ICT One Shot One Kill — One Trade a Week (the Weekly Model)

Most ICT strategies assume you're at the chart every day during the killzone. One Shot One Kill was created for everyone who can't be — people with full-time jobs, business owners, anyone with a life beyond the monitor. One trade a week, prepared over the weekend, executed at the first good opportunity between Monday and Wednesday, with a clearly defined target. The name says it all: one shot, one kill. In this article we break the model down into five phases — from the 20-week IPDA range, through the macro catalyst, to position management — and we say honestly where this model shines and where it tends to be overrated.

What is the One Shot One Kill model

One Shot One Kill is a weekly trading plan built around three elements: the range, the bias and the catalyst.

The range is the 20-week dealing range — the highest high and the lowest low of the last 20 weeks on the weekly chart. According to the theory of IPDA (the price-delivery algorithm), the market "looks" back in windows of 20, 40 and 60 days and their weekly analogues — and inside that range it hunts for the next liquidity to collect. The dealing range answers the question: where are we, and where is the nearest pool of stops for price to reach?

The bias is the directional read for the week inside the range: is price targeting the upper extreme (above which the buy stops sit — buy-side liquidity) or the lower one (sell-side liquidity)? Bullish bias = we look for longs from discount; bearish bias = shorts from premium.

The catalyst is a scheduled, high-impact macro event — FOMC, NFP, CPI, central bank decisions. It's what delivers the "volatility injection" that pushes price through the manipulation and into the real move. Without a catalyst the setup exists on paper, but statistically it hits far less often.

The rhythm of the week looks like this: preparation over the weekend, waiting from Monday to Wednesday for the anchor point — a manipulation against the bias coinciding with a macro event — and then one entry in a killzone and management to a target of 50–75 pips.

The conditions step by step

The model breaks down into five phases. Here's the full checklist:

Phase I — preparation (the weekend):

1. List the macro events of the coming week — everything of medium and high impact for your market: FOMC, NFP, CPI, rate decisions.
2. Mark the 20-week IPDA range — the highest high and the lowest low of the last 20 weeks on the W1.
3. Find the next draw on liquidity inside the range — which old low or old high price has the shortest path to.
4. Mark the PD Array in the direction of the bias — an order block, FVG or breaker on the H4 you expect price to move toward in the coming week.

Phase II — identifying the opportunity: you're looking for room for a move in the region of 50–75 pips toward buy-side liquidity (with bullish institutional order flow) or toward sell-side liquidity (with bearish flow).

Phase III — planning the trade: with a bearish bias you wait for two things to coincide — (1) a manipulation higher, against the bias, into premium, and (2) a macro event that justifies that volatility. With a bullish bias — the mirror image: a manipulation lower, into discount.

Phase IV — execution:

1. Wait for the anchor point on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. A manipulation against the bias + a macro catalyst.
2. Drop to the M15 for an Optimal Trade Entry — an OTE formation inside the correction heading toward your PD Array.
3. Execute only inside a killzone — London or New York (roughly 3:00–5:00 AM ET or 8:00–11:00 AM ET; details in the article on killzones). A strong slot is the 9:50–10:10 AM ET macro window.
4. Stop: beyond the extreme of the OTE swing on the M15, with a small buffer.

Phase V — management:

1. A limit order at +50 pips. When it fills — you close 80% of the position.
2. The remainder (20%) is run to 75+ pips, or possibly to the next higher-timeframe PD Array projected with Fibonacci.

A worked example

GBP/USD, a week with CPI on Wednesday. Over the weekend you mark the 20-week range: price sits in its upper half, and the nearest untouched liquidity is an old low 60 pips below — the weekly bias is bearish. On the H4, an unfilled FVG hangs above price in the premium zone.

Monday and Tuesday: the market drifts without conviction — no anchor, no trade. Wednesday, the CPI release at 8:30 AM ET: the print surprises, price shoots higher, enters premium and taps the H4 FVG — a manipulation against the bias with a catalyst behind it. Exactly what you were waiting for.

On the M15, inside the New York killzone, an upward correction forms; you stretch the Fibonacci and wait for the OTE zone. Price taps it, prints a rejection — short entry, stop above the high of the OTE swing with a buffer. On Thursday before noon the limit order collects 50 pips — you close 80%. The remainder rides to 75 pips at the old low on Friday morning. One shot, one week, a plan closed out — and the entire market exposure wrapped up in under three days, which for a weekly model is a value in itself.

For balance: in weeks without high-impact events, or when the anchor doesn't form by Wednesday, the model says it plainly — you don't trade. That's not a flaw, that's the definition. Half of this model's edge lives in the weeks in which you gave the market nothing.

Who this model is for (and who it isn't)

One Shot One Kill fits traders who have little screen time but plenty of patience. Preparation takes an hour on the weekend, and during the week all you need is a price alert on the zone and availability in the killzone for one or two sessions. The rhythm is psychologically healthy: no daily-P&L pressure, one decision a week, a clear criterion for success.

What does the weekly routine look like in practice? Sunday evening: update the 20-week range, review the macro calendar, pick the instrument with the cleanest picture and write the plan in your journal — direction, entry zone, invalidation level, target. Monday to Wednesday: one price alert on the manipulation zone, and normal life. When the alert fires inside a killzone — fifteen minutes of work: verify the OTE, enter, set the protective and target orders. Thursday and Friday: managing the remainder of the position or — more often — nothing. The whole model runs on two to three hours a week, but those hours demand full presence.

A word on risk: with one shot per week, position size matters more than in daily models — a 2% loss every week for a month is −8% without a single opportunity for a quick comeback. A sensible band is 0.5–1% per trade until your own journal shows that your version of the model hits more often than every other time. And the pips in the descriptions — 50, 75, 100 — are units of movement, not a promise of profit: without tested execution they remain numbers from someone else's chart.

It is not, however, a model for people who need action — one trade a week can be boring, and boredom is the most common reason rules get broken ("I'll just take a little something on the side"). Nor is it a model resistant to a bad bias: since you shoot once, the quality of the weekly analysis is everything. A mistaken bias won't get averaged out by subsequent opportunities the way it does in daily models.

Instruments: the model works best where macro genuinely moves price — GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CAD, gold and the NQ and ES indices. On crypto, macro catalysts are hitting harder and harder (BTC reacts to CPI and FOMC more clearly than ever), but a 20-week range on assets with such a young and shifting structure tends to be less "respected" than on forex — if you want to trade this model on BTC, backtest it first and treat the forex results as non-binding inspiration, not a guarantee. Keeping the ranges and PD Array zones up to date on TradingView is something our SRL indicator will help with — on a weekly model that's literally a few minutes of updating over the weekend.

Most common mistakes

• Skipping the 20-week range. It's the filter of the entire model. Without it, every week looks like an opportunity and the model degenerates into plain direction-guessing.
• Trading without a catalyst. The volatility injection from the calendar is the model's trigger. Setups without a high-impact event hit noticeably less often — and you only have one shot.
• An anchor on Thursday or Friday. The anchor point is supposed to form Monday to Wednesday. Later in the week there isn't enough time to deliver the full 50–75 pips — those entries are a different (worse) model.
• Entering on the bare tap of the PD Array, without an OTE on the M15. Refining the entry with an OTE formation isn't cosmetics — without it, stops get hit needlessly often.
• Not closing 80% at +50 pips. The model has a fixed target. Holding the whole position "because it'll run 200" turns it into something it isn't — and usually ends in giving the profit back.
• Executing outside a killzone. An entry at 6:30 AM ET, outside the window of institutional volume, is an entry without the support of the mechanics the model is built on.

One Shot One Kill is that rare ICT model that can be reconciled with a full-time job — provided you accept its nature: few shots, high demands on every one of them. Before you arm it, get the foundations in order: IPDA and the dealing range, the Optimal Trade Entry and the daily bias (the same logic, one timeframe down). And if you do have time for daily trading and are looking for a session model — check out One Trade Setup for Life, the daily cousin of this approach.

FAQ

Rafał — Krypto Bez Ściemy

Trader and founder of Strefa Tradingu. He’s been breaking crypto down on YouTube for years — no hype, no signals, with a focus on market structure and risk management.

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