When I Was A Donk With Elio Fox

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.

Elio Fox broke out on the poker scene back in 2011, when he won the Bellagio Cup VII for $669,692 and followed that up by taking down the World Series of Poker Europe main event for $1,870,208. This summer, he won the $10,000 turbo no-limit hold’em event at the 2018 WSOP for his second bracelet and $393,693, following it up with a runner-up finish in the $100,000 super high roller for $1,798,658.

In total, the New York native has won more than $5.5 million in live tournaments, which is roughly what he’s cashed for online as well, playing under the name ‘smokrokflock.’

Here, Fox talks about a better approach to defending your big blind.

“I had quite a few leaks when I first started playing. One of the big ones was that I folded from the big blind way too much. Of course, that was something that everyone was doing back then. Nowadays, you see the better players defending their big blind with a much wider range.”

“People used to just think about the reverse implied odds and the fact that they were playing from out of position. While those factors are obviously important, the immediate pot odds can often trump that. If someone min-raises from late position, which is really common these days in tournaments, then I’m going to defend from the big blind with a really wide range.”

“A hand like J-7 suited was perfectly playable from the big blind ten years ago, we just didn’t know any better. Now you look down at a hand like that in the big blind and it has become much more standard.”

“Opening ranges can matter more than the skill level of your opponent. If you are up against a novice player who is very tight, you may be getting really good odds, but you’re probably up against a big hand and may not be able to defend as wide as you could against a good pro who is raising any two cards from the button.”

“In a lot of spots, defending more often from the blinds has made me a little bit more passive than I used to be, especially preflop, but you are seeing way more flops which makes up for it. I think a lot of recreational players have trouble playing hands like this, out of position, but you need to be comfortable playing post-flop to win in today’s game.” ♠