The market plays 3 different games.

Range, trend, or double distribution. Each game rewards opposite plays — and identifying which one is on, early, changes everything about what makes sense to do. The classic literature describes more sub-types, but these three archetypes are the ones that matter for reading a session.

Game 1 · The range day (D-shape)

Buyers and sellers agree: price rotates between the value extremes, over and over, and the profile grows into a bell — the D shape. Responsive activity rules: buy the lows, sell the highs. The value extremes act as walls — until they stop.

Game 2 · The trend day (P and b shapes)

One side wins early and never lets go: price opens near one extreme and migrates all session toward the other, with short pullbacks. A bullish trend day prints a P-shaped profile — belly on top, thin stem below. The bearish mirror is the b shape: belly at the bottom, thin stem above. Initiative that keeps earning acceptance is in charge.

Game 3 · The double distribution (B-shape)

The day changes its mind mid-game: it builds one value, abandons it suddenly, and builds a different one beyond — the B shape, two bellies joined by a thin neck. That neck is rejected ground (chapter 1) and tends to act as the day's border: while price stays beyond it, the second value rules.

Early clues — and the expensive trap

Nobody knows the game at 9:31, but the auction drops clues: where the day opens versus yesterday's value, whether the edges reject quickly or accept beyond, and whether pullbacks are deep and overlapping (range) or short and one-directional (trend). They are clues, not certainties. And the most expensive intraday mistake is playing the wrong game: fading a trend day, or chasing breakouts on a range day.