Trading playbook examples: 3 plays built from your best trades
Three trading playbook examples written out (opening range breakout, pullback, trend continuation) plus a template and how to pick plays from your own data.
You've read that you need a playbook. Maybe you even opened a blank document called "My Playbook" and stared at it. What helps most is seeing finished plays, then building your own from the trades that already pay you.
Below are three complete trading playbook examples: an opening range breakout, a pullback and a trend continuation, each with entry, exit, risk and when not to trade it. After that, you'll see how to choose which plays belong in your playbook using your own trade data, and how to retire the ones that lose.
The trading playbook template
Every play needs the same eight parts. If one is missing, you'll fill the gap with a decision made in the moment, and that's exactly what a playbook is meant to prevent.
| Section | What to write |
|---|---|
| Name | Short, so you can tag trades with it |
| Market and time | The instrument and the window when the play is allowed |
| Context | What the market must look like before you even look for an entry |
| Entry | The exact trigger |
| Stop | Where you're wrong, in points |
| Target | Where you take profit, and what you do in between |
| Risk | Contracts and dollars per trade |
| When not to trade it | The conditions that cancel the play |
For the full process, see how to build a trading playbook and how to write a play. The examples below show what finished plays look like. They illustrate the format; they aren't tested strategies to copy.
Example play 1: opening range breakout
| Field | Opening range breakout (MES) |
|---|---|
| Market and time | MES, 9:45 to 11:00 a.m. New York time |
| Context | The first 15 minutes (9:30 to 9:45) set the range. The range is no wider than 8 points |
| Entry | Buy stop 1 tick above the range high, or sell stop 1 tick below the low |
| Stop | The other side of the range or 6 points, whichever is smaller |
| Target | 1.5 times the risk. Stop moves to break-even only once price reaches 1 times the risk |
| Risk | 1 MES, at most $30 (6 points at $5 a point) |
| When not to trade it | Range wider than 8 points, a CPI, FOMC or jobs report morning, or price already broke out once and came back inside |
The "when not" line does a lot of work here. Wide ranges mean wide stops, and failed first breakouts often chop around. More detail in the opening range breakout, explained.
Example play 2: pullback in a trend
| Field | Pullback (MNQ) |
|---|---|
| Market and time | MNQ, 9:45 to 11:30 a.m. |
| Context | Higher highs and higher lows on the 5-minute chart, price above VWAP |
| Entry | After a pullback to VWAP or the last swing level, buy when a 1-minute candle closes above the previous candle's high |
| Stop | 2 points below the pullback low, 20 points at most |
| Target | The prior high or 2 times the risk, whichever comes first |
| Risk | 1 MNQ, at most $40 (20 points at $2 a point) |
| When not to trade it | The pullback breaks the last higher low, price has crossed VWAP back and forth more than twice, or it's lunch hour |
Example play 3: trend continuation
| Field | Trend continuation (MES) |
|---|---|
| Market and time | MES, 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. or 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. |
| Context | The market trended from the open and held on one side of VWAP for the past hour |
| Entry | Break of a tight pause of at least five 1-minute candles, in the direction of the trend |
| Stop | The other side of the pause, 5 points at most |
| Target | 2 times the risk, or exit if price closes back inside the pause |
| Risk | 1 MES, at most $25 |
| When not to trade it | The trend has already made three or more legs, a major report is due in the next 30 minutes, or you've had 2 losses today |
Notice the last condition. A play can include rules about you, not only the chart. "Not after 2 losses" belongs in the playbook as much as "price above VWAP."
A quick test for any play: could a friend who has never seen your screen take the same trade from the written rules alone? If they'd have to ask "how big a pullback?" or "what counts as a trend?", the play isn't finished. Vague words like "strong," "clean" or "good volume" are where impulse trades sneak in. Replace each one with a number or a condition you can see on the chart.
How to pick plays from your own data
The best playbook isn't copied from someone else. It's found in your journal. If you tag every trade with a setup, after a few months you can ask a simple question: which setups make money per trade, over enough trades to trust?
Here's a sample trader in our demo, across 28 months of trading:
| Setup | Trades | Per trade | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening range | 85 | +$44.42 | Keep. Best result per trade |
| Trend continuation | 104 | +$27.64 | Keep |
| Breakout | 244 | +$20.68 | Keep. Green in 2 of 3 years |
| Pullback | 257 | +$7.95 | Keep, but watch. Thin edge, green in 1 of 2 years |
| Reversal | 117 | −$23.96 | Retire. A leak over 117 trades |
A simple standard: a setup is an edge only after 30+ trades, earning per trade, and green in at least half the years you've traded it. It's a leak if it's losing per trade over 30+ trades. Anything else is not proven yet. Edge or luck explains why 30 trades is a floor, not a finish line.
Now the insight most traders miss: the setup you trade most is rarely your best. Pullback has the most trades (257) and the thinnest edge. Opening range has a third as many trades and more than five times the result per trade. Order your playbook by result per trade, not by habit, and give your best play your best attention.
Your playbook should be ordered by what pays, not by what you take most often.
Retire your leaks out loud
Reversal cost this trader about $2,800 over 117 trades (117 × −$23.96). Retiring it isn't admitting defeat. Write it into a "plays I don't trade" section with the reason and the numbers, so you see it every time you open the playbook.
If you still believe in it, move it to sim with tighter rules for 30 trades and judge it again. It earns its way back with data, not with one good trade you remember.
Check yours in four steps
- Tag your past trades with a setup name, even roughly.
- Group by setup and calculate trades, total and result per trade.
- Label each one: edge (30+ trades, earning, green at least half the years), leak, or not proven yet.
- Write plays for your edges using the template, and add a "don't trade" line for each leak.
If your trades are already tagged in Market Matrix, Your edge in My Trading Journey does the grouping for you: every setup from your tags and Playbook plays with trades, win rate, result per trade, total and each year's result, labeled Edge, Leak or Not proven yet.
When you add or retire a play, it also shows up as a Turning point, with the 60 days before compared to the 60 days after once there are enough trades on each side. That tells you what happened after you changed your playbook, not that the change caused it.
Find your edge in My Trading Journey →
This article is for education only and isn't financial advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss.