Does anyone else find it a little intlellectually dishonest for him to write a piece regarding option pricing theory, for which I assume he was paid, without crediting the authors of the models he uses to determine valuation?

To write this type of piece, using dumbed down examples and language for the average poker player, without mentioning that his work was first intorduced to the world as the Black Scholes Model, is dishones at best, and illegal at worst. Maybe a litle credit to Fisher Black and Myron Scholes and their partners Merton and Miller should have been given. Oh, maybe Bill Sharpe too. Then again, these guys are actually nobel contenders and or winners, instead of plagiarizing, degenarate gambler who likes to tell all his friends that he "coulda been" a Nobel level Mathemetician.

I think he should donate his fee for this piece to some charity for the egomaniacal

where is this article? id like to read

lol yeah just how he claims to be the inventor of Caribbean Stud poker.

I read that article as well. It seems pretty believable. Maybehe should ask the guy that paid millions for the rights to the game for a little kick back or something!

The comparison to his claim of inventing Carib. Stud, which he very well may have, is not that relevant. C.S. is a marginally sucessful pit game that has almost zero effect on the world. Option pricing theory, however, is monumentally important. These models have changed the way the economy functions at its most basic level. The expansion of credit, the quantification of risk as it pertains to economic aactivity, and the explosion of the derivative markets can all be directly linked to the work of the economists, financial engineers, and academics I mentioned in my original post.

For better or worse, worse at the present time, this field of thought has dominated finance for the beter part of 35 years. Of course there were academics and practitioners using less formal variations of these models before the academic community codified them, yet this shouldn't stop one from crediting the giants of the field when writing a quick thought piece on the subject.

The "Semi-Bluff" was a usefull play long before D.S. named it in TOP. That shouldn't let people off the hook when they write about it in a "for Pay" piece. Credit should rightfully be given to D.S. for being the first gaming writer to explain, dissect, and name this aspect of Poker. I just think he should give the same credit to those who pioneered a much more valuable and significant field of financial thought.

I always respected D.S. for his work and intellectual integrity, something that was sorely lacking in the gaming community before he and 2+2 came around. Just thought he would have had the same respect for the giants of the field he decided to dabble in when he needed to sell a magazine article.

This is the problem.

Sklansky is a gaming expert...
Not the generalized intellectual for all seasons...
That he views himself as.

As someone who has been a PRO trader for 15 years...
I find Sklansky's musings on the financial markets...
To be simplistic and misguided.

His gaming knowledge just does not translate.
Pro Traders simply do not think like gamblers.

The financial markets are in no way about gambling...
They are all about risk arbitrage.

Successful traders are analogous to a CASINO...
They have a long term edge...
In the form of the bid/ask spread...
While Sklansky views them as analogous to gamblers.

If you want to learn about the complex world of options...
Read something written by a Pro Options Trader.

Given the empirical evidence I would hardly call the benefits of Modern Portfolio Theory positive - 1987 crash, LTCM, current global financial crisis amongst others. Sure the math might be elegant but use of these models in the real world has caused great damage. Really, do equity option markets add much to the stock market's purpose of capital allocation - definately not in proportion to the resources spent analysing and trading them. Most financial innovations have been created by Wall Street for the purpose to take money from their clients.

I agree that MPT has serious flaws, and thought I kind of acknowledged that in my second post. The main point of the thread was not to debate the value of this type of financial engineering, but to point out that D.S. seems very loose with academic standards when earning money by writing articles. If I were to submit an article to the Mag that was basically a simplified rehash of a very significant and well known set of theories, I would hope that it would be turned down if I didn't credit my sources. I just don't think the mag should be paying for plagiarism.

Maybe I am being a stickler, but he lists the pricing components as if he thought them up himself. I know the greeks are pretty common these days, but come on, would it have killed the big brained one to mention the men who initially devised these models. They deserve the credit because they did the work. Do you see why?

still looking for that article

It's in the October issue.

Classic Article: Figuring Out Stock Options


The October issue comes down this weekend. So, read it now.

Just chiming in to say CS Poker changed a friend of mine's life, he won 80 grand at the Peppermill in Reno playing that game, took two years off work and traveled and bought an R.V.

I read the article and personally I found it harmless.

I've been a pro trader for over 25 years and this albeit based on the black scholes model it's now "common" knowledge in the industry and many people rewrite this kind of stuff all the time.

I thought David did a nice job of breaking it down and repackaging it to make it easy for people to understand.

I do agree that there should have been at least a "mention" of where the bases of the information came from.

i don't think anyone said it, but he's not paid for his articles here.

he is paid plenty in other ways, but his magazine contributions are donated.

"To write this type of piece, using dumbed down examples and language for the average poker player, without mentioning that his work was first intorduced to the world as the Black Scholes Model, is dishones at best,"

Your statement is plain wrong. Thousands of people understood the basics of options pricing along the lines of my article well before Black Scholes came along. That article could have been written by many different people in 1950. In fact they probably did.

exactly you can not plagiarize something that is common knowledge.

This is the dumbest thing I have heard to date on 2+2, and that is an achievement.

You need some serious Medical Attention.

Do you attrib D.O.D. for creating the internet, how about Alexadner Graham Bell for creating the phone system that runs it when you post this crap online? No? You should donate your week's salary (what is welfare paying thiese days?).

OP,

You do know B & S pretty much just wrote down what most professional option traders already knew and they won the Nobel Prize for it?

Oh, and their model doesn't work -- which they also admit. If you think option trading firms are running their model with B & S's you are nuts.

you are a total idiot.

the article was perfectly written for its purpose and audience. perfect.

i think some of us that know the options markets wish we had that in a pamphlet sized form to give to friend's when they ask the basic questions. having struggled for years to explain it properly to VERY savvy poker players, i am jealous that he was able to summarize options so effortlessly.

Honestly, this thread is kind of a joke.

OP has a point here. I don't fully agree but it's pretty easy to see what he's getting at. The stuff is common knowledge now but a little history on its development as a theory would have been nice perhaps. Whatever.

So now we have this name calling and slinging poo around just because some happen to see it differently.

Seriously, what grade are we in here?