A long time coming
We’ve got another heads-up challenge on our hands. On Tuesday, Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz confirmed that he and Wiktor “Limitless” Malinowski will square off against each other. Few details have been made public except that the stakes will be $100/$200 (or Euro?) and apparently Malinowski will be imbibing.
The origins of the challenge go back to August 2020, when Run It Once hosted several top poker players in a series of €50/€100 heads-up matches called the “Legends Showdown.” Though retired from professional poker for several years, Holz participated, making it to the semifinals. Malinowski was supposed to participate, but backed out.
In an interview on Joey Ingram’s “Poker Life Podcast” shortly after the Legends Showdown, Malinowski talked trash about the winner, Kevin “KRab42” Rabichow, and, for whatever reason, issued a challenge to Holz.
“I can offer also playing drunk,” Malinowski added. “I can drink a full bottle of wine and I can play Fedor heads up any stakes he wants…I’m not gonna back off. If he wants to accept, no problem.”
A few weeks later, Holz $25,000 buy-in Heads-up No-Limit Hold’em event of the 2020 WSOP Online, prompting Malinowski to take to Twitter to challenge him yet again. He offered to go two tables of $200/$400 or $500/$1,000, even offering to pay Holz $1,000 per hour or 3bb/100. Oh, and he again said he would play drunk.
That escalated quickly
Fast forward to last week, when Holz finally responded, confirming that he is up for the challenge via a quick Twitter video. Malinowski replied via his own video, saying he would be willing to play against Holz’s best two students at the same time and warning, “Be careful what you wish for, man.”
Over the weekend, GGPoker got the hype train rolling, announcing, “The Prince of Poker vs The Notorious End Boss” will begin on March 5 and will be streamed on GGPoker.TV.
Holz himself added that viewers will be able to see the players’ cards and both he and Malinowski will be in a Zoom call for some table chat during the game.
Aside from the $100/$200 stakes, no additional information has been provided as to the game (I would assume No-Limit Hold’em, but Pot-Limit Omaha is always a possibility with nosebleed stakes players) or the number of hands they will go to. Holz did say that neither player is spotting the other any big blinds or anything like that, but Malinowski will be drinking.
Most seem to think that Malinowski has a massive advantage, as he has regularly crushed high stakes cash games online. Though Holz is a tremendous player, his forte is tournaments; he has won more than $18 million in live and online tourneys combined. Plus, though he still plays, he has not played full time in nearly five years.
