The guest blogger is James Edwards, an active advantage player and one of a select group given advanced copies of the book by its publisher, Random House. A Man for All Markets<\/em> is due for release in January with a list price of $30. I can’t wait.<\/p>\n Whether you are an aspiring professional player, a casual gambler, or an occasional visitor to Las Vegas, you can feel the impact of Professor Ed Thorp\u2019s intellect on that desert city. In 1962, Thorp published the classic book Beat the Dealer<\/em>. The text was based on Thorp\u2019s original research that stemmed from his curiosity about the game of 21, and was billed as a \u201chow to book\u201d for the lay person to beat the casinos at blackjack. And simply stated it changed everything. The casinos altered the rules of the game to offset the advantage that Thorp\u2019s analysis gave players. But they were forced to reinstate the original rules shortly after the change, because the gamblers\/customers decided that the casinos were not playing fair.<\/p>\n Since that time the rules and protocols of 21 have been changed, not to the extent that they were in 1962, but enough so that Thorp\u2019s original analysis is no longer valid. There have been several authors who have attempted to modernize Thorp\u2019s original thesis. Some of them are good while others are not so good. Long-time professional player and gaming author Henry Tamburin has done a solid job of putting Thorp\u2019s original insights into a modern framework in his free online Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide<\/a> that he published at the 888casino.com\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n On January 24th 2017, Random House Publishing will release Thorp\u2019s memoirs in his new book A Man for All Markets<\/em><\/a>, which is currently accepting pre orders. The book chronicles Thorp\u2019s heroic-like arc from his humble beginnings growing up in a family that struggled to get by \u2013 first in the cold winters of Chicago and later in the sun soaked cities of southern California, where he excelled in a variety of high school science courses and ultimately earned a scholarship for his exceptional talents in physics \u2013 on through his professional career as a gaming guru, and ultimately to his amazing success in a stock market-centered career, where he would take his knowledge and understanding of games of chance and apply it to the biggest casino in the world, Wall Street. Thorp\u2019s second book Beat the Market<\/em> helped start the derivatives revolution that transformed world securities markets. Based on his work, he helped launched the first market-neutral hedge fund in 1969.<\/p>\n A Man for All Markets<\/em> chronicles Thorp\u2019s personal journey in navigating the unexpected and sometimes dangerous obstacles that come along with challenging the status quo of a wealthy corporate adversary. Thorp discusses how he first came up with idea of card counting, and his process in doing so while he was teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Thorp also elaborates on the pushback he received from casinos when his system for beating them yielded him more money than they were willing to tolerate. The casino retaliations ranged from barring him from playing to drugging him, and even sabotaging the brakes on his car.<\/p>\n In the book, Thorp puts forth a comparative analysis between casinos and Wall Street, where he concludes that gambling is a simplified version of investing, and explains how it\u2019s possible to apply the same logic to both. Perhaps the biggest difference is that when you excel at making money in the stock market the \u201chouse\u201d can\u2019t ban you. Thorp provides thorough discussion of the risks in both endeavors. (He amazingly predicted the dangers of Long Term Capital Management, even foreseeing the Madoff debacle<\/a> almost two decades before it happened. Where others saw opportunity for financial windfalls in the LTCM game, Thorp saw extreme risk and the potential for fraud.)<\/p>\n A big plus in the book is Thorp\u2019s description of his interactions with a colorful cast of characters, including Noble Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman and Claude Shannon, with whom he collaborated to create what the Web calls the first wearable computer (used to predict the outcome of a roulette wheel). He also he describes playing bridge with Warren Buffet as well as tangling with a young prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani. In his most financially successful role as one of Wall Street\u2019s original quants, Thorp led the movement that profoundly changed investment strategies. He provides an inside look at how the shift to a world of hedge funds and exotic derivatives eventually supplanted the more traditional stock portfolio.<\/p>\n At its core, A Man for All Markets<\/em> is a personal look at the predictability of chance and how to walk the tightrope between risk and return. A full review of the book and interview with Professor Thorp will be posted shortly after the book\u2019s release on January 24, 2017.<\/p>\n Since we opened GamblingWithAnEdge.com a couple of months ago, we’ve fielded multiple requests from players and writers to post. After thinking through several options, we’ve decided to use my space for “guest bloggers.” Sometimes these posts will be slightly off subject, but they’ll always have at least some relevance and the poster will be introduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[1234,1232,383,1246,54,1240,56,60,1244,1237,85,1239,1243,1236,134,1245,1238,1241,1235,1233,1242],"yoast_head":"\n
\nBy James Edwards<\/p>\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
<\/a>![\"twitter\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/twitter.png\" "\\"Follow")
<\/a>![\"youtube\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/youtube.png\" "\\"Find")
<\/a>![\"instagram\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/instagram.png\" "\\"Check")
<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"