Fedor Holz Poker Masters Documentary: Episode 1
Get a glimpse into the “Life of a Champion” as cameras follow Fedor Holz on Day 1 of the Poker Masters. A bit jetlagged and content after a Vegas club night out to celebrate a couple friends’ birthdays, Holz gears up for the series by stocking up some healthy food options after getting up too early on the morning of Event #1.
Holz Takes Care of Business
Before the tournament begins, Holz meets with some entrepeneurs about a possible business investment and does a quick interview with Remko Rinkema. He tells Rinkema he’s been up to a lot different things including short trips and meeting entrepreneurs. He’s enjoying getting to know a completely new area, and spending time at his office in Vienna developing an app and other projects.
For Holz, his changing involvement with poker doesn’t involve missing out on a prestigious high roller series offered at Aria.
“I just love poker. I mean that’s not going away. It’s more in what shape it comes.”
According to Holz, he will still travel for events like this one that are “really competitive” and of “high quality.” His expectations of the Poker Masters is that it will be fun and “action-packed,” but not too much unlike the regular high roller events he is used to with the same pool of 30-35 players.
He says he’s especially excited to play against his fellow Germans and as far as side action goes, he got the maximum of himself as he is confident he’s going to win the Purple Jacket. As Holz heads to register the event, he runs into Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu at the cashier cage window, where some more side action on the tournament is discussed.
A Bumpy Start Smoothing Out
Holz busted two bullets in Event #1 “pretty quickly” and ended up sleeping until around 3 a.m. still battling with jet lag. As he lay in bed watching Overwatch online, Holz tells the camera that four of the seven German contingency made the first final table, which Holz thinks is “pretty pretty awesome” and he wishes them luck.
While a German did not end up winning Event #1, three of them have a chance to take down Event #2 currently sitting in the number one, number two, and number four spots in the final seven to begin the final table today at 2 p.m.
In the number two spot? Fedor Holz.
Needless to say, Event #2 has been going much better than the first one for Holz, who multiplied his starting stack by four by the time of the final table of nine redraw. He went in fourth in chips with 490,000 but had a big deficit to cover as Tom Marchese had just over 2 million.
Holz was able to chip up in the last couple levels of the night, in part by taking a few pots from Phil Hellmuth. With eight remaining, Holz check-raised from the small blind on a flop of Q♦9♥2♥ after Hellmuth continuation bet in position, prompting folds from Adrian Mateos in the big blind and Hellmuth, who said to Holz, “You always have it huh?” before mucking pocket tens face up.
Holz showed his inferior pocket sevens before taking that pot, and shortly thereafter, Holz eliminated Dan Shak in eighth place with pocket sevens (again) after he flopped a set against Shak’s ace-five suited.
Holz finished with 1,138,000 to put him second in chips for Day 2, not far behind fellow countryman Christian Christner. Time will tell if Holz can get his name toward the top of the Poker Masters leaderboard today with three tournaments still to go. With $125,000 locked up, Holz undoubtedly has his sights set on the top prize of $900,000.
You can follow Holz’s progress in the event by reading the live updates and watching the livestreamed final table action on PokerGO.
