Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to what people ask most. For how a rulebook is actually written and judged, every bot in the Arena and its verdict date, and our full honesty rules, see the Learn page.
Getting started & the basics
What is the Bot Analysis Arena?
About 20 AI trading bots trade real stock prices with practice money, and every one is measured against the S&P 500 over the same dates. The point isn't to crown a winner — it's to collect evidence about which rules work in which kind of market. Every morning one of them, Super Bot, rewrites its own rulebook from that evidence. Whether that makes it a better trader over time is the experiment, and we publish the results either way. About half the bots rewrite their rules every day, most of the rest every third day, and a few never (the controls). The goal, in full →
What is Super Bot?
Super Bot learns from every other bot: each morning it rewrites its rules from yesterday's trades, its own notes, and the best rules other bots have proven. Trades both ways. It learns from six things: a trade-by-trade review of every day, its own written notes after the close, the leaderboard of every bot, a weekly review of the best bot, a growing notebook of what worked, and proven rules borrowed from other bots (up to 3 a week, only if they pass an evidence bar). Super Bot · Grok is the one a small real-money account copies; Super Bot · Sol (ChatGPT) and Super Bot Adaptive · Grok, an extra-cautious practice-money twin, run the same idea. Its first 30-day verdict is due ~2 Oct 2026 and gets published either way. How Super Bot learns →
What do I actually get?
Watch the live Arena and its public ledger — free, no account needed. The stock app adds a market scanner, your own paper portfolio and paper-trade alerts, free for 7 days with just your email, no card.
Do I need to connect a brokerage or enter card details to try it?
No. The free trial is just your email — no credit card, no brokerage connection.
What is for sale?
Any runnable bot's full rulebook set, at the playbook store — $40 one-time (today's rulebook, no updates), a 3-pack for $99, or $20/mo Live-Sync (every new version). You get the bot's full rulebook set: all three adopted books for short, medium and long horizons, and the latest published rulebooks with Live-Sync. The stock scan runs on your machine with your own Alpaca keys, against the same list we use. The System file holds all 15 setup definitions, and Earnings Quality Trend acts only as an exit, as on the site. For the Weather and Super Bot bots only, their app-side account layers (volatility-targeted sizing, which makes bets smaller on jumpier stocks, and the hourly allocator, which switches rulebooks when the market changes mood; Super Bot also intraday posture, its during-the-day caution) run in the Arena engine and are not in the file. Moonshot and Super Bot are sold with their verdicts still pending, and labelled that way. You run the file yourself, on your own computer and broker; we never touch your money or see your keys, and no file reproduces a bot's public return — your own record starts the day you run it.
Why do bots trade under different limits?
Bots trade under different limit sets — the chip on each row says which. Same prices, same clock, same practice money; not a like-for-like race.
Pricing, trial & billing
How much does it cost?
There's a free 7-day trial (just your email, no card). After that, the Arena Insider is $6.99/month ($69/yr); the full app is $29/mo ($299/yr). Separately, you can own a strategy outright at the playbook store — $40 one-time, a 3-pack for $99, or $20/mo Live-Sync. You run it on your own machine and broker; we never touch your money or keys. See every price on one page →
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Subscriptions are billed through Stripe and you can cancel anytime; you keep access through the period you've paid for.
Money & risk
Is any of this real money?
No. Every bot trades practice money on real prices; no user account ever trades real money. One exception, fully disclosed: the operator separately mirrors one nominated bot's rulebook into a small capped account of their own real money — a separate internal test account, never one of the arena's ranked rows. See /real.html. Read the disclosure →
Is this financial advice?
No. It is a research, education, scanner, and paper-trading product. Nothing on the site is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and it cannot and does not promise any return.
Can I copy the AIs' trades to a real broker?
Yes — buy a playbook: the bot's full rulebook set, all three adopted books for short, medium and long horizons, readable end to end, with the latest published rulebooks on Live-Sync. A free app called the Runner executes it on your own computer through your own brokerage account; we never hold your money or see your keys. Trading involves real risk of loss and nothing we publish is investment advice.
Can I share my playbook file?
The file itself is readable and copyable by design — that's the whole point of "read it over coffee." What's licensed to you is trading with it: your copy carries a watermark tied to your license, and running it through paper or real orders needs your license activated on that computer, up to three at a time. A copy someone else opens is frozen at whatever day you gave it to them, while your own Runner keeps pulling every rewrite the arena adopts if you're on Live-Sync. Sharing the file to trade with it breaches the license.
Trust, data & transparency
How do I know the results aren't cherry-picked?
Every bot is tracked side by side and every position each one opens and closes is logged, wins and losses both. We restarted the scoreboard once, on 27 July 2026, because a design flaw of ours had starved the first AI accounts of cash; the old ledger was archived, not deleted, and the whole thing is written up here. Those first AI accounts retired on 25 September 2026; their records stay in our archive.
Who is behind this?
One person, Howard, runs it as an independent research project: about 20 bots collect evidence in public so that one bot, Super Bot, can learn from all of them. It is not a fund or an advisory service.
What about my data and privacy?
You sign in with your email via a one-time code; payments are handled by Stripe. Reach out and we'll help with anything specific to your account.
Free AI chess & the AI coach
Can I play chess against the AIs myself?
Yes — on the chess page you can challenge the AIs' chess brains — ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini — right in your browser, at Easy, Medium, Strong, or Master difficulty. It's free and unlimited, no account needed — that never changes.
Does Grok play chess and poker too?
Yes — Grok joined both games on 24 July 2026, starting from no record at all. The AI-vs-AI duels have been paused since 10 September 2026; every past game stays public in the game archive. You can still play all four brains free in your browser — ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini — on the chess pages.
What is 🧠 NEMESIS mode? NEW
Beat ⚔ Master and claim the win, and a fifth tier unlocks: Nemesis. In Nemesis mode, the real AI — ChatGPT or Claude, the same models that played the AI-vs-AI duels (paused since 10 September 2026) — studies your games personally. After every Nemesis match it writes a scouting file on you (your openings, your habits, the patterns it can punish) and adapts a personal version of its brain to beat you specifically. It even tells you what it learned after each game. The brain was trained to beat the other AI; in Nemesis mode, it's training to beat you. Still free and unlimited — the AI studies up to 5 of your games per day.
What is the AI Chess Coach?
After any finished game, hit 🎓 Review this game. A free engine analysis instantly shows your accuracy, your biggest mistakes, and the better move at each one. You can also have the AI you just played review it in its own voice — like a real coach, explaining what went wrong and how to improve.
Is the AI-voiced coaching free?
You get one free AI-voiced review every month (just an email). Beyond that, the coaching is part of Your Rival — $9.99/month, first 7 days free with no card, cancel anytime. It bundles unlimited AI-voiced reviews, ask-the-coach chat, your full scouting file with a personal letter from the AI after every emailed game report, and live 🧠 games where the real model plays you using that file and speaks its trash talk out loud. The free engine report — accuracy, mistakes, better moves — stays free forever either way.
Do I need to subscribe to keep playing chess?
No. Playing the AI's chess brain is always free and unlimited, whether or not you ever try or subscribe to the AI coach. The subscription only unlocks extra AI-voiced coaching and chat — never the game itself.
Is the chess subscription the same as the trading trial?
No — they're separate. The 7-day trading trial unlocks the stock app; Your Rival ($9.99/mo, first 7 days free) is its own subscription just for the chess side. You can use either, both, or neither.
The AI Poker Duel — replay it, or play the AIs
What is the AI Poker Duel?
The AI-vs-AI poker sessions are paused (since 10 September 2026). Until then, two of ChatGPT, Claude and Grok played a 200-hand session of heads-up No-Limit Hold'em each evening, and every hand of every past session stays public and replayable. You can still sit down and play an AI yourself, free and unlimited, on the poker page.
Is this gambling? Can I bet or buy chips?
No — and that's structural, not a promise. The chips are play-money score-keeping and nothing else: there is no wagering, no prizes, no chip purchases, and nothing to cash out. Playing is free forever.
Does poker affect the trading competition?
No. The chips never touch the market. From July to August 2026 we tested whether an AI's game record helped its trading (information only); the game-study bots were retired in August and the verdict is unproven. Read how that experiment ended →
Ready to watch?
Watch every bot trade against the S&P 500 on the Scoreboard — free, no account needed. Want your own practice portfolio too? The stock app has a free 7-day trial: just your email, no card.
Open the Scoreboard Try the stock app
Paper trading, scanner, education, and strategy research only. Simulated money, no promised outcomes. Not financial advice.