Well, when you said these ladies, I was excitedly expecting titties, but I appreciate the link none the less.

Hernán Cortés

(I love that story. Talk about requiring commitment.)

Just to select one counter example to argue against your view, Mason, a good reading of Lewis and Clark - one of these for example ...

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

or

The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

... would probably change your mind about the variance and plain old luck those guys experienced... yes, if they were able to continue west they eventually would have found the Pacific Ocean but there are hundreds of pages of "if" that, once you read about it, might convince you otherwise.

Hi the_tubapol:

Let's just take Cameron. First, I would need to learn about Brexit. But his price for supporting "remain" was his job. So by winning, Britain remains and nothing happens happens to Cameron. But by losing, Britain should leave (and that's another issue) and the vigorish Cameron pays is his job. Normally, when you bet, it's the winner who pays the vig, but in this case it was the loser. So this might be an interesting gamble for Cameron and could qualify him into the world's worse gambler's section.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Hero:

The moon program could be well worth looking at. The gamble being that the US could beat the Soviet Union to the moon. But there were two alternatives. If the US does nothing. it may not be any big deal. But if the US gets in the race and fails, then the lost of prestige could have affected the Cold War.

I like this because there are three possible alternatives. But if the US gets in the race, one of the alternatives then can't happen.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Hero:

This is a point that could argued over and over. But one thing on the Lee side is that if you were a Civil War soldier and were in Lee's Army, your probably of being shot was higher than any other Civil War Army, and this includes those commanded by "The Butcher" Grant.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Nozsr:

I don't know much about Lewis and Clark, but it sounds like I need to learn. And if what you're saying is correct, they probably belong in the "Role of Luck" section.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Everyone:

It's time for an announcement. My co-author on this project will be Antonio Carrasco. He's a professor of History at The University of Alicante in Alicante, Spain and is a Doctor in Modern History. Here's some information:

https://cvnet.cpd.ua.es/curriculum-b...-antonio/26598

Antonio is also the editor of www.poker10.com.

And finally, Antonio is the poster who appears in Post #24 above.

We have a lot of work to do, and hope to get started soon. Wish us luck.

Best wishes,
Mason

Thank you, Mason.
We have a lot of work to do.
It will be a great project.
Shuffle up & Deal!

Good choice Mason. I was a regular in an online poker league that Antonio used to run. Apart from his obvious credentials for your project, he is a genuinely nice guy.

Hi Kid:

Thanks. I feel fortunate to have someone with his background to work with. This book should be a fairly ambitious project and I don’t think there has ever been anything done quite like it. Antonio is a full partner on the book and will have a lot of say as to what will go into it.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason you’re fixated to your detriment on Robert E Lee. The two great geniuses (and Gamblers) of the CW were Sherman and his nemesis Bedford Forrest. Forest returned home destitute and supposedly reanimated his fortunes playing poker.

There will be a chapter on Gen Sherman in the book. It will be an expansion on what I wrote is already written in my Gambling Theory book.

You’re right about Forrest. I know he did some outright bluffing in at least one of his battles. So this is something we should look at.

Best wishes,
Mason

Look at Robert O’connell’s book on Sherman Fierce Patriot The author points out the CW was only one manifestation of his genius. He was the US official in San Francisco that reported the gold find. He also mapped out the Transcontinental RR at the same time. Both Forest and Sherman of course, aside from the CW, have a great deal of blood on their hands. Forrest for founding the KKK and Sherman with his strategy of starving the Indians building the RR

Hi Mulezen:

None of this means that a gamble took place. Remember, for gambling to happen, the standard deviation has to be large when compared to the expectation. So, while interesting, we would need to look at these facts before deciding if any of this belonged in the book.

Best wishes,
Mason

Certainly these generals, one minor, one major took gambles their contemporaries shied away from. Forest magnified the impression of his inferior forces by moving his men in a circle. Sherman by disconnecting from his supply lines and inventing a new type of war in the process
And best wishes to you in your endeavor
Joe

can you guys do a chapter on the gambler, Earl of Sandwich?

Mason,

Sounds like an interesting book. It is good to hear that you found a historian to work with you.

Speaking about myself, I have a history minor from a highly selective liberal arts college in the United States. Ironically, I have a history minor (instead of a major) because I was reading the Theory of Poker one night in my dorm room and Sklansky was talking about Mathematical Expectations and Hourly Rates. To put it in poker terms, computer science was a "softer" game with a much higher "hourly rate".

As for the book, I would stay clear of any events that occurred within the past fifty years. There are two reasons for this. 1.) There is less of a chance of a libel lawsuit if you are talking about deceased people. 2.) For the history to be any good, you want the opportunity for multiple generations of historians (from both sides) to have their chance to study the primary sources. A good example of this would be WWII. The United States seized all of the records of Nazi Germany and they didn't return it all back to the Germans until the early 1990s. Of course, the United States made copies of it onto microfiche before handing it back.

And, if you want me to review something, I would gladly do it for free. I don't need any acknowledgements or recognition.

Hi Mason

During the siege of Mafeking in the second Boer war the British commander Robert Baden-Powell used several "bluffing" tactics, including sending his men out to place fake landmines and having them pretend to crawl through non existing barbed wire.

Hi mullion:

I didn’t know this and it looks like something we should look at.

Best wishes,
Mason

I can't stand this trope. It's the result of people who fundamentally don't understand enough details and nuance to understand why or how something was done a certain way. They can't understand it, so they assume the generals were equally clueless.

It's utterly absurd to view the world that way. People haven't gotten smarter in the last few centuries. You just don't understand the situation on a deep enough level, or more likely read or spoke to others who didn't understand it on a deep enough level.

These were men who dedicated their entire lives studying warfare from logistics to tactics. Not a single general was of the "aww shucks I guess we should just attack then" mindset.

Mason, I very much look forward to reading your book.

Some potential topics I would consider.

WWII - very topical so has a built in audience - can easily compare how pre WWII Germany paled in comparison to the Allies in terms of just about everything. What's often lost today is that just Poland alone had an army of over 1 million soldiers and recently fought in several offensive wars themselves. The Germans didn't stand a chance on paper and yet devised an all in strategy that was so effective that the narrative today just assumes Poland was a peaceful and defenseless neighbor.

Hitler then continued the gamble long after he should have called it quits. Instead of trying to settle for a peace, decided to go after the bread basket of the Ukraine and even though they knew it was dumb to do it so late in the year, they actually did that intentionally so they could occupy it right around harvest time and then feed the army.

Same with Japan, they gambled that the Chinese warlords would be more focused on fighting amongst each other in their independent territories rather than repel an invasion. It even goes down to more granular level of a local Japanese officer independently started the invasion without any permission with just his local garrison, gambling that instead of being executed for insubordination, Tokyo would go along with it as a fait accompli. Same with Pearl Harbor, facing a US ultimatum of relinquishing all captured territories or starving to death and running out of oil via blockade, they gambled on the chance to knock down the US will to fight in the Pacific with Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, now declassified documents indicate the US was gambling that Japan would take offensive actions after they handed out the ultimatum - giving the green light to enter the war as a victim and not an agressor.

There's a whole lot more too. Gaugamela, where Alexander saw the massive army he was up against and devised a strategy to charge directly at Darius on the hopes he fled for his life - in which case the army would dissolve and flee.

Then there's Saladin, the ultimate nit. Guy often had a much larger force than the crusader armies yet wouldn't engage but rather shadow them and remain encamped nearby. For years he did this until finally the circumstances presented themselves an ideal situation and he decimated the crusader states at the battle of Hattin. History would show that he was right not to freely engage his larger forces, once in the siege of Acre, he brought his forces up for battle but his loose coalition refused to march forward and engage.

While still on the topics of the crusades, you could look at the siege of Antioch from the first crusade. The crusaders had just taken it after a year long siege. They were starving to death, had fended off several relief forces and days after they took the city, a much larger force showed up on the horizon. The city had no supplies left, they were trapped. Rather than get blinded out by starving to death behind the walls or surrendering, they decided to sally out as a rag tag army of men who hadn't eaten in weeks. There was only a token Saracen force watching the gates and they quickly fled back to camp when this happened. However, seeing the guard units flee, the rest of the army in the camp started imagining the worst case scenario and instead of meeting the force and crushing them, they then fled too.

I basically just read historical non fiction these days. Could keep on writing for hours with suggestions. If you are looking for anything in particular, feel free to pm me and I'll try to point you in some areas I think could prove promising.

I would add D-day invasion.

The preparation and using General Patton and the diversion of the Phantom Army, communications, etc...

I understand this is far out, but I'd pre-order just to help prove interest in the project.

Love the idea and concept behind it. I tend to view life through a gambling and strategy lens (at the annoyance of the people around me) and it has been very beneficial for my life.

The idea of the book of looking at historical events and how luck and strategy is involved really intrigues me!!!

Hi Morgan:

I don’t see D-Day as much of a gamble. For there to be a gamble the standard deviation during the time period that the event takes place must be large relative to the expectation of the event. Given how well planned out the D-Day invasion was plus the strength of The Allied forced, I doubt that this was the case.

Best wishes,
Mason