When I Was A Donk – Markus Gonsalves

In this series, Card Player asks top pros to rewind back to their humble beginnings and provide insights regarding the mistakes, leaks, and deficiencies that they had to overcome in order to improve their games.

Markus Gonsalves has been a regular face on the tournament circuit ever since he made a deep run in the 2007 World Series of Poker main event, finishing in 48th place for $190,000. In addition to a Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza win back in 2008, the San Diego-native most recently scored a major final table when he finished fourth in the World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder main event.

In total, Gonsalves has more than $1.1 million in live tournament earnings and final-table appearances on the WPT, EPT, and at the WSOP.

Here, Gonsalves talks about how he plays from the big blind.

I can tell you one of my big leaks, and I think it’s a big leak for a lot of players, is folding from the big blind too often. People tend to play way too tight from the big blind and don’t defend against preflop raises enough.

Especially in tournaments, where the antes give you such a great price to see flops, you really need to fight for every pot. Yes, it’s true that you don’t want to play pots out of position, but if you are good enough to be able to get away from your hand, then you can’t pass up those discounts you get from the big blind.

I think people have taken the position thing too far, and they are folding decent, playable hands from the big blind. That being said, you have to take the preflop raiser’s ability into consideration. If a great player like Scott Seiver or somebody like that raises my big blind, then I’m probably going to tighten up my range, because position will be a more important factor in those pots. But if the preflop raiser is a weaker player, then I might call with most of my range.

A lot of the time, you are going to take the cheap flop, miss, and then check-fold. That’s fine, but there will be other times when you hit the flop and your hand will be disguised. Also, just by calling more out of the big blind, you’ll send the message to others that it won’t be easy to steal against you.

The funny thing is, if I notice someone else at the table is defending their big blind with a really wide range, then I’m actually more likely to raise them, knowing I can play pots against someone who is out of position. So, really, it comes down to just recognizing that if you are a good player, you can get away with playing out of position and if you’re not, then maybe you’re better off just folding your big blind. ♠