I turned 40$ into over 1 Million! AMA
Hey everyone,
I'm Elias Holloway, a highstakes professional which climbed all the way from nl2 to nl20k.
Proof:
14.2bb WR /100 from nl2-nl20k
My (long) story:
I started playing poker 8 years ago, first on Zynga Poker on Facebook, which I soon managed to beat (play money). Then I took a chance and deposited €20, which was a lot for me back then. I've always loved games, and I thought if I got good enough at poker, I might just escape my designated boring life (forced to go to some college even though I always hated school!). I devoured every book I could find in my local library and kept practicing. Jumping into real money games was tough, though. After about 2 months at NL2, I was broke, but I wasn't ready to give up. I deposited another €20, and this time, luck was on my side. I tried out a lot in the beginning, and one day, I got lucky and binked a €1 tournament for a total of around €82.
For me, this win was gold. I stood there screaming for like 5 minutes straight, jumping up and down in my room. I don't think I've ever felt that happy again after a session, not even after my €65k Euro session last winter. I had a few friends watching me on Skype, and by the end of my excitement, everyone had me muted because I just went crazy, haha. Unfortunately, the luck didn't last long. Of course, I was just lucky. I mean, I had AA 4 times just on the final table! But this win gave me enough money to keep grinding NL2 until I finally managed to beat it.
Over the next 2 years, I dedicated most of my time to poker. I won around €10k while still underage, playing on accounts from older friends. My school, my family, and everyone I knew thought I was crazy. Everyone told me I was wasting my talent. Things with my girlfriend got ugly because I didn't have enough time for her, and neither she nor her family believed in me. I started skipping school a lot, but I knew what I wanted. So, 3 days before my 18th birthday, I signed up for Best Poker Coaching (BPC).
In the first few months, results didn't come in. It was a hard time. I had 3-5 coachings a week, mostly during school time. I had to play 35-40 hours per week, and it was MY FINAL YEAR! I missed 700-800 hours of school and slept an average of maybe 3-4 hours. During 10-minute breaks, I went into an empty class with an alarm to catch some sleep. At one point, I even tried to get my sleep rhythm down to 2 hours a day with sleeping 6x 20 minutes. But nothing... I struggled to go beyond nl10 Zoom with my new coach.
In December 2017, my Zoom coach told me they were looking for heads up students, and I should start there, but the requirement was a 1500€ BR. Since I saved and locked away some money I won, spent some on coaching, and some on partying, I had barely 700-800€ left. But nobody knew, so I said I wanted to switch, and then things started to change!
I found my coach, Gordon, whom I only knew from the old videos he recorded back when he was still actively coaching in BPC, and he opened my eyes. Finally, someone explained poker to me in a language I understood. I remember sitting there and couldn't believe what I heard. If he's right, I AM GOING TO BE RICH!!! And he was right.
FAST FORWARD exactly 1 year after I joined BPC ->
Achivements
AUG 2018 - because of a heater, I had my first €10k month in just 2 weeks playing already nl400 back then. I partied for the rest of the month and moved up to nl600.
DEZ 2018 - 28k month (nl1k)
And then I actually did not progress for a long time. I traveled a lot. My few k investments I had always went really well, and when I needed money, I just played a bit of Poker... I thought I am a god, I guess. And so I threw all I had, roughly 30k at this point (my nl1k BR), into a single stock!
WIRECARD. THE BIGGEST FRAUD IN GERMAN HISTORY.
2020 - So there I was. Broke once more.
I sold the ounce of gold I had left and started on nl50 again. Lucky me while I was a horrible investor, I was still good at poker.
Just 2 months later, I was back at nl1k, shooting aggressively with 15BI shots. But this time, I kept grinding and playing. I set a goal to become a millionaire by 25!
2020 - €92k Dez (100k$+ :P) (nl8k?!)
2023 - €250k in 3.5 months, €65k Euro DAY (nl20k)
Total winnings: €1-€1.5 Million Euro
Now: AMA!:
PS: If you know anyone who might be interested in my AMA, feel free to share the link and spread the word. The more, the better!
Looking forward to chatting with all of you!
Elias Holloway
6 Replies
You've only played 450k hands lifetime?
No, I've played millions of hands. I played Zoom at the beginning, but I didn't earn much (only around $10k in 2 years) before getting coaching. The graph tracks my progress since I started coaching (6 years ago), but there are missing records from different sites for various reasons. I've probably played 3 times more hands and earned 3 times more profit. The graph shows roughly $400-500k, but I've won over a million.
I imagine you'd highly recommend coaching then? I've finally started to consider the possibility for myself but playing only live not sure it'd add as much value given I think optimal play is more about exploiting specific player tendencies.
I think you are 100% right. Optimal play at every stake is about exploiting opponents to the maximum extent. GTO is far off from reality unless you're grinding against high-stakes pros. I only teach exploitative play up to NL1k. Of course, you still need a good baseline game plan, but afterward, you should try to adapt to each opponent using HUD and showdowns!
I do give coaching, but only to committed players in the form of coaching for profit—you can check it out here: gopokerpro.com.
The problem I see a lot of players struggling with is that they don't know what the right play is. They look around, hear about GTO, and try to copy it (often very poorly), not realizing that the reason they don't make money isn't that they aren't copying GTO well enough, but because they aren't fully exploiting every opponent's mistake. Rake is huge, and just trying to mimic GTO isn't +EV enough; you need those exploits for a high WR.
1) No, I do not want to do that. One of the big reasons I do not stream...
2) I am traveling at the moment and do not have access to my DB. But I will post details when I am back home. I would guess about 50/50 as I was only playing HU in the beginning but playing a lot more 6-Max now. My WR on 6-Max
wen
This is for midstakes NL200-NL1000 3 Max+ from most of my tracked sites. With HU it is at 11.97 and double the hands...
