The book is best categorized as a Philosophical Logic work.

The premise of the book is to define what finite and infinite games are, differentiate the two, and then apply those patterns to many aspects of everyday life to surprising consequences.

For example, imagine a suburban neighbourhood where a group of kids gather for baseball games every afternoon during the summer. Anyone can play, and teams are divided so that they are evenly matched. Players are implicitly ranked by their peers from performance over past games.  Poor players are welcomed to play, even if it makes a team perform worse.  The point is to keep playing and keep changing the game.

Next, imagine a little league team from a nearby neighbourhood. They had to try-out, and poor players are screened out. Practice games are required several times a week. Players are ranked against each other according to various stats, and players are encouraged to perfect various skills for the betterment of the teams performance.  The point is to win as many games in the little league series that summer.

Now, imagine what would happen if the two groups were to play together. If the daily neighbourhood game players had the little league team come over, two things would happen: the little league would insist on playing against each other, not mixing the teams, and would adhere to their strict rules, and likely the neighbourhood kids would loose since they don’t play this way. Eventually the neighbourhood kids would get bored and stop playing the little league game.

Finally, image the little league team hosting the neighbourhood kids in a game. As part of the invite they mix members like the neighbourhood kids games do. The little league players would become immediately frustrated because the neighbourhood kids haven’t seriously practiced and each team doesn’t work efficiently together. They would perceive the neighbourhood kids as not playing seriously, perhaps making a parse of the whole enterprise, and would not enjoy the game at all.

Although a contrived scenario, ( kids learn early on which style they enjoy, and that these are two fundamentally different activities, ) this demonstrates the two styles of play and how they compare to each other.

The book also has an almost lyrical component: James chooses words which we’d normally use as synonyms, but in the context of finite and infinite games become antonyms or complementary terms. Notable examples were “powerful” / “strength” and “theatrical” / “dramatic”. I found this amusing and thought provoking, as I tend to obsess on the connotations of words in certain works.

Overall, I didn’t agree with all the points of the book, but it’s premise, it’s style, and ability to inspire make me give it 4 of 4 possible stars.

The main tenant of the book is that human psychology causes us to create meaning and find patterns in what well be randomness, noise, unpredictability, or natural complexity.  He uses the markets as his main analogy, but cites a few philosophers and psychologists work.

Additionally, he also points out that the human mind is not very good at scientific / mathematical thinking.  Simple probability is easily misunderstood.  He also addresses the inability of us consider alternative histories or do Monte-Carlo runs on future possibilities.

Things I found of note were his approach to this subject, which is that of a non-serious, philosophical skeptic.  I find it refreshing.

Reading a bit on Amazon’s review of this book, I see allot of chiding remarks.  Nassim uses many known financial professionals as examples in his book, and it’s apparent that some did not take kindly to it.  However, the auther makes his intentions, those of non-serious dialogue and argument from simple logic deduction, clear in the prologue to the book.  Any who didn’t read that far may well have earned their disappointment.

3 out of 4 possible stars.