# A2.36 Hold slots and open-trade cap (Analyst 2)

7 Oct 2026, 10:04 Bangkok (server clock). Pre-registered 10:03 in the status page, before any result.

## Answer
**FAIL by the pre-registered rule.** The slot rule gave one coin, in one half. The extra slot never cost anything in our data.

- **The open-trade cap (3 normal) never sold or skipped anything.**
  - 0 gates were skipped for a full book in 23 days.
  - The normal book did reach 3 open, but no gate came while it was full.
  - Caps of 4 and 5 give the same result as live.
- **Hold slots 3, 4 or no cap all change exactly 1 coin:** 0x9ba4d84ac1571a0788b2bb7a6412e73529d12dc6 (Kit B, half B).
  - Live force-sells it at 5x (4.69x, +$3,694).
  - With 3+ hold slots it rides the 50% trail to 10.11x (+$9,115).
  - Gain: +$5,421, which is **+$903 a day in half B**. Half A is unchanged.
  - Without that 1 coin the gain is $0. That fails the top-coin test and the "both halves" test.
- **Why it was forced:** on 5 Oct 00:09 Bangkok both hold slots were taken.
  - 0xee049979960d5e42b389b941ec45790ca7b6e1f7 was held from 4 Oct 22:55 to 6 Oct 04:49.
  - 0x8e41fd25e85e624560fa50ff9f117a02cd30b8b3 was held from 5 Oct 00:09 to 23:06.
- **Cost of a third hold slot:**
  - max $ at risk at once goes from $5,000 (5 tickets) to $6,000 (6 tickets);
  - worst day is unchanged (A -$2,000, B -$3,161);
  - the 8 ticket wallet from A2.24 still covers it.

## Suggestion for the Supervisor (not an edge, a risk call)
- **Raise hold slots from 2 to 3.** In this data it is free, and it only adds a third runner when two are already running.
- It cannot be proven on 1 coin. Treat it as a wallet decision: +1 ticket at risk.
- Leave the 3 normal slots alone. They never bind.

## Cells ($ a day vs live, $1k, live A +$2,870 / B +$9,631)
| hold slots | normal slots | A | B | worst A | worst B | without top 1 (A / B) | max open | max $ at risk | gates skipped | kit force-sold at 5x | coins changed | verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 (live) | 3 (live) | 0 | 0 | -2,000 | -3,161 | 0 / 0 | 5 | $5,000 | 0 | 1 | 0 | live |
| 2 | 4 or 5 | 0 | 0 | -2,000 | -3,161 | 0 / 0 | 5 | $5,000 | 0 | 1 | 0 | FAIL (same as live) |
| 3, 4 or none | 3, 4 or 5 | 0 | +903 | -2,000 | -3,161 | 0 / 0 | 6 | $6,000 | 0 | 0 | 1 | FAIL (one coin, one half) |

All 12 cells are in sw-a2-36-cells.csv.

## Limits
- 70 wide trades (the task says 69; the archive holds 70). No newer trades have tick data.
- Three kit holds open at once happened once in 23 days.
- Today only the paper kit book holds a coin (CHONK 0x717d38587504b79e2e888c860bd1569c0d5984af), so slot pressure is low.

## Files
- http://159.223.88.168/hx-c9ois/sw/sw-a2-36-cells.csv