# Trapped or not trapped — lesson

QA revision September 14, 2026: classify visible evidence; do not imply observed positions, remaining orders, or future protection. References to positions and stop placement in the historical generator notes below describe hypothetical model assumptions, not observed orders.

Gym heading: Situational awareness. Written before the code (Sep 7 2026). The teach screen shows this text; the answer key implements the rule in it and nothing else. Distances are in M everywhere. Harness, confidence, persistence, and reveal format follow stop-vs-noise; the charts come from point-at-the-bar's generator v2 (the same pre-line regimes and decoys), revised to v3 here on Sep 13 2026 after the level-selection note (docs/trapped-or-not-level-selection.md).

Choices made where the order was silent:

- The margin is 0.10 M and applies on both sides of the level: a close counts as through the level, or back on the original side, only when it sits more than the margin past the line. A close inside the margin positions nobody and lets nobody out. Without this a close a hair through the line would be a break, and the decoys would have no definition.
- The break is the first close through the level after a close that wasn't, so a chart that opens on the far side of the line (the generator's from-above approach) does not start with a break.
- Touch and level are point-at-the-bar's: a bar that reached the zone (0.10 M either side of the line) from the near side and closed on the near side, after price had been at least 0.5 M away since the last touch; two touches make a level (Jim's convention, docs/point-at-the-bar-rule-sources.md).
- The freeze lands 2 to 6 bars after the break (drill; 2 to 8 in the holdout), drawn without looking at the case, and the reclaim or the second close beyond lands on a bar drawn the same way. The depth of the break, the regime before the level, the hold, and the decoys are drawn the same way for every case too.
- The no-one-home reps always close through and close back, so they look exactly like the trapped reps; a wick-only variant would be readable from the shape. They carry zero or one touch at even odds.
- The N in the trapped takeaway is the number of closes through the level before the reclaim: the bars on which the chasers were filled. The charts carry no volume, so no count of contracts exists.
- The trapped side's stops sit at the reclaim bar's extreme on the original side: its low under a ceiling, its high over a floor. The bars between the reclaim and the freeze stay short of that extreme, so the stops are intact when the question is asked. No tick grid in this module; the reference implementation has none.
- The next 20 bars are drawn with an unwind rate that is a config constant and is never shown; the reveal says what price did, in M, and nothing about how often.
- Point-at-the-bar's decoy had a middle bar that closed through the line; here that is a break, so the decoy's middle bar closes inside the margin instead. Same purpose, same place in the hold.
- Soft clock 10 seconds: three checks (the circles, the close through, what came after), the same as point at the bar.
- M is the median range of the 20 bars before the break, not the last 20, so the break and what followed don't set their own unit.
- The drawn line is the strongest line near it (generator v3, Sep 13 2026). Before v3 the generator kept price under a hard cap 0.45 M below the line whenever it was not touching the line, and every bar that hit the cap got the same high, so a fresh line sat half an M above a row of equal highs that any eye reads as the level: a zero-touch verdict on the drawn line next to a six-touch line below it, in about 97% of the no-one-home reps. In v3 every rotation that is not at the line sits in a band whose top is 1.3 to 1.9 M under the line, the bars that meet a cap get their highs spread across 0.45 M under it instead of one height, and a level-selection check runs on every story: the strongest line within 0.75 M of the drawn one, by the rule's own touch that price then left (a rejection), counted up to the break. A fresh line with a two-rejection line inside that radius is rebuilt (about 7% of stories). The radius is a generator guarantee, not part of the rule; the touch zone the trader reads stays 0.10 M. A held line is not rebuilt: its line is the top edge of the reaction zone, and a leg that stalls short of it is inside that zone. The harness reports the strongest other line per case (a quarter of held lines have one with more rejections than the line's touches, half an M below, mostly by one).
- The decoy share per case moved with v3 (drill about 10%, holdout about 15%); the harness checks it does not differ by case.

Persistent header: **"Training your eye to recognize a failed breakout at a level."**

## Before you fade

- **Level** — a price the market has already reacted to more than once: **two or more touches**. A touch is a bar that reached the zone (0.10 M either side of the line) from the near side and closed on the near side, after price had been at least 0.5 M away since the last touch. The touches are circled on every chart. Count them before you read anything else.
- **The margin** — 0.10 M. A close counts as through the level, or back on the original side, only when it sits more than the margin past the line. A close inside the margin, either side, is on the line: it does not count as a qualifying break or reclaim.
- **The trap** — This drill calls a failed-breakout pattern Trapped when price closes through a level with at least two prior touches and later closes back by more than the margin. Not trapped means those pattern conditions are absent. These labels do not show who holds positions or where actual stops sit. Two closes beyond with no reclaim are the accepted case; fewer than two touches fail the level condition.
- **Why it matters at the trade** — A failed breakout can be relevant context for a retest. Whether anyone must exit, whether an entry exists, and where actual stops sit require evidence this chart does not provide.
- **What it doesn't say** — This is a pattern classification, not proof of trapped traders or a forecast. The stop line on the reveal is a hypothetical reference at the reclaim extreme, not observed orders.
- **M** — The median high-to-low range of the 20 bars before the break. Every distance here is in M. The number for the current chart is on the screen.
- **Confidence is a number** — Low means 40%, Medium 65%, High 90% that your call is right. Scored Brier-style: sure and wrong costs 0.81, unsure and wrong costs 0.16, sure and right costs 0.01. Being certain is as expensive as being wrong.

## The read

Three things, in order: the circles (two or more, or not), the bar that closed through the level, and what the bars after it did: a close back on the original side by more than the margin, or a second close beyond with no close back. Then the question: does the failed-breakout rule apply?

## The rep

A chart from the point-at-the-bar generator, frozen a few bars after price went through the level. The level is drawn, the touches circled, M stated. The question, in full: **"Price went through the ceiling (or floor) a few bars ago. Does this meet the defined trapped-pattern rule?"** Trapped or Not trapped, with a confidence.

## The reveal

The next 20 bars, the break bar and the deciding bar marked, and for a trap the line at the hypothetical model stop reference. The touch count, the break's depth in M, the deciding close's distance from the level in M against the margin, the verdict, and one takeaway line. Templates:

- Trapped: **"{N} qualifying closes through the level, then a reclaim: the trapped-pattern rule is met. The model stop is a hypothetical reference; actual positions and stops are unknown."**
- Not trapped, accepted: **"It closed through twice and stayed. The accepted case meets the close-based rule; actual positions are unknown."**
- Not trapped, no one home: **"{Zero|One} touch{es}. Fewer than two prior touches: the level condition is absent. Actual positions are unknown."**

The no-one-home reveal also says, before the takeaway, that there was no better line nearby: nothing within 0.75 M of the drawn line was touched and left twice before the break. The chart owes you zero levels; the reveal says so in the case where it matters.

Every rep ends on one of these three lines. Each is a decision: fade the retest, chase the break, or leave the fresh line alone. No win percentage is shown anywhere; the next 20 bars are what they are.

## Answer key

`trapped = (touches before the break >= 2) AND (a bar closed through the level by more than the margin) AND (a later bar, before the freeze, closed back on the original side by more than the margin)`. Not trapped otherwise: **accepted** when the touches are two or more, a second close beyond the margin followed the break, and no close came back past the margin; **no one home** when the touches are fewer than two. The three cases come up a third each (config). No case can be read from the bar count, the depth of the break, the hold, the decoys, or the regime before the level: those are drawn the same way for all three. Some reclaims sit within a few hundredths of M of the margin on purpose, and some accepted breaks pull back to a close just inside it; the reveal shows the numbers either way.