When I Was A Donk With Ana Marquez

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.

Ana Marquez broke out on the tournament scene back in 2011 when she narrowly missed out on making the $10,000 buy-in PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event final table, bubbling in tenth place for $155,000. She then followed that up with a second-place finish in a WSOP Europe event in 2012 and then in 2013, she won the Holllywood Poker Open main event for another $320,189.

In total, the poker pro from Malaga, Spain has more than $1.13 million in career live tournament earnings, which is good enough for no. 12 on Spain’s all-time leaderboard and no. 28 on the all-time list for women.

Here, Marquez talks about battling her own ego at the table.

“Haha, I punted really hard in the Sunday Million just three weeks ago, so I don’t think I’ll be done being a donk anytime soon. You know when you make a move because you out-level yourself and your opponent just happens to have the one hand he can call with? Yeah, this was not like that.”

“Sometimes, you just find yourself doing things for no reason at all. All of a sudden, you find yourself in a hand with nothing, with no plan, and a bunch of your chips already in the middle. Then you ask yourself, ‘how did I get here?’ and you just decide to put the rest of your stack and hope for the best.”

“Sometimes I make moves that are just ego-based. I know it’s bad, but it still happens from time to time. I’ll be in the middle of a hand and I’ll be screaming at myself inside. ‘What are you doing? This doesn’t make any sense!’ But I’ll still do it.”

“I think it’s because, like most good, aggressive players, I have trouble giving up on a pot. I don’t like to lose, so my brain will make up excuses for why I should stay in, or maybe try a crazy move. Sometimes, you just need to know when to let the pot go, and wait for a better opportunity.”

“The other day, someone two barreled me when I had like third pair, and in the back of my mind, I knew I had to fold 100 percent. But I didn’t want to fold, so my brain said, ‘maybe 20 percent of the time, he’s bluffing.’ You know? Just to justify your play. But I think a good way around that is to treat the game like a puzzle. If it’s always a puzzle in your mind, then you will feel good about folding when it’s right to fold.” ♠