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The Eight Gates.

The whole system on one page. Print it, keep it by the screen. The gates protect your execution. Your win rate and the market sit outside their reach. What they hold is the one thing that is yours: the quality of the next decision.

The Eight Gates

Pre-trade · should this trade happen?
G1
Emotional StateOne check before the session, returning one of four states. CALM → trade. CAUTIOUS → trade after The Delay, a short reflection. RUSHED → no trade for 30 minutes. TILTED → no trade for 24 hours.
G2
Setup QualityThe trade matches your own written criteria, or there is no entry. A setup that can't say "no" isn't a criterion.
G3
Stop DefinedA structural stop, committed before entry: the price that proves the thesis wrong. Set it calm, before the loss is live.
G4
Position SizeSize by your unit of risk, the money you put at risk on one trade. Position stays inside your declared risk; reward meets your minimum. Sized by the math.
In-trade · hold the line under pressure
G5
Stop IntegrityThe committed stop holds. It moves one direction only: toward profit, never wider, never away.
G6
Session LimitThe session ends at the daily loss line you set, so tomorrow's session exists. Lower of your line and the firm's.
G7
Winner ManagementThe stop advances toward profit at thresholds you set and never retreats. It keeps you from cutting the winner your edge depends on.
Across sessions · protect the sequence
G8
Circuit BreakerWhen the cumulative loss across recent sessions crosses your threshold, it locks you out and gives you the way back.

The Four Urges

FearCutting early, widening or pulling the stop. → arms G5.
GreedSizing up; exiting winners too soon. → arms G4 / G7.
ImpatienceEntering before criteria are met. → arms G2.
RevengeRe-entering to win it back, the 30-second tell. → arms G6.

The Urge Is a Wave

Risethe impulse fires first
Peakloudest; you can't think
Breakit passes if unfed

You don't defeat the urge, you outlast it. The move is to delay: hold your hand off the trade for the seconds it takes the wave to break. The gate's friction is that delay, made automatic.

The Sequence Is the System

  • Run the gates in order. Skip one and you break the enforcement.
  • An override is a choice, not a drift: named, logged, and reviewed.
  • The gap was never knowledge. The structure is what closes it.

In a Challenge · Two Rules the Gates Don't Watch

  • Minimum trading days. Hitting the target in two big trades won't pass you on its own; meet the firm's required days.
  • Consistency / best-day rule. No single day above a set share of your profit. Some firms fail you for it; on FTMO it isn't a breach, you keep trading until it's back under.
  • Set gates below the firm's wall: G6 and G8 trip before the hard limit, never at it.
  • Verify your firm's current rules before you start. They vary by firm and phase.

The Language · terms you'll hear

  • Unit of risk. The money you put at risk on a single trade. A winner of "twice your risk" returns two of them; a loss at the stop costs one.
  • Stop. The price that proves the trade wrong: committed before entry (Gate 3), never widened (Gate 5).
  • Drawdown. How far the account is down from its peak. Daily = within one session; maximum = total allowed.
  • Trailing drawdown. A loss floor that rises with your high-water mark (your highest equity, or highest end-of-day balance, depending on the firm) and doesn't come back down.
  • The four urges. Fear, Greed, Impatience, Revenge: the urges behind a broken rule. Gate 1 reads your state for them.
  • Verdicts. Gate 1: CALM (trade) · CAUTIOUS (trade after The Delay) · RUSHED (no trade for 30 minutes) · TILTED (no trade for 24 hours). Gate 8: BLOCK (locked for the rest of that day and the next trading day).
  • Expectancy. What the system earns per trade on average, the number consistent execution protects.
  • Completion zone. The stretch near a challenge's profit target where the pressure to break the plan peaks.
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