Rules First · Free course

Rules First: a short course on trading prop firm accounts by the rules

No strategy, no signals, no promises. The part most traders skip: know the rules you’re buying, size against what you can actually lose, write rules you can check, and read your own record honestly.

What this course is, and isn’t

It won’t give you a setup, and it won’t promise you’ll pass an evaluation or get paid. Nobody honest can promise that. What it does is keep you in the game long enough to get good, and getting good takes months to years, not weeks.

  • Short lessons. Each one teaches one thing and ends with a free tool on this site, so you do the work on your own numbers.
  • Each lesson has a “Done when”. Don’t move on until it’s true. Reading without doing is how most courses get wasted.
  • Built for part-time traders too. Every task fits in 30 minutes or less, outside market hours.

The lessons

Start lesson 1

Lessons 4 to 9

They’re in the full course, coming soon. Lesson 7 is free to read now as a sample. Want one email when the course is ready?

One email when the course opens, nothing else. See the Privacy Policy.

Educational material only. Not investment advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and most people who try it lose money. Check your account rules with your firm; they change.

Free · one page

Prop firm rules checklist

The questions to answer from a firm’s own rules page before you buy an evaluation. Drawdown type, daily limit, consistency, payouts, every fee.

Here it is: download the checklist (PDF). Three short emails follow; unsubscribe any time.

You get the PDF right away, then three short emails over ten days. No spam, unsubscribe in one click. Privacy Policy.

The other free tools — no signup, nothing sent anywhere

The Desk (new)Write your rules once, then check each trade against them. Yes or no, with the reason.What it has cost you so farEvery evaluation, reset and monthly fee against every withdrawal. The net.Evaluation simulatorTen thousand simulated evaluations on your numbers. How often do you pass?Consistency rule calculatorYour best day is too big a share. How much more, and the day size to stay under.Payout-day checkCan you request a payout yet? Qualifying days, consistency, buffer and limits.Prop firm rule decoderWhere the line that closes your account actually sits, and what open profit costs you.Am I ready to size up?Four checks on your own record. Not yet, hold, or one step up.The one-page rulebookRules specific enough that a trade either followed them or it didn't.Position size calculatorContracts, dollar risk, and the copied-account multiplier.Drawdown runway calculatorHow many maximum-loss days your account can survive.What do your trades actually prove?Your win rate over a small sample is mostly noise. Find out how much.

Nobody pays us to send you anywhere.

We take no referral fee, affiliate commission or rebate from any prop firm, broker or platform. So we never rank firms, and the tools are free to give you the unflattering answer.

The Rules Desk Workbook cover beside the Journal’s Review tab

Where these numbers live the rest of the week · $39

Journal & Workbook

The same arithmetic in a 500-row trade log that keeps score: your win-rate range, break-even, average result per trade, results by setup, and what rule breaks cost you. Plus an 18-page printable workbook.

One spreadsheet, one PDF. Instant download, no subscription.

See what’s in it

Or wait for the full Desk

The free Desk checks each trade against your rules today. The full version reads your record back each week. One email when it opens, nothing else.

We use it for this and nothing else. See the Privacy Policy.