In the 1975 paper, Loser's Game, published in the Financial Analysts Journal, investor Charley Ellis described investing as a "loser's game". In a winner's game, you need to perform spectacularly. You need to be elite. This is not the case for investing where survival is at least half the battle. You are not trying to win. You are trying to not lose.
> one cannot, and should not, try to “win big.” In a competitive setting, the strong player knows that his best opponents are unlikely to make many exploitable mistakes. As a result, the strong player knows that he must be content to play with just the slightest edge, an edge which is the equivalent to the marginal advantage
By Sean "day[9]" Plott, Starcraft progamer and commentator (2007):
