Market Making

Post two-sided quotes on tempered card expressions and manage inventory against a simulated adversary.

Overview

• Start with $10,000 cash.
• Choose a mode (Beautiful or Chaotic) and 1–10 rounds. Each round deals 4 cards from a standard 52-card deck (A–K, values 1–13) and runs 6 markets.
• Suits are spades (black), hearts (red), diamonds (blue), and clubs (green).
• Your goal is to finish with as much cash as possible after all positions settle.
• History Mode column uses B/C plus round count (e.g. B2, C10).

Modes

• Chaotic (default) — expressions use + − × ÷, may include nested absolute values, and always wrap the whole expression in outer absolute value.
• Beautiful — no absolute values; operators are only + and ×. Independently, the whole expression is squared (top-right ²) with probability 1/8, square-rooted (top-right ½) with probability 1/8, or left plain 3/4 of the time — written with overall parentheses, e.g. (x1 + x2 * x3)². If substituting 13 for every variable already exceeds 500, squaring is disallowed; then only square-root (1/8) or plain (7/8) can occur.

Timers

• Per market — 60 seconds to submit a quote (or skip). Timing out skips that market.
• Overall — 8 minutes per round (scales with the number of rounds you selected). If the global clock hits zero, cash is set to $0 and the game ends.

Preparation

Before play, a prep table lists every market’s expression and temper divisor. Distribution stats (mean, quantiles, std) are not shown before or during play — you compute them yourself. Expressions are tempered so the maximum possible value is at most 500. Order: optional outer power first, then temper. When temper > 1 the whole (possibly powered) expression is wrapped: e.g. ((x1 + x2)²)/5, (|x1 + x2|)/3.

Reveal schedule within a round (cards face-up from the left):

• Markets 1–2: 0 cards revealed
• Markets 3–4: 1 card revealed
• Markets 5–6: 2 cards revealed

Paired markets share the same reveal info. Later rounds exclude previously dealt cards from the remaining deck — the card tracker (♠) shows what has already appeared.

Each Market

• You see a tempered expression over the 4 round cards (form depends on mode — e.g. chaotic |x1 + x2 − x3|, beautiful (x1 + x2 * x3)½).
• Enter a bid, ask, and how many slots (quantity) on each side (at least 1).
• Quotes must stay in [0.01, 500] with 0.01 steps. Defaults are bid 10 / ask 15.
• Binding rule: after you commit a side, the other side is forced so ask = ⌈1.5 × bid⌉¢ or bid = ⌊⅔ × ask⌋¢. Your submitted quote must satisfy one of those bindings, with ask > bid.
• Submit Market posts the quote; Skip Market Making (or a timeout) leaves no trade for that market.

Fills & Cash

• An adversary hits exactly one side of your book (or none if you skip).
• Rational adversary (50% of markets): chooses the side closer to the expression’s mean under current info (ties break by midpoint).
• Random adversary (50%): picks bid or ask with equal probability.
• Bid fill: you pay bid × bidSlots immediately (requires enough cash) and go long that quantity.
• Ask fill: you receive ask × askSlots immediately and go short that quantity. No cash reserve is required for asks.
• Open positions appear in the portfolio panel until the round ends.

Round Settlement

• When the round finishes, all four cards are revealed and each expression’s true tempered value is shown.
• Positions liquidate at the actual: cash adjusts by qty × actual (long positive, short negative).
• Per-trade PnL = cash change at fill + liquidation. A “hit” means the actual landed inside your [bid, ask] interval.
• Then the next round begins (new hand, new markets) until all selected rounds are done.

Reports

After the game, you can generate a PnL report that rebuilds distributional context for your quotes and outcomes.

Seeds

Each game has a seed (0–2,147,483,647) determining deals, expressions, and adversary modes. The same seed reproduces the same layout.