Maria Ho
Maria Ho (born March 6, 1983 in Taipei, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese-American poker player and television host/commentator. One of the top ranked female poker players in the world, and a Women in Poker Hall of Fame inductee, she has over $5,000,000 in live tournament winnings.
In 2011 she became the number 2 ranked female player in the world and has actively held her place in the Top 20 Women's Yearly Leaderboard since 2016.Ho's live tournament poker record includes 80 WSOP cashes, 8 World Series of Poker final tables (including WSOPC and WSOPE final tables), 14 World Poker Tour cashes, 4 WPT final tables and 1 WPT title), and numerous additional final tables on the professional poker circuit.She is a Global Poker Award winner for Broadcaster of the Year and the only player to be the World Series of Poker Main Event (US and Europe) "Last Woman Standing” a record four times, with her highest finish being 38th out of 6,458 players in 2011.
Outside of poker, she has been seen on many primetime television shows; making it to "Hollywood Week" on season 3 of American Idol, competing  on the fifteenth season of The Amazing Race and appearing as a celebrity guest on Deal or No Deal in January 2019.

Early life
Fluent in Mandarin and born into a traditional Taiwanese family, Maria grew up just outside Los Angeles in Arcadia, California, after her family moved from Taiwan to the United States when she was four-years-old. Maria's older sister is a media personality and psychologist Judy Ho, who is known for hosting the CBS syndicated talk show Face The Truth.Ho started playing poker in college. 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.

Career
World Series of Poker
Ho's first major tournament success came at the 2007 World Series of Poker where she was the last woman remaining in the Main Event field, placing 38th out of 6,358 players and earning a $237,865 payday. She repeated this accomplishment in 2014, when she finish 77 out of 6,683 players. Her 27th place "Last Woman Standing" finish at the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event along with a 6th place final-table finish at the 2017 WSOP Europe Main Event make Maria the only player to ever hold the WSOP Main Event Last Woman Standing title four times over (between the US and Europe Main Event).
At the 2011 World Series of Poker Maria achieved the best finish by a female during entire 57-event series with her 2nd place in Event #4: $5000 No-Limit Hold'Em, for a payday of $540,020. It was the closest Ho has ever come to winning a World Series of Poker gold bracelet.
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.As of 2023, Maria is ranked 3rd on the WSOP Women’s All-Time Money List.

World Poker Tour
In March 2019, for a second year in a row, she final tabled the LA Poker Classic $25,000 High Roller tournament and earning her second highest live tournament score of $276,690 with the first place finish. The following month she made the 6-handed TV final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Main Event taking 3rd place for $344,960.

Host and Commentator
Ho's commentary career began in 2013 when she 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,Since then Ho has compiled an impressive body of work as a television presenter and commentator, lending her strategic expertise to CBS Sports The Final Table, ESPN's official coverage of the World Series of Poker, Amazon eSports Mobile Masters Invitational series, and since the inception of PokerGO in 2018, she has been an in-house commentator, regularly contributing to live broadcasts including the US Poker Open, Super High Roller Bowl, and Poker Masters.
In 2019, Ho won the Global Poker Award for Broadcaster of the Year, then co-hosted the ceremonies the following year.She has also contributed her expertise to several print publications, and authored a chapter in the book Winning Women of Poker: Secret Strategies Revealed.

Awards and accolades
In 2018, Ho was inducted into the Women In Poker Hall of Fame, the very first year she became eligible for nomination.In 2019 and 2020, she received nominations for a Global Poker Award as Broadcaster of the Year, taking home the award in 2019.Early in her career the World Poker Tour named Maria in their WPT "Ones to Watch", during seasons 9 and 10, and from 2012-2014 she received three consecutive nominations from the Bluff Reader's Choice Awards, for "Favorite Female Poker Player".

Invitationals
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.For two consecutive years, she participated in the Inaugural World Team Poker Invitational, as a member of Team China, helping her team secure a 1st Place victory in 2010.In 2016, Ho was named one of 12 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, as well as coaching her team to the championship match.
She has secured four first place wins in PokerGO No-Limit Hold Em Sit-N-Go Invitationals:
2022 - $10,000 "No Gamble, No Future" SNG ($50,000 win)
2019 - $5,000 Poker After Dark "RGPS Showbound" Event 1 ($25,000 win)
2018 - $10,000 Poker After Dark "888poker Week" Event 1 ($50,000 win)2017 - $10,000 Poker After Dark "Holidays with Hellmuth" Event 1 ($77,000 win)

YouTube
On February 22, a video featuring Maria Ho was published on the YouTube Channel "The Try Guys", quickly getting recognition with over 5 million views.

References
External links
Maria Ho's Official site
Maria Ho Interview