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.
Maria beat Dan 'Jungleman' Cates in the Game of Gold finaleA 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
