Nickname(s) None Bracelet(s) None Name Maria Ho | Final table(s) 2 Role Professional Poker Player Money finish(es) 32 | |
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Education University of California, San Diego Profiles | ||
Highest ITMMain Event finish 38th, 2007 | ||
Maria Ho Excited About The Future of Female Poker Players
Maria Ho in the 50/50 Challenge
Maria Ho (born March 6, 1983 in Taipei, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese American poker player, television personality and host. She is known as one of the top ranked female poker players in the world; a 3-time Bluff Reader's Choice Awards nominee for Favorite Female Poker Player and a World Series of Poker record-breaker, and for competing on the 15th season of The Amazing Race.
Contents
- Maria Ho Excited About The Future of Female Poker Players
- Maria Ho in the 5050 Challenge
- Early life
- World Series of Poker
- Host and Commentator
- Global Poker League
- References
Ho has amassed over $2,000,000 dollars in live tournament winnings, which includes 42 WSOP cashes, 3 World Series of Poker final tables (and 1 WSOP Circuit final table), 6 WPT cashes, 1 World Poker Tour final table and 9 additional final tables on the professional poker circuit.
As a television host and commentator she has been seen on shows such as CBS Sports The Final Table,, season 9 and 10 of the Heartland Poker Tour, and in the upcoming NBC Sports Super High Roller Bowl. Maria is also the celebrity spokesperson for the WinStar World Casino, and the host of the Battle of Malta poker tournament.
In 2009, Ho competed on the CBS Emmy Award winning television show The Amazing Race 15 with best friend and fellow poker pro Tiffany Michelle. She has also been seen on the third season of American Idol (where she made it to "Hollywood Week"), as a panelist on Anderson Cooper 360, and for two consecutive seasons as a featured player on the World Poker Tour's "Ones to Watch" (in 2011 and 2012).
Maria Ho has received invitations to play in various types of games all over the world. In 2008, she traveled to Hong Kong to play in the World Mahjong Tour, going head to head with various Chinese and Taiwanese celebrities and professional Mahjong players. She played for two consecutive years as a member of Team China in the Inaugural World Team Poker Invitational, helping her team secure a 1st Place victory in 2010. In 2014, Ho replaced Kara Scott as the Battle of Malta poker tournament host.
Early life
Fluent in Mandarin and born into a traditional Chinese (Cantonese) family, younger sister of media personality and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Judy Ho. Maria's family moved from Taiwan to the United States when she was four years-old, eventually settling just outside Los Angeles in Arcadia, California.
It was in college that Maria was introduced to playing poker. She was drawn to the psychology and competitive spirit of the game and soon went from playing games with college friends to playing Limit cash games at nearby Indian casinos. When Maria graduated from UCSD in 2005, with a major in Communications and a minor in Law, she had gone from playing low limits to high-stakes cash games and had grown her poker bankroll to the point that she felt confident to embark on a career as a professional poker player.
World Series of Poker
Maria's first major tournament success came at the 2007 World Series of Poker where she was the last woman remaining in the Championship Event, placing 38th out of 6,358 players and earning a $237,865 payday. She repeated this accomplishment in 2014, when she came in 77th place out of 6,683 players. Her 27th place "Last Woman Standing" finish at the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event makes Maria the only player to ever hold the title Last Woman Standing three times over and at both the WSOP and WSOPE Main Events.
At the 2012 World Series of Poker, Ho was the Most-Cashing Female of the Series, with six individual tournament cashes. She repeated this feat at the 2014 WSOP with a total of eight cashes.
Host and Commentator
In 2013, Maria joined the Heartland Poker Tour season 9 broadcast team, as a co-host and strategic commentator. She was the first female in history to be hired to a poker television broadcast as the resident strategic commentator. She remained with the production for two years until she signed on as co-host and commentator of The Final Table, presented by Rush Street Productions (creators of Poker Night In America). In 2017, she took on the role of sideline reporter for NBC Sports Super High Roller Bowl.
Beyond the poker tables, Maria works as a host and commentator, as a private coach, and as writer for several poker publications – which include authoring a chapter in the book Winning Women of Poker: Secret Strategies Revealed and as a columnist for Bluff Magazine (from 2011-2015).
Global Poker League
In 2016, Ho was named one of the Team Managers (for Team LA Sunsets) in the inaugural season of the Global Poker League, notably drafting Emmy winning actor Aaron Paul as one of her Wild Card picks.