German High-Roller Legend Steps Back After Six Years, But Won’t Disappear From the Table Entirely
Fedor Holz is closing one chapter. The 32-year-old German pro confirmed he will not renew his ambassador contract with GGPoker after six years with the platform, a move he described on X as part of a deliberate life pivot rather than a farewell to poker.
“Trying to have kids this year and I’m launching an investment fund, so that will be my full focus going forward,” Holz wrote, giving his followers a candid look at what is pulling him away from the grind.
The announcement caught many by surprise. Holz sits at the top of Germany’s all-time live tournament earnings list with more than $50 million in cashes, per The Hendon Mob, a figure that includes two WSOP bracelets and three Triton Poker titles. Walking away from a brand deal at that level of profile is not a decision most ambassadors make quietly, and Holz did not.
The Career Behind the Decision
His 2016 run remains the benchmark most people reach for when his name comes up. Holz recorded over $16 million in live cashes that year, the third-highest single-season total in history at the time, behind only Antonio Esfandiari’s $19 million in 2012 and Dan Colman’s $22 million in 2014. He was 22 years old.
The groundwork was laid in 2015. He ran deep in two PokerStars EPT events, finished 25th in the WSOP Main Event, and closed the year taking down the $100,000 WPT Alpha8 for $1,589,219. What looked like a breakout turned out to be a warmup.
After 2016, Holz gradually dialed back the tournament schedule. He signed with PartyPoker in 2017, moved to GGPoker a couple of years later, and kept posting seven-figure cashes while building business interests outside the game. The poker world still saw him regularly, just not everywhere.
One of the more notable results from that later stretch came in 2018, when Justin Bonomo defeated Holz heads-up in the $1 million buy-in WSOP Big One for One Drop, banking $10 million in the process. Bonomo also broke Colman’s single-year record that year with over $25 million in cashes. Bryn Kenney then set the current mark with $30 million in 2019.
He Is Not Done
Holz made clear the step back is not a full stop. He wrote on X that he plans to make one to two trips per year to Triton events, which means the high-roller world has not seen the last of him.
What form the rest of his poker career takes, whether that includes WSOP Main Event runs or the occasional PGT high-roller, remains an open question. But the ambassador era is over, and the next one, built around family and finance, is already underway.
