Fedor Holtz told Forbes all his secrets. Fedor Holz: genius from Germany Fedor Holz beginning of his career

Today we will tell you about a man who forever recorded his name in the archives of history. About a young poker talent whose success speaks for itself - Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holtz. This guy burst into the world of poker with a loud statement about himself and now almost everyone knows about him. But first things first.

Fedor Holz was born on July 25, 1993 in Germany, and in 2013, at the age of 20, he moved to Vienna (Austria). By the way, Fedor’s IQ level as a child was 155, which is very close to a genius. At the moment he is a little shorter and Fedor himself believes that he is getting stupider with age.

As the young prodigy himself mentioned more than once in numerous interviews, his family was not rich; they lived relatively poorly, but very amicably. Fedor grew up in the family of a policeman and a social worker. female workers They supported him in absolutely all his endeavors and now, having become a millionaire, he helps his parents and three younger sisters. With his first big win (winning the main event of the 2014 WCOOP championship), Holz bought his family a house in Germany. He admitted that it was this goal that motivated him to win the most, because he knew that it would help his family a lot and he really wanted to thank his relatives.

At the age of 18, while studying at the university, Fedor was not too happy with his life. Studying did not bring him positive emotions; he was quite bored. Two of his friends played Texas Hold'em poker and sometimes won. This was a good option for the student, and he decided to try it. Very quickly, he entered into a backing agreement with a man who saw him as a young talent and believed that he had great potential. As a result, Fedor dropped out of university to play poker.

But... The first year he had no results at all, and moreover, he played at a decent disadvantage!

At the same time, his backer found him an excellent and experienced MTT coach, whose name remains unknown. At the same time, Fedor’s level of play increased sharply, and he began to win. Obviously, training with a trainer took him to a new level.

A sharp leap in the career of our hero was the online series of WCOOP-2014 tournaments. He won the main poker tournament of this series and received $1,300,000 as a result of his final table deal. A week later, he won The Sunday Major on Full Tilt and added another $38,240 to his bankroll.

Such dramatic successes quickly raised him to the top ranking of online tournament players according to PocketFives. Moreover, he was recognized as the best twice (in 2014 and 2015).

In 2015, he also started playing in offline tournaments, and for good reason, he won over $7,000,000 that year!

2016 can easily be called the peak of Fedor Holz’s career. It started for him by winning the $200,000 Triton Super High Roller at the World Poker Tour National – Philippines on January 3-4. For first place, an amount of $3,463,500 was credited to his account. In May he went to Las Vegas. There, in 2 months in live tournaments, he won more than 10 million. He took 1st place in the High Roller for One Drop for $111,111 at the 2016 WSOP (about $5,000,000 in prize money), adding a WSOP bracelet to his existing titles. Took 2nd place in the Super High Roller Bowl for $300,000 ($3,500,000 winnings) and won three Aria High Roller tournaments. For the entire 2016, his profit was about $16,500,000.

In addition to a brand new World Series gold bracelet, he has three Pokerstars spades and two WPT live tournament titles. Online - champion of the WCOOP Main Event 2014 and second in the most expensive online tournament - WCOOP 2016 Super High-Roller for $102,000. Now he has almost 23 million dollars won in live tournaments and several million more earned on the Internet.

At the end of the same year, Fedor announced the end of his relatively short poker career. Now he plays more for fun. But even after his departure, he continues to win. Here are the young German's biggest wins in live tournaments throughout his career:

By the way, Fedor loves to travel and now that he has more free time and much more money, he can fully satisfy all his travel desires and not deny himself anything. The young player's particular passion is the mountains.

Fedor has always been interested in poker psychology and motivation, and after an incredible upswing in the first half of 2016, in the fall of 2016, the poker player, together with the famous psychologist Eliot Rowe, founded a company called Prime. In May 2017, they released the Primed Mind mobile application, which was received quite warmly in the market. The main objectives of the application are “to increase self-confidence, prepare for life’s challenges and help realize creative potential”

In 2016, Fedor Holz entered the top of the world's most profitable tournament players of all time (All Time Money List). At the moment, he is in 6th position in the ranking, ahead of the famous Phil Hellmuth and Sam Trickett, which the company’s marketers do not forget to talk about:

Many professionals call Fedor Holz a “real phenomenon”, because he managed to achieve tremendous success very quickly. His name is well known throughout the poker world. In September 2017, Holtz also became an ambassador for the PartyPoker team.

Well, we will continue to closely follow the life of the amazing German prodigy, because, despite his announcement of retirement from his poker career, he continues to perform and show good results.

Fedor’s example shows how much of an impact it has on the game and results.

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Interesting facts about Fedor Holz

Biography of Fedor Holtz

German Fedor Holz had already announced his retirement as a professional player in his early years, but not before he managed to forever write his name in the history of poker.

This native of the German city of Saarbrücken, who later moved to the capital of Austria, is considered one of the best tournament players in modern poker history, and Holtz has achieved significant achievements both in online poker and in the live tournament arena.

Thanks to his numerous successes online, Fedor twice in a row became the best online tournament player of the year according to PocketFives (in 2014 and 2015). As for offline performances, and specifically at the most prestigious tournament series in the world, the young German’s main achievements at the WSOP are second place in the Super High Roller Bowl tournament with a buy-in of $300,000 in 2016, which brought the player $3.5 million in prize money, and winning the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop at the WSOP of the same year, which gave him almost $5 million in prize money and the coveted gold bracelet for every player.

Fedor Holtz's poker journey began with home games with friends. However, shortly after he turned eighteen in 2011, the future star became acquainted with online poker and began to rapidly increase his skills. Holtz's progress did not go unnoticed, and in 2012 he acquired a respected backer in poker circles, who also began to help him improve his level of play.

Having achieved some success, Fedor was able to afford to play with his own money, and in 2013 he began traveling around the world to various poker tournaments. Africa, Asia, America and Europe, including all stages of the EPT...

Also in 2013, Fedor Holz himself began training players, and eventually achieved a high reputation among other poker coaches.

Best Player Achievements: Fedor Holtz

Latest results

In my youth has already completed his professional career. Later explaining that he meant that he no longer needed to earn a living from the game, since he had already provided for himself and his family for several decades to come.

Now the German poker player participates only in those that are interesting to him. Moreover, he gives greater preference to live sessions, having played only 790 hands in the online space last year.

Fedor Holtz - biography

The young star of world poker was born in Germany on July 25, 1993. At the age of 20 he moved to Vienna (Austria). Since childhood Holtz showed excellent results His IQ was 155. For example, the IQ of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein was 160. With age, Holtz's score decreased slightly. According to Fedor, this is due to age regression.

Fedor Holz is very loyal to journalists and fans. In his interviews, he repeatedly said that grew up in a poor family. Her mother worked as a social worker, and her father worked as a police officer. However, despite this, he characterizes his family as friendly and united. Parents motivated and supported me all the time future professional. Now that Fedor has earned enough money, he helps his family (he has two younger sisters).

Initially, Fedor Holz took poker seriously as a way to make money. Immediately after the first major skid, he fulfilled my childhood dream– gave my parents a house. It all started when, at the age of majority, he realized that he was not living his own life. Studying did not bring the guy pleasure and did not provide ways for self-realization, and besides, financial problems forced the guy look for possible options to improve the situation. At that time, two of his friends were already making money playing poker. He decided to try it too. And for good reason.

After some time, the guy was noticed and a couple of months after getting acquainted with poker, Fedor Holz already signed a contract. And then he left his studies, deciding to start a professional career.

Fedor Holz beginning of his career

It was under this pseudonym that Fedor began his professional journey. Based on the results of the first year he was at a big disadvantage. According to him, he felt strong pressure from the outside. Wanting to rectify the situation, the backer with whom the player collaborated hired a professional trainer for him by MTT. And it yielded results.

The first major victory – 1st place in the WCOOP online tournament in 2014 – helped increase the German’s bank account by $1,300,000. A few days later, Fedor Holz earned another $38,000 in the Full Tilt online tournament.

Continuing at the same pace, after some time he took his place among the most successful players in the online space. And for two years in a row (2014 and 2015) he became the leader.

Already at that time, Holtz realized that he was able to earn money and provide for himself and his family through poker, so he began to try himself in live tournaments. AND within a year he had $7 million in his piggy bank profit from life performances.

Best year

The most 2016 was a successful year for Fedor. Earlier this year, he won a Philippine tournament and took home almost $3.5 million in prize money. In May, he went to a two-month series of tournaments in Las Vegas, where he received his first well-deserved bracelet and $5 million from the very beginning. A few days later, he took second place and $3.5 million in another high-stakes tournament. For 2016 Fedor Holtz earned a total of almost $17 million.

In addition to the WSOP gold bracelet, the young genius has three spades and 2 WPT titles. In addition to live performances, Fedor also skates online: the total winnings are about 2.5 million dollars.

At the end of Holz's most successful year announces the end of his professional career, that doesn't stop him from continuing to win. Now the guy plays only for his own pleasure. At the recent Million Dollar Big One for One Drop at the World Series of Poker, Fedor took second place and took home $6 million in prize money.

• Besides poker Fedor Holtz loves to travel. Now that he has earned enough money, he spends virtually no time at home. Most of all, Fedor loves the mountains.
• Since childhood, Holtz has been interested in psychology. In 2017, together with psychologist Eliot Rowe, Fedor founded a company and released a phone application that helps people who lack self-confidence - Primed Mind.
• In his successful year, Fedor Holz surpassed even Phil Hellmuth and Sam Trickett in terms of earnings and took sixth place in the ranking of the richest poker players.
• In the poker community he is called a “real phenomenon.”
• Last year he became the face of PartyPoker.

Best Achievements

• First place and winning $4,981,775 at the 2016 WSOP No Limit Hold'em Opening Event #67 in Las Vegas.
• Second place and winning $3,500,000 in the 2016 $300,000 No Limit Hold'em High Roller Tournament with 888poker in Las Vegas.
• First place and $3,463,500 in prize money in 2016 in the No Limit Hold'em Triton Super High Roller Series (Event #3) tournament in the Philippines.
• Won $1,589,219 in the 2015 WPT Alpha 8 $100,000 No Limit Hold'em High Roller Event #18 in Las Vegas.
• First place and $1,473,127 in prize money in the €48.5K buy-in No Limit Hold'em High Roller EPT13 – ESPT – 7 in Barcelona.

On July 25, 2017, one of the most successful and at the same time promising professional poker players of our time celebrated his next birthday. It’s a little confusing, and some may even break the stereotypes, but Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz is no less than 24 years old. It seems like no one, let alone Fedor Holtz, probably had to rack his brains over the financial component and sacrifice anything in order to throw exactly the kind of party on the occasion of his birthday that he wanted to do for this special day of his.

Just before his birthday, the German professional poker player gave himself a nice gift. Less than ten days before the holiday, Fedor Holz won another major no-limit hold'em tournament, HK$250,000 No Limit Hold'em - 6 Max at the Triton Super High Roller Series 2017 and received HK$3,472,200 ($444,893) as a first place prize. Now the total career winnings in live poker tournaments of a native of the German city of Saarbrücken (Saarbrückenв) is $23,354,887.And this is at the age of 24!!!

In the All Time Money List ranking, Fedor Holz now occupies a high sixth place. He only needs to win about $500,000 and he will break into the top five most successful poker players of all time. Just some $500,000 and he will surpass no one else on this list, but the legendary Phillip D. Ivey.

And if in the world ranking Fedor Holz is still only in the middle of the top ten, then in the anthological ranking among German players he has long been without equal. In the Germany All Time Money List ranking, he has already managed to confidently take the lead and break away from his closest pursuers by more than $9 million.

In just the last two years, Fedor Holtz has exploded to the top, becoming one of the most recognizable and most popular professional poker players. In just the last two years, he has managed to carve out a strong place for himself on the poker Olympus, where the brightest and most successful poker professionals are located, traveling around the world in search of live poker tournaments with the highest prize pools.

Not every professional poker player is as young and as successful as Fedor Holz. Fedor Holz is a professional poker player who has made his success story into a story worthy of emulation. All fans of Fedor Holz's talent sincerely hope that his current success story is just the beginning of a story that will turn into the story of one of the greatest poker players in the world.

In a very short period of time, within the framework of a person’s conscious life path, Fyodor Holtz has already managed to achieve quite a lot of success in life and amass quite a fortune. What's even more amazing about his story is the fact that he only started playing poker four or five years ago. Of course, his success story could not go unnoticed in the circles of the rich and famous of this world. The most fashionable business publication of our time, Forbes, also became interested in the success story of Fedor Holtz.

A few days before his 24th birthday, Forbes journalist interviewed Fedor Holtz. Well, as a journalist. (To be honest, I have long had the impression that “mere mortals” don’t write for Forbes. There is probably a brutal three-day casting for the position of a garbage collector, with a careful pre-selection based on a resume. That’s it. Stop. Enough humor. Sorry, but couldn’t resist.) Journalist Darren Heitner interviewed Fedor Holtz and acted as the author of an article in Forbes.

No, I still think it’s necessary to give a brief background on the journalist, so that the reader of the article has an idea of ​​how seriously Forbes took the creation of the material about Fedor Holtz. Darren Adam Heitner, Esq.: Graduate of the University of Florida. He holds a BA and PhD from the University of Florida. Professor in the Department of Sports Law at the University of Florida. Founder and editor-in-chief of Sports Agent Blog. Founder and CEO of Dynasty Dealings, LLC. Author of the acclaimed book "How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know" ". well, etc.

So what did one multimillionaire interview another about and what opinion about Fedor Holtz did Darren Heitner express in his article.

Darren Heitner: "What helped you become one of the best professional poker players in the world? What is the main secret of your meteoric rise and why exactly did you manage to achieve such success where millions of others never achieve even a fraction of that in their entire lives? , what have you managed to achieve in just a few years?

Fedor Holtz: “The key success factor for me was my social circle. I think it’s a good idea to share your thoughts, conclusions and ideas with other people interested in this. With people who can understand you and benefit from your discoveries for themselves. Now I’m sharing some of your thoughts to you. Then you will share them with someone else, and this will happen further and in geometric progression. I believe that it is much better for everyone if you are surrounded by people with whom you can share your thoughts, conclusions and ideas. You "Share your thoughts, findings and ideas with those around you and get the same in return from your social circle. This is much more effective for you and allows you to reap greater benefits than if you try to benefit from your thoughts, findings and ideas on your own."

"Even now I spend a lot of time on forums communicating mostly with the same people. I share my thoughts with them and they share theirs in return. Everyone draws certain conclusions from this. We all started our journey with low limits. For It’s even a little surprising for me now to see how we have progressed together from this communication. Now we travel together and play in tournaments with the highest buy-ins. At the same time, we continue to communicate in the same way and share our thoughts, conclusions and ideas without only live, but also online."

Darren: “I understand that your main contacts in your social circle are Steffen Sontheimer, Rainer Kempe and Koray Aldemir. People, how does your total career winnings in live poker tournaments compare well with yours? "

Fedor: “No, not only. I still communicate on many forums. For example, Skype is my large database of contacts of completely different poker players. By and large, it all started with communication on Skype. My blog and the blogs of other poker players also played an important role for me. You write your own blog and share your thoughts about your game. Other people read it. You read the blogs of other poker players. Write comments on the blogs. Draw certain conclusions for yourself and establish closer contact with the players you consider enough smart and reasonable. You start communicating with them using, for example, Skype and already share with each other thoughts, conclusions and ideas about specific strategies."

Darren: " It seems that your social circle has helped you gain considerable benefit from communication. Now your financial situation is such that issues of personal security should play an important role for you. Don’t you think it’s time for you to limit your social circle and your personal space based on issues of financial security?”

Fedor: “It’s very sad for me to see how people limit themselves in everything, guided solely by issues of financial security. I am by nature a very sociable person. I have many fairly close people and friends with whom I continue to communicate as before. Having a good financial "Only one thing changed the situation for me. Money gave me complete freedom regarding the choice of my plans for further actions. I really like to be independent and not think about the financial component of what I plan to do."

Darren: "What freedom are you talking about?"

Fedor: " Previously, I could not afford such freedom of action as now. So in 2015 and 2016 I made almost 200 flights a year. During these two years, I never lived in one place for more than a week. For almost two years I just lived non-stop. I lived only by constantly playing and earning money."

"Now I can afford the tournament schedule that I want. I can now play a lot less live poker tournaments and focus a lot more on creating and running my own business, away from the poker table."

Darren: "You recently released your own mobile application "Primed Mind", which, according to your statements, should help others achieve success by improving their thinking. As far as I understand, "Primed Mind" is quite universal and adapted to various situations. "Primed Mind" contains Quite a lot of functionality for various areas of application. Your application is quite in demand and over the past two months more than 20,000 people have downloaded it."

Fedor: “My global idea is to create an umbrella company that would help people in various situations, based on experience and knowledge taken from poker. Our first sign “Primed Mind” is a training application. It contains a knowledge base that helped me achieve success. The base that I have been successfully using in poker for about two years now.. "Primed Mind" has more than 100 different courses that are structured depending on the situation."

Darren:“So you think that mindset is always the determining factor? It turns out that you, a professional poker player, believe that success at the poker table requires much more skill, why?”

Fedor:"I think that live poker is very similar to trading in the stock market. The better a person understands how all financial instruments work, the easier it is for him to succeed in trading securities or stocks. If a person understands well the work of all financial instruments, then there will be no fluctuations in quotes he is not afraid and will still succeed.".

Darren: "How do you see the future of poker and its online format in particular?

Fedor:"I think that there is definitely a future for live poker. Live poker still has many prospects and options for development. But online poker has no future. Eventually there will come a time when poker will be completely solved by the computer. After that, online poker will not live long "It will just die. You can see for yourself how online play at high limits is slowly dying. A new "poker boom" may help for a while, but for this it is necessary that either the USA or China officially legalize online poker."

A popular question among poker players: how much time does Fedor devote to training? Holtz replied that he had always been serious about his studies. Theory takes up approximately 30-50% of poker time. The studies include: communication on the forum and video lectures. Among the training videos, the high roller recommended Run It Once, the channels Sauce123 and Phil Galfond. Fedor is also interested in solvers, which help him better understand the structure of the game.

How Holtz got into poker

The most common question poker pros hear is: “How did you decide to become a gambler and do you have a “backup” job?” Fedor patiently explained once again how he became interested in poker:

“It all started in 2011 with a home game with friends at micro-stakes. The next year I studied poker more diligently. I don't have a backup plan, I'm just desperate for the game."

How much does Fedor invest in high-stack?

One of the players asked Holtz a question that has long interested the poker community: how much money does Fedor invest on his own at high limits? Usually he is wary of questions about money, but on the Internet he decided to satisfy the curiosity of his colleagues:

“It depends on the tournament or my advantage over the field. Approximately 40-150 thousand dollars.”

The most difficult limit

Holtz spent the first two years of his poker career at micro-stakes. Then Fedor, due to his improved skill in discussing strategy on forums, switched to medium limits. Backers began to sponsor the poker player, and Holtz finished the next year and a half with a slight plus. For the last three years, Fedor has been riding high-stakes.

“The most difficult were the low and mid stakes. Instability to tilt, psychological and financial instability. To achieve the success we have had to spend a lot of energy and build the right environment.”

A player asked Fedor when in live poker it is better to fold, stay in the game, leave the table or run away:

“Fold when your opponents drink. Stay in the hand when they are looking at one point. Change the table when your opponents start to smell bad. Just run away very quickly!”

In the same comment thread, a poker player asked if Holtz was counting his stack at the table:

“I count and hide behind small chips about 10,000.”

The high roller named the most expensive closed cash game in which Fedor participated was a table with blinds of €4,000/€8,000.

Tels in live poker

The interlocutors asked the high roller whether he notices tells in an offline game and what gestures he considers the most telling.

“I take all gestures, facial expressions, and actions in live poker seriously. I think all players need to know their opponents' tells and adapt to them. I look at the eye movements, the breathing, the way the chips move into the pot, the sweat on my fingers and forehead. Emotions are also revealed by other body movements and changes in posture.”

The most common leak Holtz said was weak defense from the big blind.

Relation to MTT

In multi-table tournaments, Fedor always tries to maintain rational thinking in order to remain tilt-resistant and get closer to winning. Playing on MTT is very different from other formats, so consistent poker players have a huge advantage over their opponents, especially at the final table.

Holtz, in descending order, named the most important factors for a winning game on MTT: balance, reading hands and opponents' range, exploiting opponents, aggression and deception of opponents.

The Importance of Natural Abilities

In the comments, they asked how Fedor’s natural talent influences his success in poker, and what strategy he will choose for cash at low limits.

“My natural talents give me a 5.1% advantage over other players. But the abilities are not associated with poker skills or natural analytical thinking, but with the ability to learn and process a large amount of information. I don’t come up with strategies from scratch, but study what already exists.”

Holtz was asked to give some advice to players who want to become profitable regulars and make money playing poker. According to Fedor, it is important for beginners to make friends with strong poker players in order to discuss strategies and exchange opinions on hands. You need to develop in all directions: game analysis, tilt resistance, reading opponents, etc.

“I don't care how other players behave. I became emotionally distant even from my own gains and losses. I really don't care. It is also important to remain consistent in your strategy. None of this always works, but you have to stay true to your tactics.”

Fedor about other poker players

Poker players asked if Holtz would play heads-up with Isildur in a mixed poker game consisting of eight disciplines.

"Yes, if hold'em goes the first six hands."

Then Fedor was asked what kind of 9-mach final table he dreamed of.

“Four Phil Hellmuths before me, me, four Phil Hellmuths after me.”

Holtz never explained why he would like to play with eight Phil Hellmuth clones...

Relationship with cash games

Fedor called himself a tournament player who rarely plays cash games. Playing for cash is of interest to a poker player if the limits are very high and only familiar opponents participate. Holtz prefers cash games without antes. The strategy is almost no different from the tactics at tournaments, Fedor just skates with a stronger range.