Maria Ho has a distinguished career in poker, having collected more than $5.2M in tournament winnings since her first WSOP cash back in 2005.
She’s won some big, highly visible events, such as the Commerce $25K High Roller in 2019 and last year’s talent-heavy Game of Gold, and has come within inches of landing a WSOP bracelet with multiple final table appearances.
As this summer’s World Series of Poker kicks off, PokerOrg’s Craig Tapscott caught up with Maria for an in-depth talk about anything and everything going down in poker today.
Hit the image above to watch the full interview.
A return to Game of Gold?
Highlights from our in-depth interview include:
- Her past as a limit poker player, and American Idol contestant
- How it felt to win Game of Gold, and the fresh challenges of playing poker in a team
- Her best memories of the WSOP
- Women in poker, and how the landscape has changed over the years
- Olga Iermolcheva’s recent magazine cover, and her own experience as a cover star
- What to look for in the upcoming second season of Game of Gold - including a number of returning faces from season one
This is the woman who beat the vastly experienced Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates heads-up to win Game of Gold. Then she did the same to the influencer Tommy Unold, an inexperienced poker player, for a win on the Celebrity Poker Tour.
“[In Game of Gold] I wanted the satisfaction of beating somebody that I felt like was better than me, which Jungle [Cates] absolutely is,” Maria tells us, “I like that I get to be the underdog in that story.
“[In the CPT] the less experienced players are the most unpredictable, even if they’re not as strategically or fundamentally sound,” Maria continues, “They represent a big population of the players you play against in a lot of these massive fields in WSOP events, so it’s always good practice… you never know what two cards somebody’s gonna flip over.”
With an estimated 45-50 WSOP tournaments on her to-do list this summer, we're looking forward to seeing Maria make some deep runs and who knows, maybe pick up that bracelet she's been looking for.
Feature image courtesy of WPT
