> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://reverie.gitbook.io/wall-usdstreet-on-rh/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://reverie.gitbook.io/wall-usdstreet-on-rh/player-versus-player.md). # Playing against other players The pit, the kerb, corners, the phone room, and how a contest is won. Player versus player *is* the economy. Every dollar earned comes from a matched counterparty, a bounded NPC pool with a sink, or a fee-taking venue. Never a faucet. ## Counterparty matching Player orders cross each other first. The residual meets a bounded NPC pool whose spread widens as it drains — so the deeper the floor gets, the more of your fill is somebody real. ## THE PIT The eight-hander. An open-outcry ring, two to eight players, three minutes. 1. Tickets drop at the rim and you run for them. 2. Hand signals set side and size, and they are **public before the fill resolves** — the whole ring reads you. 3. The shout is a channelled cast that roots you where you stand. 4. Inventory marks against a live tape, and you eat it if you are heavy at the bell. It ladders into **THE OPEN** — a weekly bracket with no buy-in — and **THE SQUEEZE**, a grudge match. When the ring cannot fill, the house's **locals** take the empty seats. They chase paper, work it, throw signals and flatten before the bell, deterministically off the round's seed. They never stake and never earn, the house matches a stake once per seat it fills, a local that wins takes nothing — and a round the house sat in never earns a claim. ## THE CURB The one-on-one, and the newest mode. Named for the Curb Exchange, the outdoor market that ran on the kerb of Broad Street before it got a building: THE PIT is the eight-hander in the ring inside, THE CURB is what two brokers settle outside for a stake. * Both sides **escrow on acceptance**, and it is fought on a marked patch of the quarter's own street. * The gate is **level 3** — a session or two, not your first hour — and the minimum stake is **$50** against the $200 you start with. * Brackets keep it level: **3–7, 8–14, 15+**, or take the house instead. * The loser **folds**. Nobody is hurt and nobody dies. * A loser may `/rematch` inside a minute at the same stake. The street crowds the rope while a call-out is on, and **KERBS TAKEN** is a board on the chronicle. Rank is at the till rather than the door: a senior seat waives the house cut, which is the mode's only sink. ### Against the house An empty street is not a locked door. `/curb [stake]` calls out the house, and **THE HOUSE MAN** — a heavy scaled to your level — walks onto the kerb hunting you by name for three minutes. Put him down and the house matches your stake less its cut; go down, or reach the close with him standing, and the stake is the house's and leaves the economy like the pit's rake. Leaving the street stands him down and refunds you. House money never earns a claim, exactly like the pit's locals. ## THE OPEN FLOOR Anybody may trade against anybody, and compliance still watches. It runs in **three-minute rounds on the wall clock**, and the round's leader still standing at the bell takes a small house bonus — which earns no claim. ## Corners Accumulate a share of a company's float, hold it through a close, and take a cut of its fees. Contested by anyone with the capital, and there are no sides: it is money against money. ## THE PHONE ROOM Off the plaza, and the pitch and the pump live in it. Buy a lead list, work MARKS through a server-rolled close, route bounded retail bids into a symbol, then distribute onto the bid you built. The pool drains, a twice-pumped symbol closes worse, and distributing into your own pump is textbook exposure — see [the regulator](/wall-usdstreet-on-rh/the-regulator.md). ## TAKE ONE PUBLIC The endgame, and it is **live** — a desk on the plaza where a senior broker files a listing. > A senior files, the floor subscribes, and the underwriter eats what nobody wanted. * You set the **float and the opening price**, and you must take at least **15%** of the offering onto your own book. The retained float is charged to you when the book opens — you are in it before anybody else is. * The allocation window runs for a set stretch of the session, and **nobody may take more than 20%** of one offering. * **You cannot subscribe to your own book.** Filing it is your position. * You keep **7%** of what actually sells. * A **three-close lockup** follows the open: you cannot sell out from under the people you sold to. * **Six listings a season.** The scarcity is the point. Break issue — open below the price you set — and the whole floor watches it happen. ## COMPOSURE — how a contest actually works A contest is not an exchange of hit points. A trading tool lands **PRESSURE** and builds a **READ** on the other man — a meter the whole street can see on his plate. Out of contact, the read fades. Every tool has one contest role, read off what it is rather than its name: | Role | How it lands | | ---------- | --------------------------------- | | **SNAP** | Reads fast, hurts little | | **CALL** | Slow, heavy pressure | | **SPREAD** | Close work | | **HOLD** | Keeps him where he stands | | **BLADE** | A swung tool — still not a weapon | Three pieces are actual weapons and there are only three, on purpose: **FISTS** (everyone has them, and they cannot be sold), **BRASS KNUCKLES** and a **BASEBALL BAT**. They land at half weight on a man nobody has read and full weight on a read one, and a complete read spent on one is a **KNOCKDOWN** that takes his footing for a moment. A read boosts a piece and gates only the knockdown — a bat is always a bat, it just lands harder on a man you have read. The pieces are never locked behind a meter. Lose a contest on composure and you **FOLD**; go down to one of the three pieces and you are **KNOCKED OUT**. Either way you get up, and nobody dies. ## The other contests | Contest | What it is | | ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **THE PAPER TRADE** | Restricted paper carried from the desk that writes it to a desk in another quarter — you cannot sell it where you bought it, because the writer knows what it is worth | | **THE COURIER RUN** | Certificates move between quarters in a car; contested in the street, and the loser goes back to the office | | **THE BLACK CAR** | A rival firm's car works your kerb — your customers, your names, at volume | | **PAPER ON A NAME** | Money up for somebody to be taken out of a position; whoever closes it collects | | **THE OPEN FLOOR** | Anybody may trade against anybody, and compliance still watches | --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. 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