// how accounts die
You already know how this goes.
The loss lands, and before the dust has settled you’ve re-entered. Same pair, bigger size, telling yourself it’s a new trade. You knew the rule and it happened anyway. Every blown account dies one of six ways. The strategy usually survives; one of six moves kills the account. Each one has a gate standing in front of it, and the first four are the ones a drawdown add-on leaves alone.
The revenge trade.The loss lands and you’re back in within a minute, at bigger size, trying to win it back. One losing trade becomes a losing night. Every new entry is held for a cooldown after a loss, fifteen minutes on most firm presets. Inside that, a re-entry in the same direction as the loss is refused for the length of the revenge window, thirty minutes on most presets. The clock clears both, and there is no button inside EXIT CODE that clears them sooner.
Averaging down.Adding to a loser feels like a discount. A falling price is not a bargain, it is information. The same-direction add against an underwater position gets BLOCKED at the moment you try it.
The moved stop.You placed it while you were calm. Then price came close and you gave it room, and that room is where accounts die. Gate 5 holds your live stop against the one you committed at entry. Move it further away and Gate 5 flags it on the next check, within seconds while the workstation is open, and records it. EXIT CODE cannot stop you moving a stop inside your broker platform; it makes sure the move is seen and logged.
The winner giveback.Fearful when you’re winning, hopeful when you’re losing: winners get cut early, losers get held. Run that flip long enough and the losses outweigh the wins at any win rate. Gate 7 makes you commit how you’ll manage a winner before the trade goes ahead, and from then on Gate 7 tells you where the stop belongs and flags you if you give the winner back.
The size-up.A streak whispers that the rules are for other people. Size creeps until one ordinary loss undoes the week. Gate 4 checks every trade against the same size rule and the same minimum reward for the risk, streak or no streak.
One more trade.Past the limit, tired, chasing a round number back. Nobody course-corrects mid-binge. Gate 6 counts the session against your daily loss limit, which is the table-stakes half your firm’s dashboard already watches. Gate 8 goes further and suspends the desk when your last three sessions add up to a loss of more than three times the amount you risk on one trade.
Every one of these is a moment you knew the rule. Every one of them dies against a rule enforced from outside your own head. That is the whole product. The loss limit at the end of the sequence is the easy part, and plenty of free tools hold it. These six are the decisions that carry you to it.