Hi Everyone:

My appologies for neglecting this forum, but I'm now the co-author of a history book: A History of the World from a Gambler's Perspective by Mason Malmuth and Antonio Carrasco.

Here's the Table of Contents:

https://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue185/

Here's an Excerpt:

https://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/...-the-world.php

and here's the Amazon page if you want to order a copy:

https://www.amazon.com/History-World...F39AETF77NQBSH

Best wishes,
Mason

Good luck with the book.

The Trotsky example doesn't really resonate with me, doesn't seem like much of a gamble (seems to me the Bolsheviks would have accepted just about any non-Marxist means to the ends that left them in power).

Hi Lapidator:

Perhaps. But the way we saw it, very few of the important Bolsheviks understood how an army needed to be run and they were also very idealistic, and having a conventional army was something that they thought was very bad. Anyway, that was the gamble that Trotsky took and in our opinion, it was nowhere close to a sure thing.

By the way, there's lots of other stuff in this book which some of you may want to debate, so I'll be sure to check in once the book gets published and distributed.

Best wishes,
Mason

looking very much forward to this book..... enjoyed the trotsky sample

got me reading more about stalin... apparently, he had 5 senior guys he ultimately trusted. not sure how that came about. did he realize he needed them in some way?

Congrats Mason, and I’m looking forward to getting the book. And I hope we all will have civil and interesting discussions about all the examples.

Hi River:

Stalin makes the book in the chapter: "Stalin’s “Not a Step Back:” Increasing Morale by Killing Your Own Soldiers."

As for your specific question, I don't know the answer.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Zeno:

Thanks, and I believe there's a lot of interesting topics in the book that we can address in more detail right here.

Best wishes,
Mason

Is the purchase of Alaska in the book?

No.

Best wishes,
Mason

bizarre how both stalin and howard hughes both had incredible power but ending up living horrible later lives in the equivalent of studio apartments.

mental illness

Occupation?

Stand up Philosopher.

Ahh a bullchit artist!



I look forward to the book

Hi Everyone:

We now have received books from our printer. We'll immediately be shipping to Amazon meaning that those of you who ordered from Amazon should get your copy soon. Also, here are a couple of pictures of the book:





Best wishes,
Mason

I just finished watching the History channel documentary of Ulysses S. Grant.
I must admit I didn't do to much study on what is a truly remarkable man.
From what I could find out, and which I don't think was in the docu., he was a card player.
The siege of Vicksburg, and how he had the ships go down the Mississippi River, past the enemy artillery, in order to transport his troops across, was a true gamble.
It would be a shame if he's not in the book.

Hi Nepeeme:

While Grant is mentioned in five places in the book, there is no chapter that features him.

For gambling to take place, the variance (or stand deviation) has to be large compared to the absolute value of the expectation, and this often happens when a military commander decides to try a non-standard strategy. That was not the case with Grant. Consequently, we would view the running of the guns of Vicksburg as a non-gambling event. If the expectation was positive, Grant would be successful, and if the expectation was negative, Grant would have failed.

However, Grant was a general who thought things out very well, and I doubt that he would have sent the boats by Vicksburg if he thought the expectation was negative. So this looks like a positive expectation play that is essentially a sure thing while a gamble, even if the expectation was positive, would not be a sure thing.

By the way, there are nine chapters in the book that feature different American Civil War battles. So, the Civil War is well covered.

Best wishes,
Mason

looks good

Hi Everyone:

For those interested, Amazon is now showing the book in stock:

https://www.amazon.com/History-World...69HF242JCTGHEH

Best wishes,
Mason

It has been said this book has been sourced from Wikipedia, but what does that mean exactly?

If it uses material extensively from Wikipedia and not just pointing people to Wikipedia for additional reading, it would pretty ironic given the issues Mason had with Dan Druff using posts from 2plus2 on Druff's own site.

lol the irony

Here's from page 5 of the book:

Next, a note about our sources. Much of what follows came from Wikipedia. It’s a great source for lots of information and was incredibly helpful in the writing of this book. You’ll also see phrases or sentences inside quotation marks. When this is the case, assume this information most likely came from Wikipedia. But not all our information came from Wikipedia, and when another source was used, in many cases we tried to recognize it at the beginning of each topic or someplace else in the text, and when this is done, any phrase or sentence inside quotation marks may have come from this source instead of Wikipedia. And finally, for a few of the chapters, more in-depth sources were used, and when this was the case, they are noted at the end of the chapter.

And here's an example of the sources from the Queen Isabella chapter:

Sources:

● Manuel Fernández Álvarez: Isabel la Católica. Madrid: Espasa, 2003.

● Joseph Pérez: Isabel la Católica ¿un modelo de cristiandad? Granada, Ediciones Almed, 2007.

Another example is the chapter: "Who’s The Real Tough Guy? How Wyatt Earp Ran Ike Morris Out of Town." And from the book the source is:

The following is a story about an event in Gunniston Colorado. It probably took place in the year 1887 and is from the book the Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers by Robert K. DeArment. It’s a history of the gamblers of the Old West and is a wonderful book to read.

And one more example, in the chapter: "The Most Important Hand Ever Played; How Union General William T. Sherman Used Poker to Defeat His Opponent" we state at the beginning of the chapter:

For this chapter the authors would like to recognize the book Never Call Retreat by Bruce Catton.

Also, there's much discussion on gambling and how it exactly works as well as self-weighting and non-self-weighting strategies. All of that came from me and my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics is referenced.

Also, the important part of the book is explaining how certain things that the people, who the chapters are about, did were actually gambling decisions or were related to gambling in some way. That material is unique to us. An example is how Confederate General Robert E. Lee actually used poker tactics in his battles such as his great semi-bluff at The Battle of Chancellorsville.

This statement from Witeles/Druff is incredibky inaccurate. Also, Witteles/Druff was lifting whole posts from our website. Do you think that was right?

How do you always fall for this stuff? or do you do this deliberately?

MM