Where other fund managers applied old-fashioned research skills, common sense, brute force, and guesswork, LTCM's 190 strategists applied arcane mathematical formulas to the world's financial markets. The firm's image was that of a skilled poker player: cool control in the face of high risk. What's more, they appeared to have removed the element of luck from the game (games such as G-12 fixed income arbitrage) by approaching the management of risk as a science rather than an art, an approach that initially generated unusually high returns. LTCM's image worked to the firm's advantage in several key ways. Investors (mostly other financial institutions) were dazzled by LTCM's methods and willingly lent money and invested capital. At the same time, few people could comprehend the sophisticated formulas the firm used and this afforded LTCM unquestioned privacy.