The Masterclass teaches how markets work and how the great traders think. The Professional Desk is the applied, intraday layer it leaves out: the setups real prop traders take, and — more importantly — the hard rules that keep them in business. Built on Mike Bellafiore's PlayBook method at SMB Capital.
This is an intermediate→advanced companion course. Work the Masterclass's risk and psychology phases first; intraday trading magnifies every mistake those phases teach you to avoid.
I The professional mindset
Think like a desk
- 1The five-lens pre-trade routine — Big Picture, Fundamentals, Technicals, Tape, Intuition.
- 2Building your PlayBook — grade setups A+/A/B and exit with Reasons2Sell.
II Intraday setups
The plays — each a full playbook
The Opening Drive
Trade the first one-directional thrust off the open, risk defined by the opening range.
Open the playbook →The Intraday Bull Flag
Buy the breakout of a shallow, low-volume pause after a sharp impulse.
Open the playbook →The Gap-and-Go
Trade a stock gapping on fresh news and high relative volume as it breaks the opening range.
Open the playbook →The VWAP Scalp
Quick, tight-risk scalps off price reactions at VWAP, the institutional benchmark.
Open the playbook →III The rules (desk discipline)
The spine of the course
- ★The desk-rules system — daily loss limits, max loss per trade/week/month, max trades per day, the A+ Rule of Risk, and cap-losers-not-winners. Includes a one-page risk-contract template.
- ·Grade by process, not outcome — covered with the PlayBook lesson above.
IV Operating as a pro
Routine & review (coming soon)
The pre-market / post-market routine, tilt and recovery, and a 30-day improvement plan — being written. The three lessons above plus the four playbooks already make this a complete, workable course.
Sources (free / verified)
The PlayBook — Mike Bellafiore / SMB Training · What Are Your Trading Rules? — SMB Training · How to Day Trade Successfully — SMB Training. Method anchored by Mike Bellafiore's sourced profile.