A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market-战胜一切市场的人

Praise for A Man for All Markets

"In A Man for All Markets, [Thorp] delightfully recounts his progress (if that is the word) from college teacher to gambler to hedge-fund manager. Along the way we learn important lessons about the functioning of markets and the logic of investment."--The Wall Street Journal

"[Thorp] gives a biological summation (think Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!) of his quest to prove the aphorism 'the house always wins' is flawed. . . . Illuminating for the mathematically inclined, and cautionary for would-be gamblers and day traders"--
Library Journal


这是一本另类的投资者传记。纯粹从投资业绩上来说，索普也许未必能进入投资大师之列，但是他的投资经历却比大部分投资者都更有意思：他是一个从赌场进入股市的投资人，而且凭借数学思维，在21点他找到了破解庄家优势的策略，在股市中他找到赚取超额收益的对冲投资，在各个市场都获得了丰厚的收益。

在他的投资生涯中，索普彻底实践了那种将抽象思维运用到现实生活中的思维方式。很多人都曾经发问，学数学到底有什么用？索普用他的人生给出了答案，那就是运用数学知识来进行赌博和投资，并且赚大钱。

无论是面对赌博，还是股市投资，索普都是在运用自己的数学知识把过程简化成为数学模型，然后形成相应的对策和答案，这其实就是我们在数学中都碰到过的“应用题”，只不过像索普这样真正运用到实践中的人少之又少。索普甚至把数学思维应用到了自己的生活中。在一个看上去并不理性的世界里，索普自始至终坚持用理性来制定自己的生存策略，并且获得了丰厚的人生复利。

书名：A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market《战胜一切市场的人》

作者：Edward O. Thorp

简介：The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street.

A child of the Great Depression, legendary mathematician Edward O. Thorp invented card counting, proving the seemingly impossible: that you could beat the dealer at the blackjack table. As a result he launched a gambling renaissance. His remarkable success--and mathematically unassailable method--caused such an uproar that casinos altered the rules of the game to thwart him and the legions he inspired. They barred him from their premises, even put his life in jeopardy. Nonetheless, gambling was forever changed.

Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to "the biggest casino in the world" Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudy Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and, to beat the game of roulette, invented, with Claude Shannon, the world's first wearable computer.

Here, for the first time, Thorp tells the story of what he did, how he did it, his passions and motivations, and the curiosity that has always driven him to disregard conventional wisdom and devise game-changing solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. An intellectual thrill ride, replete with practical wisdom that can guide us all in uncertain financial waters, A Man for All Markets is an instant classic--a book that challenges its readers to think logically about a seemingly irrational world.