The name of Fedor Holz has sparked furor, and not only in the world of gambling. Any young-billionaire story is always in the spotlight. People like such stories. There are many emotions — from envy to adoration, from sheer surprise to deep interest, and of course, an earnest wish to learn and follow the example of the hero! Especially if the story contains not only pure luck but also an obvious touch of the brilliance of the hero’s mind, and a real capacity to solve very difficult problems. All this could pretty much sum up the case of Fedor Holz.
At the age of 21, he was already ranked as the best online poker player. And among the highest ranked live tournament players on the Global Poker Index, he currently holds a remarkable 4th position. In December 2017, his winnings in live tournaments exceeded $26,700,000; having also gained overall career-long tournament winnings of more than $32,550,000. All this might seem almost unthinkable for 25-year old poker player! You would have to be a genius to achieve this. But then again, maybe he is one! Take his nickname he has chosen to play online — CrownUpGuy. Who would take such a nickname? Someone who, at the very least, is an extraordinarily inventive person!
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The Success of CrownUpGuy
“Fedor Holz” and “CrownUpGuy” are now brands. Or even one brand. Not only recognizable and widely known but also a true symbol of a colossal and well-deserved success story of the gambling world! The story of him winning one tournament after another and giving tons of fantastic performances online is already well worth studying for a diligent aspiring gambler. Indeed, plenty of books have been written (and movies made!) about some far less successful and remarkable gamblers. But perhaps, even now, the time of Fedor Holz hasn’t truly come — because this story is still perhaps a little bit too recent, and probably a bit too difficult for everyone to comprehend just at once.
In fact, the time for films is already coming. There is a 7-series documentary film titled “In the Life of a Champion,” fully devoted to the phenomenon of Fedor Holz. It was produced in 2017. But it is definitely only the first one in a row of further media projects that have yet to be produced about the story of CrownUpGuy.
In January 2016, he won Triton Super High Roller at the World Poker Tour National — the Philippines. His initial buy-in of $200,000 turned into $3,463,500. In May, CrownUpGuy came to Las Vegas, where he won about $10,000,000 in no more than two months. His WSOP bracelet immediately followed — the most prestigious non-monetary prize of World Series of Poker. Then he won some other best tournaments and great prizes, including his $3,500,000 won in Super High Roller Bowl — the annual high-stakes poker tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In September 2018, Fedor Holz was placed 4th in the list of most-winning poker players. There are only three players in the world who have earned more than him. In Germany, he entered the Forbes list of the top richest young people under 30 years old.
And his winning streak never ended, even though he announced his retirement after winning the bracelet. He still plays and wins, although not as often as in 2015-2016. This guy is a winner, who wins everywhere he competes with other players.
The Life of Fedor Holz
His biography is not full of extraordinary events — quite apart from his poker breakthrough, of course. This young man was born on the 25th of July in 1993 in Saarbrücken, the administrative center and largest city of Saarland, Germany, which located very close to the French border. His surname “Holz” in the German language means “wood.” He moved to Vienna, Austria, in 2013. He says his family was friendly and loving, supporting him in his every undertaking, including poker — the latter, by the way, is something not every family would support you in if you wanted to pursue this path! This attitude turned out to be the right attitude, as now Fedor can support his three younger sisters and the parents. In 2014, having won the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP, the largest online poker tournament sponsored by PokerStars), he has bought his family a house in Germany.
He has a nice girlfriend called Sofia. He likes to travel, and especially enjoys mountain hiking, which is one of his most favorite activities. This is very interesting, as many renowned for their mental clarity do love hiking, too. It really helps to keep the brain in gear. It also helps to clear the perception and sharpen the senses.
He really needs this hiking, and not just for the sake of his poker success either. This young man certainly has big plans for his time on Earth. Together with his friends, he founded a company called Prime in 2016. They came up with a mobile application called Primed Mind. The market appreciated the product, but this is only the beginning. And this is only a short brief about his entrepreneurial activity, ambitious, extensive and quite promising. But how did he come to be the kind of man he is?
How He Did It
Surprisingly, he started to play poker only a couple of years before he started taking the gambling community by storm. But he was pretty serious about it, learning the game as intensively and passionately as he could, and doing a lot of research. Well, passion and intensity in learning is the key to success, after all! Many people know this, and many people act on this knowledge, but not many of them gain such results. So there has to be a secret, right?
Fedor Holz says the secret is his network. He shared his research with his friends — Steffen Sontheimer, Rainer Kempe, and Koray Aldemir. They began playing poker together, first starting on lower stakes, and then traveling around the world to play highest-stakes poker tournaments. Since the very beginning, his friends were also coming up with ideas; they discussed and invented these ideas together. This is the power of networking that gave them a big advantage over the players who started on their own. As a result, all of them won a lot of money, but Fedor Holz won about as much as his three friends did.
Indeed, networking is a great thing. Blogging, chatting and skyping, exchanging and examining ideas, forming up a pool of like-minded people is a great advantage as it gives a good chance to grope for a winning algorithm, strategy, and tactics. But maybe Holz knows something else?
We will see. It is very likely that this young man will keep on bemusing the world.
For everybody who wants to know more — go to his Twitter and Instagram and look through Fedor Holz 2019 plans, thoughts and other information available in his posts.
