Fedor Holz came out of his very brief “retirement” to do what he does best on Monday: win a major poker tournament. The 23-year old German high stakes pro was the last man standing in the €50,000 EPT Barcelona Super High Roller. He took home €1,300,000 ($1,471,170).
For Holz, seven-figure paydays are about as common as a sunny day in California. Holz is less than a million shy of the $20 million lifetime live tournament winnings mark. He’s now within dollars of catching Sam Trickett for 8th place on the all-time money list. And he’s done that in just a few short years.
Daniel Negreanu tops the chart with just under $33 million. Many have said he will never be caught. But, at this rate, Fedor won’t just catch him, he’ll cruise past Kid Poker and leave him in the dust, possibly before he turns 30.
But there might be one thing getting in his way of chasing Negreanu. Holz recently claimed he has retired from poker. That retirement lasted about one month. He couldn’t refrain from heading to Barcelona to compete against some of the best players in the world. The rest of the field is probably wishing he had stayed home, counting his money.
The Final Table
Holz didn’t beat out a final table full of fish. Some of the best players in the world, including the legendary Erik Seidel, had to be defeated in order to win this event. Seidel busted out in 9th place. He began the final day with the smallest stack, and was unable to do anything much to improve it.
It was Sam Greenwood who finished 2nd. The final hand gave Holz quite a sweat. Greenwood shoved his remaining 3,125,000 chips in pre-flop with 6♥5♥ and was quickly called by Fedor’s A♦K♥.
The K♣9♦7♠ flop gave Holz top pair and his opponent drawing to a gut shot straight. But the 4♣ on the turn gave Greenwood more hope, with an open-ended straight draw. Fortunately, Fedor has a talent for dodging bullets. The Q♦ gave him the hand and the tournament title. Greenwood earned €903,000 ($1,022,105) as a consolation prize.
Timothy Adams (3rd), Alexandros Kolonias (4th), Ahadpur Khangah (5th), Sylvain Loosli (6th), Daniel Dvoress (7th), Julian Stuer (8th), and the aforementioned Seidel in 9th, rounded out the final table. There were 13 players who finished in the money altogether.
Summer of the Best
Many consider this to be “The Summer of Mercier”, but Holz’s performance since June may have been the best. It all started right before the WSOP with a 2nd place sweep in the $300,000 buy-in Aria Super High Roller for $3,500,000.
He then won a pair of $25,000 high roller events and a $50,000 high roller tournament at Aria in June for six-figure paydays. Then, in early July, he took 3rd in another $50,000 Aria high roller tournament for $407,000.
But that wasn’t enough for the German. Fedor’s biggest win ever came in the $111,111 High Roller for One Drop event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), right before the Main Event started in July. The pro won $4,981,775 in that one. That’s three seven-figure wins in one summer. Not too shabby for a “retired” poker player. Not too shabby at all.
