When it comes to the best professional poker players of the younger generation, Feder Holz is definitely someone that needs to be mentioned. Despite not even being thirty years old, this German poker player has made a name for himself in the poker world and has won a significant amount of money in a rather short period of time. Who is he, and how did he rise to fame?
The Beginning
Fedor Holz was born on July 25th, 1993, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Though his childhood wasn't the best, he didn't let it get to him, and he went on to study informatics at a university.
During his university years, he met some people who lived their life using money they won playing poker. Because of them, he started to become interested in the game - he knew very little about it, so he lost the first few games he played. However, it didn't discourage him - quite the opposite, it made him more motivated to learn the game. He became so engrossed in it that he made the decision to leave university completely in order to focus on his poker career.
Once he turned 18, he decided to give online poker a chance, as he wanted to improve as quickly as possible - and thanks to the option to play multiple tables at the same time, he could see better what he needed to work on. His online persona was named "CrownUpGuy," and during his online poker era, Fedor Holz won some significant money. However, it wasn't online poker that made him a name in the poker industry, although it definitely helped in kick-starting his career.
Rise to Fame
Fedor Holz rose to fame in 2014 when he took on some of the world's best poker players in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker's Main Event and won a whopping $1.3 million.
After that, he made a switch to live poker, which wasn't easy, considering he had to learn how to play face-to-face and keep a poker face on to not give an advantage to his competitors. Once again, it gave him the motivation to polish his skills. When he started in his first World Series of Poker tournament, which is one of poker's high-roller tournaments, he earned third place in the $10,000 6-Handed No-Limit Hold'em Championship and twenty-fifth in the tournament's Main Event.
He went on to win several more poker tournaments, such as the World Poker Tour Alpha8 LasVegas, in which he won over $1.5 million, World Poker Tour Super High Roller in the Philippines, thanks to which he brought home over $3 million, PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, European Poker Tour, Aussie Millions, or the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl, in which he placed second and increased his bank account by just over $3.5 million, to name a few.
It wasn’t until 2016 that Fedor Holz won his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. He competed against Dan Smith in the $111,111 High Roller for One for an outstanding $4,981,775. Soon after, he won the EPT High Roller event that took place in Barcelona, winning almost $1.5 million.
His successes in face-to-face poker weren’t the only ones, as, throughout his career in live poker, he also won several online events, enforcing the position of “CrownUpGuy” as one of the household names in the world of online poker.
The Retirement
With the number of poker tournaments Feder Holz won and how many poker winnings he brought home in a short period of time, you would think that he would like to continue playing poker full-time at least for a few more years (or decades). However, that wasn’t the case, and he shocked the world of poker by announcing his retirement from the game in order to focus on other things.
But just so we’re clear - Feder Holz didn’t stop playing poker professionally. Instead, he just dedicated less time to it so that he could focus on another side of this table game. He opened a website called Primed Mind, which offers mindset coaching and shows poker players the mental side of poker. Although run by a poker player, Primed Mind can be taken advantage of by anybody who wants to learn how to deal with stress, better control emotions, or build a positive mindset.
Since Primed Mind ended up being a success, Feder Holz opened another business - this time called The Pokercode. It is a poker training website mostly focused on those who want to participate in tournaments. Aside from Holz, it also features other professional poker players, such as Matthias Eibinger or Simon Ronnow, providing the users with the best coaching resources and experts that experienced the game first-hand.
The Comeback
Despite spending less time on the game, Fedor Holz couldn’t stay away from it for too long, and at the beginning of 2017, he returned to the poker scene, taking part and winning more poker tournaments. His comeback was initiated by his participation in Aussie Millions. Just a few months later, he scored second place in the PokerStars Championship that took place in Macau and took home $868,000.
Fedor Holz, one of the best German poker players of the young generation, took home his biggest prize up to date in July of 2018, when he took part in the Big One for One Drop poker tournament. He paid almost a million dollars to participate in the event and play against Justin Bonomo, but it was definitely worth it considering the outcome. Even though he didn’t win, he still ended up with over $6 million to take home.
The Bottom Line
There’s no denying that Fedor Holz is one of the household names in the live and online poker worlds, with poker winnings exceeding well over $30 million. What’s next in store for him? Well, considering how his retirement plan ended and the fact that he can’t seem to stay away from the game, we can be sure to see more of him in the next few years, both online and during live poker tournaments.
