Fedor Holz Wins One Drop Tournament

With all the talk and hype surrounding Jason Mercier at the WSOP, Fedor Holz is arguably the best poker player in the world at this time. Mercier is well-deserved of the praise with his 2 WSOP bracelets and 3 final tables; but Holz is winning every high roller event put in front of him. His epic run started back in January of 2016 with a win at the WPT Philippines $200,000 buy in when he won the tournament, and over $3 million. The 22-year-old German professional seemed to find his niche with high buy ins in 2016. He would make final table after final table in high roller events leading up to his One Drop victory. These include 2nd place in the $300,000 buy in Super High Roller Bowl for $3.5 million. Three days later he would win the $50,000 buy in Super High Roller Bowl for another $637,000. In a span of 2 weeks, he would win 2 more Super High Roller Bowls and place 3rd in another. Mind you, this is all while the WSOP is taking place. His focus was not solely on the Super High Roller Bowls, although no one would fault him it had been. He did play many of the WSOP events in between with limited success. His best finish before entering the One Drop was an 18th place in a 6 max tournament. On July 10th 2016, Holz would prove that he deserves to be in the same class as the best in the world. His victory in the One Drop showed his dominance once again. A total of 183 of the best poker players in the world paid the $111,111 entry fee to create a prize pool of over $19 million. The final table included a surprising field void of any big names. Scott Seiver, Joseph Mckeehen, and Nick Petrangelo were perhaps the only recognizable names at the final table. It would take Holz less than half an hour to defeat Dan Smith heads up and take home the first place prize of almost $5 million. The victory would be his largest cash to date, and his fist WSOP bracelet. Holz's 8 career titles and 53 cashes amount to a staggering $18,3 million in lifetime tournament winnings. An absurd amount for anyone, but for someone at the age of 22, its almost unbelievable. The One Drop has helped propel many players in to the top 20 all-time money winners. With its enormous prize pool, a victory can easily help a player jump up a few spots. With Holz, his almost $5 million win puts him in 9th place on the all-time tournament winnings leaderboard. Ironically, he sites right behind One Drop Runner Up Sam Trickett.