If you’re not familiar with Holz let me remind you. He’s Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz, winner of the WCOOP Main Event in 2014 and a non-stop force in European poker. Based on this week we might be saying “world” poker before too long.
“It’s apparently going pretty good,” he said. “I’ve been grinding for five weeks now so this feels really good.”
That might seem like a long trip, but when you’re making your first visit to Las Vegas as a professional you want to make the most of it. So far he’s done just that, with three cashes, most notably a third place finish in the six-handed Championship worth $268,463. That’s taken his live tournament earning for this year alone up to nearly $1.5 million – give or take a pending Main Event cash.
However much this Vegas experience has been fun though (although he admits it’s not his first choice geographically), there’s no escaping the fact that the grind is a pressurized one, and comes after what was already a busy year on the road.
“I will definitely recover a little after this,” he said. “It’s actually way tougher than I thought it would be. I’m quite exhausted right now. But I can look over this and just like focus on this one and then after that I’ll take one or two weeks off.”
That will involve heading home to Vienna where he’s just bought a place and he plans to be in it long enough to call it a home.
“But still, you just can’t stop when you love poker.”
Right now the game is loving him back.
Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.
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