I’ll be breaking this down in tomorrow's edition of Beyond the Felt.

In the meantime, would love to hear some feedback and inspiration from you on this.

I’ll try to weave in the best responses.

For more insights on poker that apply to business and investing, check out Beyond the Felt.

The next installment goes live Tuesday. Details in bio.

Once you start seeing money this way, everything about economics, work, and value changes.

You start making very different decisions about how you spend both.

– Alec ♠️

P.S. This is an idea from my series The Future of Money which can be found for free here: www.alectorelli.com/category/inv...

The real question isn’t, “What entitles us to someone else’s money?”

Instead it's, “What entitles us to someone else’s time?”

Second, it's "what asset is best used to preserve human time?" – i.e. which asset is the scarcest?

For only a scarce asset can function as honest money.

Because money isn’t only currency; it’s a claim on life hours, on the finite energy we trade for the things we value.

This is why it's so crucial that the base layer of money is also finite, because it represents the scarcest asset on earth: human time.

Think of it this way:

If half your income goes to taxes, that means half your working year (Jan-June) is spent creating value for others before you create it for yourself (July-Dec).

This isn’t political — it’s a lens for understanding value.

P.S. In my upcoming article, I’ll share more ways to apply this asymmetric investing approach.

Simple strategies anyone can use to spot 10x opportunities before the herd.

Subscribe here to be notified when it drops. (Check my bio!)

Simple, not easy.

Buffett said it best:
“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

I’ve just applied that poker logic to investing.

Because it does.

♠️ Alec

Knowing when to sell is more art than science.

I sell when too many people are on the same side of the trade — when the market feels “offsides.”

Today, everyone is bullish.

Despite an 8x in just a few months, my timeline is full of posts about “how we’re still undervalued.”

Classic top vibes.

(Not entirely — I keep a long-term core position as an investor, but I’m talking as a trader here. More on this in my upcoming newsletter.)

If it dips, I’ll buy more.
If it rips, I’ll sell more.

Fast forward: everyone loves $IREN.

Business Insider ranks it #1 multiple weeks straight.
Influencers are shilling it.

So, I’m selling.

The latest example was $IREN.

I heard about it from Mike Alfred over dinner in December 2023.

His thesis made sense: a Bitcoin miner with AI infrastructure, powered by cheap renewable energy, and strong execution.

The miners were hated. Perfect, so I fired.

Then, I do my own digging, build conviction, and bet when the setup feels asymmetric.

I aim to only take bets where the upside is many multiples of the downside — just like playing a pocket pair preflop at the poker table.

If I hit a set, I can double up. If not, I just fold.

I rarely even find these myself.

I outsource ideas to people who are smarter and closer to the industry than me.

In this way, one of my most valuable assets is my timeline on X.

Come learn with me at www.joinphenom.com

First time depositors get 150% bonus up to $2,000.

LMK if you have any questions, happy to help onboard.

I broke even on the session and had a ton of fun. The game runs daily, players are friendly in the chat and it's an extremely fun, unsolved variant of poker.

They even have a $1,500 bracelet event this year which would be awesome to play!

Of course, I had no idea what I was doing, but I quickly realized some others didn't as well. I played a 3-way all in and some guy turned over QQ853.

He wasn't drawing to the high (some other guy had AA of course) or the low. I'm not sure what was going on, but the action was great.

I folded my first few hands while I did a quick Google search of the rules and basic strategy.

For those unaware like I was, BigO is 5 card PLO but with a split pot. You must have 8 or better to qualify for the low (A2345 is the nut low, for example).