Know the rules before they cost you
Prop firms are a great way into trading. Trailing drawdowns, daily limits and consistency caps are the terms of the product, not a trap. What costs people is not understanding them before they buy.
Who’s behind it
Built by Ruben Roman, a futures trader who trades prop firm accounts. Rules Desk doesn’t sell trading skill: no setups, entries or market calls. It does the rule math (drawdown, consistency, payouts, position size) and gives you a way to keep a record you can test.
Why I built this
When I started trading, I won often and thought I’d figured it out. I thought prediction was everything. Then I hit a wall. I had no plan to adjust, no risk management, and no way to tell a bad trade from a bad day. I entered whenever something looked good, got emotional on entries, and blamed volatility and manipulation when it went wrong.
What changed wasn’t a better prediction. It was structure. Studying how to enter led me to journals, though I didn’t keep one until later. When I did, it led to written rules. Written rules led to fixed sizing and a planned reward for every risk. And I had a record I could test instead of trust.
Since late November 2025 I’ve traded MNQ futures on prop firm accounts, during regular market hours. Outside them, I study and test. I log every trade and keep written playbooks for the setups I’m still testing.
Why rules come first
I see it every day on X, Instagram and Reddit, and with people close to me: traders who never wrote a rule, never kept a journal, and blame the market. And traders who buy evaluation after evaluation without changing what failed the last time. That ends up costing far more than any one evaluation.
Discipline doesn’t come first. Rules do. Discipline is keeping them.
The course here teaches prop firm rule math and record-keeping, not entries. It promises no results, has a 7-day refund, and lets you read Lessons 1–3 and 7 free first.
How it fits together
- Your firm’s rules tell you what you can lose.
- Your rules tell you what you’re allowed to trade.
- Your record tells you what it all proves.
How the tools fit together · How we check the math
Follow along on X at @RulesDesk and on YouTube.
What it won’t do
- Signals, alerts, entries, exits or market calls
- Rank or recommend firms. We take no referral fee, affiliate commission or rebate from any prop firm, broker or platform.
- Claim anything about money. No numbers, no timelines.
- Connect to a broker or place an order
What’s coming
The free Desk already checks each trade against your own written rules. The paid Desk, in build, will also read your record back each week, build drills from your own rule breaks, and test rule changes on your own log. Join the waitlist on the Desk page.
Start with the free tools. No signup.
Rules Desk. Educational content only. Not investment advice. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss, and many people who attempt it lose money.