is another good starting point for the bigger picture.

Use it on every trade

When you log or import a trade, choose the playbook on the trade page and tick the rules you followed (see the guide for where this is). Do it soon after the trade, while you remember what you did. Do not tick a rule you broke just because the trade won.

What the playbook page tells you

After a few weeks, the playbook page shows its own net result, win rate, profit factor, expectancy, equity curve and a rules followed number. Three questions to ask:

1. Does the setup have an edge?

Look at expectancy in R and the profit factor. If both are weak even on trades where you followed every rule, the setup itself needs work. That is useful news, because you learned it from data and not from a bad month.

2. Is the problem the setup or you?

Compare trades with a high rules-followed score against trades with a low one. If disciplined trades do clearly better, your problem is execution. If they do the same or worse, change the rules.

3. Which rule do you break most?

Most traders have one favourite broken rule: entering before the close, widening the stop, trading outside the session. Find yours and make it the single focus of next week. Add it to your weekly review and to your pre-trade checklist.

Be careful with small samples

Ten trades prove nothing. Gather at least 30 trades per playbook before you decide to drop or change a setup, and change one thing at a time, otherwise you will not know what made the difference.

Next step

Pick your best setup, write the four groups in under 30 minutes, and open the app to save it as a playbook. Then tick the rules on your next 20 trades. If you also want to see how feelings affect the setup, add emotion tags to the same trades.

Trading carries a high risk of losing money. This article is education, not financial advice, and no rule or tool guarantees that you pass a challenge or make a profit.

Put it into practice

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