Your own rules
Strategies that follow no wallet — conditions on price, spread, depth, moves, volume and timing, checked on the recorded order books, with their baseline and the sealed final test. Lab Pro and up.
What this is for. Not every idea is "copy that trader". An own-rule strategy enters a market when conditions you write all hold — buy when the spread is tight and the market ends within a week — and is tested on the order books Polyrank recorded, against a baseline that buys the same markets at the same price at a random moment. Own rules are part of Lab Pro and up (plan table); on Pro Trader the choice is shown but saving one is refused with the plan it needs.
Simulated performance
Simulated. Replayed on the recorded order books. Not a forecast or advice. Backtests replay the past at prices a follower could have paid; paper trading scores live signals on real order books without placing orders. Neither is a forecast or advice, and both carry a measured optimism.
These results are based on simulated or hypothetical performance results that have certain inherent limitations. Unlike the results shown in an actual performance record, these results do not represent actual trading. Also, because these trades have not actually been executed, these results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated or hypothetical trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to these being shown.
Write the rules
Create a strategy (or open one) and, under Advanced settings → Who to follow, set Wallet source to My own rules (no wallet; Lab Pro and up). Or ask the assistant to write the rules for you.
In When to buy (your rules), pick the Outcome — Either outcome (default), YES only or NO only — and when to Enter: At the first moment all hold (default) or Only when they start to hold (a crossing).
Add a condition (up to 8): pick a measure, at least or at most, and a value. A new rule starts with one Spread condition; Remove drops one.
Set the entry (Your delay (seconds), Pay at most (¢ above the ask at the check), 0–5¢, default 0), the size and the exits as for any strategy, then Save and backtest.
Every condition must hold at the same moment. Rules are checked every 5 minutes on the recorded order book, and each market is entered once, at its first signal. With no wallet followed, the leader's price, its sells and a wait for its price do not apply, and an exit that mirrors the leader is not available.
The conditions
| Condition | Range | History from |
|---|---|---|
| Best ask | 0.01–0.99 | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Best bid | 0.01–0.99 | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Spread (¢) | 0–50 | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Asks within 3¢ ($) — depth near the top of the book | 23 Jul 2026 | |
| Price move over a window (¢) | −99 to 99 | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Price move, either way, over a window | 23 Jul 2026 | |
| Volume over a window | 1 Nov 2022 | |
| Trades over a window | 1 Nov 2022 | |
| Days to the end | 0–365 | 1 Nov 2022 |
| Market age | 1 Nov 2022 | |
| Hours to kickoff | 0–720 | 1 Nov 2022 |
Windowed conditions take a window of at most 72 hours (a new one starts at 6 hours). Because the book-based conditions start on 23 July 2026, an own-rule backtest cannot start earlier: a window before that date is refused with the reason.
Testing and the final test
An own-rule backtest reports Per $10 staked, Entries and Bankroll at the end, against The baseline: same price, random moment and The markets you chose, with robustness checks (a t-statistic clustered by event, without the best market, without the best 3 days, rule sets tried). It shows only the first three quarters of the window: the last quarter is sealed for the final test, which runs once per strategy — see Backtesting → the final test. Paper trading works the same as for copy strategies (Paper trading), with own rules, no wallet in the run's header.
Related
- Strategies — sizing, exits and the rest of the editor
- Research and data — what the recorded books cover
- The Lab assistant — it can propose and test rule sets for you
Paper trading
How a Lab paper run scores a strategy on live order books without placing orders — starting and stopping, what a copy is, the 50-copy gate, resting orders, notifications and per-plan limits.
The Lab assistant
Ask the Lab in plain words — what the assistant can and cannot do, Standard and Deep, credits per question, chats at once per plan, stopping, and how its searches stay honest.