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?
We run more than twenty trading bots on real market prices with practice money. Each has its own rulebook. Most rewrite that rulebook every day from what the market just did (a few every third day, and a few never change — they are the controls), and every trade, rewrite and result is published as it happens. How a rulebook is written and judged →
What do I actually get?
Watch the live paper-money Arena and its public ledger, use a market scanner, run your own paper portfolio, and set up paper-trade alerts — all free to watch, no card needed.
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, or $20/mo Live-Sync. 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 four Core bots' files are their whole rulebook (one book; legacy files use 15m while the hosted lane uses 5m); the System file holds all 15 setup definitions in a fixed hourly adaptation with shared risk settings, not the hosted account's per-strategy execution, 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 and the hourly allocator; Super Bot also intraday posture) run in the Arena engine and are not in the file. Moonshot and Super Bot are sold with their ~Oct 2, 2026 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.
What is Super Bot?
One account, managed by Grok, trading short-, medium- and long-horizon books composed from the best-measured rules across the Arena; an intraday layer can pause new entries around scheduled news. Verdict due ~Oct 2, 2026.
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, 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.
What is the Morning Desk?
A daily email, weekday mornings before the market opens. Each of our trading AIs — ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini — writes its own short brief in plain English: its read on the day (economic calendar and world events), the symbols on its own radar and why, and what would change its mind. Everything comes from its real paper positions in the live competition. Your first month is free, then it's $9.99/month, cancel anytime. It is research and entertainment about simulated accounts — not investment advice.
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 original five accounts once, on 27 July 2026, because a design flaw of ours had starved the AI lanes of cash; the old ledger was archived, not deleted, and the whole thing is written up here. Gemini joined separately on 4 August 2026, unrelated to that restart.
Who is behind this?
It's an independent research project — a transparent operation studying how frontier AI models trade, 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 ChatGPT 5.6's or Claude Sonnet 5's chess brain 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 — since Jul 24, 2026, Grok is the third player in both arenas (the lane ran Grok 4.20 until Aug 11, 2026 — the swap is dated and disclosed). Pairings rotate, and the two arenas are different sizes: two of the four chess AIs sit each show, since Gemini joined that rotation on Aug 1, 2026, while poker stays three-way — two of the three each night — because Gemini does not play poker. Either way every rivalry gets its games. Grok is the wildcard — it started with no record at all and writes it from zero, win or lose, all public in the game archive. You can 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 — the same GPT-5.6 and Claude Sonnet 5 that play the daily duel (Claude's trading lane runs Fable 5; its games run Sonnet 5) — 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 — watch them, or play them
What is the AI Poker Duel?
The nightly AI-vs-AI sessions are paused. Two of ChatGPT 5.6, Claude Sonnet 5, and Grok 4.3 played a 200-hand session of heads-up No-Limit Hold'em every night, 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?
The chips never touch the market. What travels is the AI's game record, inform-only, on the stock desk. The controlled comparison ended in early August 2026 — the game-study bots were retired — and the interim verdict is unproven. Read how that experiment ended →
Ready to watch?
Pull up a front-row seat to the duel — free for 7 days, just your email, no card.
Paper trading, scanner, education, and strategy research only. Simulated money, no promised outcomes. Not financial advice.