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OptionsDeck Academy

A five-session quick start for new operators. Each session is short, focused, and builds on the last — by session five you'll have a calibrated AI strategist, a tracked play, a paper-traded structure, and a journal that compounds your edge over time.

OptionsDeck Research 2 min readUpdated May 15, 2026

Most platforms throw you into a feature-rich dashboard and hope you figure it out. OptionsDeck is built for serious operators, which means the interface is dense by design — but you don't need to learn it all on Day 1.

This academy is the curated path. Five sessions, ~50 minutes total. Each session leaves you with a concrete artifact: a calibrated strategist, a tracked play, a paper position, a journal entry. Treat it like onboarding for a real trading desk — by the end of Day 5 you'll have a working operator workflow.

Day 1 5 min

Calibrate the platform to how YOU trade

Tell OptionsDeck your account size, allowed strategies, and risk profile. Every AI idea you generate respects these constraints automatically — so this is the single most leveraged 5 minutes you'll spend here.

  1. 1
    Open Preferences and set Account size + Risk per trade (the AI sizes every idea against this).Open Preferences
  2. 2
    Toggle allowed strategies (e.g. defined-risk only, no naked shorts). The AI will only produce structures you've green-lit.
  3. 3
    Set your preferred expiration window (0DTE, weekly, monthly) and IV regime tolerance.
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Day 2 10 min

Generate your first AI idea + save it as a tracked play

The AI Strategist reads 14 signal channels (technicals, dealer GEX, IV regime, flow, sentiment, sector rotation, multi-timeframe alignment, news) and proposes a defined-risk trade with entry, target, and stop. Generate one, read the thesis, then track it.

  1. 1
    Open the AI Strategist and type a ticker you actually watch. SPY, QQQ, NVDA are great starting points.Open AI Strategist
  2. 2
    Read the thesis carefully — the bullet structure tells you exactly which channels are aligned and which are conflicting.
  3. 3
    Click "Save & Track" — this arms target + stop alerts automatically. Your play shows up on the Plays page.
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Day 3 10 min

Read the dealer-gamma map

Dealer Gamma Exposure (GEX) is the single highest-information chart on the platform. It shows where market-makers are positioned — which means it shows where price gets pinned, where it accelerates, and where the regime flips between mean-reverting and trending.

  1. 1
    Open the GEX heatmap for SPY. Find the Gamma Flip level — above it, vol is suppressed; below it, vol expands.Open Dealer GEX
  2. 2
    Identify the Magnet Strike (largest absolute gamma). Price tends to gravitate here, especially into OPEX.
  3. 3
    Look at the call wall + put wall. These are the day's likely range boundaries on a low-news session.
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Day 4 15 min

Paper trade — prove a setup before risking real capital

Paper Trading is a $100k virtual account with live mark-to-market revaluation every 15 seconds. Use it to validate AI ideas, test multi-leg structures, and build muscle memory — without ever putting real capital at risk. 30+ trades at 60%+ win rate is statistical edge.

  1. 1
    From any AI idea, click "Paper Trade" to open the position in your virtual account.Open Paper Trading
  2. 2
    Watch the mark + greeks update every 15 seconds. You'll see what theta decay actually feels like on day 1 vs day 5.
  3. 3
    Close manually or let it ride to target/stop. Reset to $100k anytime — it's a sandbox.
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Day 5 10 min

Build a journal + check your risk dashboard daily

Two habits separate operators who compound from operators who churn: every fill logged in the journal with a setup tag, and a daily glance at the risk dashboard before opening anything new. By trade 30, the data tells you which setups actually print money for YOU.

  1. 1
    Open the Trade Journal and log your last real fill (or a paper close).Open Trade Journal
  2. 2
    Tag the setup — ai_idea, gex_flip, flow_follow, mean_reversion, earnings, custom. The breakdown table aggregates win-rate by tag.
  3. 3
    Make a daily habit: every morning, open the Risk Dashboard. Check open dollar risk vs your account, check your biggest open losers, decide your triage list before placing anything new.Open Risk Dashboard
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After Day 5

Once you've completed the academy, the platform stops being a tutorial and starts being a daily workflow. Here's the minimum-viable rhythm we see from operators who actually compound:

  • Pre-market (10 min): Check the Macro Calendar for catalysts. Open the Risk Dashboard. Read the dealer-GEX regime for SPY + your top 3 watchlist tickers.
  • Open (15 min): Scan unusual flow. Generate AI ideas on names showing both flow + GEX confluence. Save 1-2 as tracked plays. Don't force trades on slow days.
  • Mid-day: Let alerts surface target/stop hits. Resist the urge to tinker. Use the Strategy Builder to model adjustments if a position needs management.
  • Close (10 min): Log every fill in the Journal with a setup tag. Tag honestly — your future self needs the data to find your real edge.

Common first-week mistakes

Three patterns we see from operators who churn the trial without engaging:

  1. Skipping Day 1 (Preferences)
    Generating ideas with default prefs produces generic structures. The AI is most valuable when it's working against your real account size + real allowed strategies. Set them now.
  2. Trading paper like it's monopoly money
    YOLO plays in paper teach you nothing about your real trading discipline. Trade paper as if every dollar matters — your win-rate stats are only useful if your paper habits match your live habits.
  3. Skipping the journal
    The journal is what turns OptionsDeck from a tool into an edge. 30 logged trades with honest setup tags tells you more about your edge than any backtest. Log every fill from Day 1.

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