Fedor Holz talked the talk, and backed his mouth up in a heads-up poker battle against online pro Wiktor Malinowski. The German superstar lost the final of four matches, but came out victorious overall by over $90,000.
The poker pros competed in just four sessions of online play at GGPoker. Compared to many other heads-up challenges such as Doug Polk vs. Daniel Negreanu, which lasted 25,000 hands, this one was a quickie. Play began last week and concluded on Saturday. They competed at $100/$200 stakes.
Prior to the start of the challenge, they both engaged in some friendly trash talk. Malinowski called out Holz last summer on Joey Ingram’s YouTube podcast. He claimed he would play anyone heads-up at high-stakes while drinking alcohol.
The Polish poker pro held true to his word as he indulged in a few adult beverages during his match with Fedor Holz, one of the top live tournament pros in history. But he didn’t back his talk up by actually winning the challenge, although variance was a significant factor given the small sample size of hands played.
Fedor Holz is Really Good at Poker
Despite Polk’s recent disrespect of Holz’s game — he said he’s lousy at heads-up poker — the German pro is one of the most accomplished players ever, and he’s still only 27. With over $32 million in live tournament cashes and millions more won online, he’s destined for the Poker Hall of Fame when he turns 40.
This past week, he continued his winning ways against “Limitless,” who is considered a top six-max online no-limit hold’em player. Holz lost the final session by more than $60,000, but won the overall match by $90,374, the equivalent of 4.5 buy-ins.
If you haven’t followed the match and want to get caught up on what you missed, the GGPoker YouTube channel live-streamed all four sessions. Joey Ingram handled the commentary duty throughout. Both players competed during the challenge while on Zoom.
Holz referred to the final day of the match as the “least focus of the four sessions.” He said during his post-game interview that he had spent the previous day opening boxes of Pokemon cards and that may have contributed to his lack of focus on Saturday. Or, it’s just an excuse. You can be the judge on that.
