Well, it seems like a tall tale.
Holz's story is he was bored with university which he began attending at 17, so he became interested in poker and started playing with friends. He was admittedly bad for a year, studied and then rapidly improved.
At that point his bio says he was making hundreds of dollars a month and then he began to win thousands in tournaments in his second year. In his third year playing he and friends moved to Vienna to play full time.
I think we can be fairly sure Fedor looks back on the early career as 'low-earning' compared to his crazy rise to success and earning millions. However, that was not 'no-earning' as historically he was earning thousands by his second year.