Maria Ho Reveals The Greatest Poker Player Of All Time | Digital Social Hour #128

I know you're friends with a lot of these guys, and I don't want them to get mad at you.

Oh, no.

But who do you think the greatest poker player of all time is?

Oh, well, this is funny because no matter what I say, every poker player that's on that short list is going to think they're the best, anyway.

Um, but I would have to say, Daniel Nebrano is up there for me.

I thought I always had a really good sense of judging people's character, but also a really strong intuition.

Um, so uh, my friends call me

the cheater whisperer because I've caught a few of my

girlfriends, significant others cheating on them.

And I feel like it's like, because when someone sits down in front of me and they're talking to me, I feel like I know when they're lying.

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour, guys.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with an amazing guest today, Maria Ho.

Hey.

How's it going?

Yeah, good.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

So how you been doing in the World Series this year?

Man, it's been, wow, it's like, what, four weeks in, and I'm tired.

It's that time when you get burnt out.

I'm playing every single day.

Tournaments start at 10.

We play until one in the morning.

You wake up next morning, do it all over again.

And it's definitely Groundhog's Day, but this is what we're here for, right?

If you're a professional poker player, then this is the time where you need to be putting the pedal to the medal.

You need to be playing every day because the most money can be won or lost, I guess, during this time.

Yeah.

Speaking of most money won, what's the most money you've won in a single day?

So

my biggest tournament score was over half a million.

And then the most I've ever lost was less than that, which is good, right?

You never really want to break even on those numbers.

It was like a quarter million in a cash game.

but it was just one of those spots where there was a lot of bad players in the game and you got to take your shot and sometimes it doesn't work out.

Yeah, I heard the pros sometimes struggle against amateurs, right?

Yeah, because I think the thing is, is amateurs are really unpredictable, right?

At least against a pro, you kind of know what their baseline strategy is.

And for amateurs, they don't really have a strategy.

So I think that's the element of poker that is really interesting because it's real-time solutions.

You know, you're going to be theorizing and adapting and adjusting to how your opponent is playing, but you have no idea what their poker knowledge is, what their background is.

You know, kind of like when I played against you, I had no idea that was your first time.

And I think that's, that's the beauty of the game is, you know, I have to figure you out.

And in some ways, you have an edge on me because you know that I'm a pro and you know that there's going to be certain things that I will be willing to do, you know, and that I won't.

And so you can definitely target me as well.

That's true.

You were right next to me, so you were going after me.

And I was trying to tell if you were bluffing me or just

got it.

I mean, I feel like naturally, if I think someone is less experienced, my default strategy is probably be more aggressive against them, right?

Because they are more unaware of certain situations.

And usually they're a little bit more timid and they're more passive and they don't want to, you know, risk a lot of money without having a good hand.

So that's exactly how I played.

Right.

So it works out because you can play really tight.

And then once you know that I'm playing really aggressive and I might be trying to bluff you a lot, then you're going to be calling my bluffs more often right yeah once you start figuring that out so you know i think that there's a lot of ways for even amateur players to in real time gain some type of edge over a professional yeah that makes sense so what age did you start how long have you been playing so i didn't pick up poker until my first year of college um i was with a bunch of friends and During the weekends, we'd always go party together, but then somehow on Friday nights, they had this secret little boys' club get-together that i was never invited to and then i found out they were playing poker and they were like yeah maria it's kind of a boys thing we don't really invite any girls but you know maybe some other time and i just crashed their dorm room poker game um and i just made them let me play and they didn't even think i'd be interested um and then the first time i played i beat all of them so of course naturally i was like oh i must be amazing at this game but obviously i had no idea what i was doing and i still had a lot to learn but i think that's what hooked me was just the idea of playing for the first time and winning.

Nice.

And then from there, did you start playing online or more events?

Yeah, it's it's funny because during college, you know, after school, I would just drive straight to the casino.

There was a lot of Native American casinos.

I went to college at UC San Diego.

So a lot of those places you could be 18 and up to play.

And so after school, I'd be like, oh, I really want to play poker.

And I would go and I would.

end up being there all night.

I would stay until 1 a.m.

and then I would sometimes have to like do my homework, you know, write my papers and then go to class without sleeping.

And so that was just something I kept doing over and over just because I loved the game so much, but I had no idea I could make a living from it.

You know, it's not something that you don't grow up in along the list of occupations.

You know, it's not like, it's like, it's not doctor, lawyer, poker player.

It's uh, it was just something that I stumbled onto.

And then once I realized, oh, maybe I can make a living doing this,

after I graduated college, I decided to pursue it full-time.

Wow.

And then what was your parents' reaction to, hey guys, I'm going to be a poker player?

Well, obviously,

I'm Taiwanese.

I come from a very traditional, very conventional, strict Chinese upbringing.

So that was not at all in the cards, so to speak, for my parents.

They immigrated here from Taiwan and obviously very much pursuing the American dream.

And so they wanted us to, you know, have a better life than them.

And one of that is getting a great education and then having a really good job and so when I had to tell them that I was gonna play poker for a living they were really upset and at one point they even tried to disown me basically just saying you know we're not gonna help you out like we paid for your college we paid for you to go to school and now you're just gonna throw it all away

and so they didn't want me living at home anymore they didn't want me to rely on them for anything and I was like okay that's fine this is my decision and I respect that you guys are upset about it so you know there was a couple of years where there was a lot of tension in our home only because of my choice of career.

And so, you know, I get that it wasn't an ideal place for them to see their daughter, you know, being in a casino late night till 2 a.m.

They didn't like that.

They didn't feel safe.

And I kind of get that.

That environment is not something that you probably want your kids to be in all the time.

But I just kept pursuing it because I've always been a rebel.

And so when someone tells me I can't do anything or I shouldn't do something, it makes me want to do it even more.

So you were a troublemaker in school.

A little bit.

I was like a rebel without a cause.

Like I had no reason to be getting in trouble, but I just, I think I always wanted to push the boundaries, which is probably why I loved poker so much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a similar story because my mom is Asian and she was all about school.

And then when I told her, I'm going to be an entrepreneur.

That didn't go well.

Dropping out mom.

I'm going to start my own business.

Right, because in Chinese culture, they want that steady paycheck and they don't want you to go, you know,

color outside the lines or do something outside of the box.

They want you to just, they'd rather you show up for a nine-to-five and know every day you're going to get a paycheck, even if that's not what makes us happy, right?

Yeah, they stress the importance of education a lot.

Yeah.

So did you repair that relationship eventually?

Yeah, it's funny because I love my parents,

but we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Probably culturally, generationally, there's a gap there, but

They can't really say anything about what I've done with my poker career because I've had a lot of success.

I've never had to rely on them for anything.

You know, I never had to go crawling back to my parents and be like, oh my God, I went broke playing poker.

I need you guys to support me now financially.

And so because of that, I think they've accepted.

It's a level of acceptance, but it's certainly not encouragement.

It's not support in the traditional sense.

They're not the, oh, do whatever you want as long as it makes you happy parents, right?

They're the, okay, well, we have to accept that this is what you've chosen.

But if any day you want to quit poker and you want to do something else, we're going to support that, you know?

Wow, even still, because it's been some time since you were in college.

Yeah,

it's at the point where we just don't even talk about it, right?

I don't really tell them what's going on in my poker career.

They don't ask me how much I win, how much I lose.

If I have, you know, a really great tournament score or I make a final table, I'll let them know.

But they don't know any of the in-betweens.

It's just something that we don't talk about.

That's crazy.

So after college, you just started playing.

Were you making money right away or did it take years to become profitable?

It's a funny thing because I think people always ask me, okay, how did you know you were good enough to go pro?

And I'm like, well, poker is different from a lot of things because there's not some type of standardized test that you could take to know how well you're going to perform once you're out there playing for a living.

And it's not that, you know, there's some type of official ranking system where someone's going to be like, okay, now you have qualified for the pro tour.

Poker is a game where if you play professionally, it just means that you're able to make a living from it, right?

And there's different barometers for what that is.

You know, some people are maybe making minimum wage as an hourly playing poker, right?

And they're okay with that because they just love the game so much.

But then there's also players that are incredibly successful that are making millions of dollars.

And so.

I just knew that I was beating the games that I was playing.

I just knew that every time I sat down at the table, I was better than the people that I was playing against.

And so I started tracking my results and I was like, okay, well, I need to find a way to figure out, you know, what my hourly is, what my win rate is in these games.

And so I started making a spreadsheet and every hour that I played, you know, ended up, you know, being where I was like, okay, if I do this over a month's period of time, I can make this much money.

as an estimate.

And that is enough to keep going.

And so that's kind of how I got my start.

And I was really lucky that I had a lot of success early on in my career that I never had to look back.

Some people end up second guessing themselves a lot,

but I had a big tournament score kind of early and then just went on from there.

Nice.

Did you ever have a period where you were just getting bad beats after each other and just were losing for months on end?

Yeah, poker.

Poker is so funny because you can have a significant skill edge, but on any given day, you can lose, right?

And that's the variance of the game.

And that's what you have to weather.

Most poker players, it's like if you play 300 days out of the year, you are supposed to win, you know, 200 to 250 sessions.

You're not going to win every day.

So you have to be able to weather the times when you have losing session after losing session after losing session.

And so there was a time when I was on a really bad run, probably was three months straight of losing sessions.

I would show up.

play, lose.

And that's not sustainable, right?

Unless you have a crazy bankroll.

And so it was getting to the point where it was really dire.

And I didn't know if I could continue on if things didn't turn around.

And people always have different solutions for when that happens.

Like when you're running bad, people are like, okay, well, some people say you should take a break.

Some people say you should play through it, right?

If you're a professional and you trust in your skill edge, you know you're good enough to beat the games you're playing, you need to just keep playing because you're just on the unlucky side of variance, right?

And you just need it to catch up and you need, you know, your EV to start being realized again.

But for me, I'm again, maybe I'm stubborn, you You know, maybe I'm just one of those people that I decided to play through it.

And pretty much it was at the point where my bankroll was completely decimated.

But then things started to turn around.

And it was the closest that I've ever been to going broke.

Whoa, that must have been a scary time.

There was a lot of thoughts rolling in my head of like, oh my god, I have to talk to go back to my parents.

I have to tell them they were right.

That would have been the worst thing I ever had to do.

And they still to this day have no idea that I almost went broke.

You know, I was this close to having to basically go back and tell them they were right and just find a traditional career path.

That's crazy.

Not a lot of people can profit off poker.

What would you say, like how much percent actually make money off playing, you think?

I think the problem with poker is A, people's results can be really inflated, right?

When you look at somebody's tournament history and their live tournament earnings, that doesn't count for how much they've lost.

That is gross money.

That is not net.

But when you look at just the cash game grinder who could just be playing down the street in the card room here in Vegas, they could be playing $5, $10, no limit hold them.

And they're making maybe, you know,

a $15, $20 hourly, right?

And so there's different levels.

If we're talking about, you know, playing at the highest level of the game, then I think, you know, you can expect to clear a million in a year pretty easily if you are an exceptionally skilled player, but it all still comes down to volume because the variance will even itself out and will write itself the more you play.

The sample size needs to be really big for you to realize your skill edge and to realize your your expectation in the games that you're playing.

Yeah, that makes sense.

What's your favorite structure of play?

Do you like online?

Do you like tournaments, cash games?

I have honed my strategy specifically for tournaments.

So I have to like it because I've spent the most time working on my tournament game.

But cash game lifestyle is so much better.

When you sit down at a cash game, you could get up whenever you want.

You can today decide, I'm going to go play for two hours and then I want to spend the rest of the day hanging out with my friends, going to a nice dinner.

But in a tournament, once you're there, you're stuck, right?

Once you're in a tournament, you cannot, you can get up, sure, but you're missing hands and you're missing situations where you could potentially profit off of, you know, having a good hand.

And so in a tournament, once you're there, you're there and we play down to a winner, and sometimes that takes four, five, six days.

So, it's very, very grueling.

And it's one of those things where you don't really have a social life outside of it.

If you, if you end up playing a tournament series, like I am here at the World Series, I'm playing every single day, as I mentioned, from 10 to 1 in the morning.

I wake up and I do it all over again.

There's no time for anything else other than to sleep, eat, and play poker.

And so, you really have to be dedicated, and you also have to have that mental and physical stamina to do that.

Because in a cash game, you don't have to stay if you you don't want to.

Those chips have real cash value and you can go cash out your winnings immediately.

But in tournaments, those tournament chips don't have value until you end up getting to a point in the tournament where you're in the money, so to speak.

And do you have a game plan or strategy leading into it?

Because there's people like Phil Helmuth who are just amazing with tournaments.

So I'm curious, like, where your mindset's at with that.

Yeah, I feel like Phil is incredible.

He is, you know, the winningest player in terms of World Series of poker bracelets.

And, you know, I would say that the difference is old school and new school poker players kind of have a different approach.

I think nowadays, when you look at the poker player that are coming up in the game in the last five to ten years, they have a much more holistic approach to the game.

You know, people like Phil, they're naturally very skilled at poker.

But if you ask me if Phil has been studying poker theory in the last five to ten years, I would say he probably hasn't.

And he's pretty open about that.

And he's okay with that because he's relying on his the x factor that he has just that he he is naturally skilled at the game he has a good read on his opponents um a lot of the dynamics that you can't read in a book he's got it figured out um but the newer poker players they are you know running solvers uh you know they are you know studying non-stop they are doing yoga they are you know

between sessions they're meditating you know they really feel like poker is so physically and mentally mentally taxing that you have to be super well-rounded with every other part of your lifestyle.

It's not just get up and play, and that's it, and you're not doing anything else to better your ability to play your best.

Right.

And if you make a final table, are you studying the other players?

Are you watching film on them?

Is it pretty intense?

Yeah, it's just like other sports in that sense.

And I think people don't even realize that, is now with...

the advent of live streaming everything, right?

And the whole card cam, which was a huge invention for poker, that now, you know, you can see people's cards when they look at their hand,

now you can easily study your opponents, especially again, the professionals lose that edge a little bit because they're the ones always on the live streams.

They're the ones whose game is always being broadcast to the world, right?

So there's a lot of players that don't have a lot of information out there on their game because they're not usually playing on these live streams.

So I love it when there's more notable players at the table that I'm going to play at because then I can study them a bit more,

figure out their tendencies, watch tape.

But there's all of that.

You know, today I'm actually playing in day three of a World Series of Poker event and there's 24 players left.

Wow.

And half of the field I don't know and I haven't played with.

And so that part is, you know, the part that I can't really anticipate for.

But the other half that I do, you know, I'm looking up the results.

I'm kind of seeing how much experience they've had playing this game.

And all of that information is out there.

Nice.

I want to talk about staking because that's kind of a controversial thing.

Do you stake other players?

I have in the past and you know I also buy action.

So full-time staking versus buying action is a little different.

You know, buying action is just like I'll take a piece of you in this tournament.

I'll take a piece of this other person in that tournament.

It's not a full-time deal.

But then there's other deals where, okay, I have, I'm going to put you in all of the tournaments you play for a year.

And, you know, then you have different staking agreements in terms of what percentage you're splitting with them, if there's makeup or not makeup is basically you know meaning whatever they've lost so let's say if they've spent a hundred thousand dollars in tournament buy-ins and then they cash for a tournament for a hundred and twenty thousand they pay me back the hundred thousand first and then we split the twenty thousand the profit um depending on our particular staking deal so yeah it's interesting because i i've done it a lot of players have and it usually doesn't work out that's what i heard yeah There's some shady things that could happen.

For example, unless you have a signed agreement, there's been people that didn't pay their backers, right?

Because your name's on the tournament ticket.

When you go collect that money, that money's going into directly to you.

And then it's up to you.

You have to trust that person that they're going to pay out.

Because casino records show that, you know, John Smith played this tournament.

I'm going to pay John Smith the money.

They don't have anything to do with the agreement that I have with John Smith, right?

So there's been times when people will.

get scammed out of money that way or you know when sometimes people will say they played a tournament that they didn't actually play and you gave them $10,000 to play a tournament.

So now people are like asking for receipts and doing accounting more.

But before people were so lax about it, it opened the door for a lot of people to be shady.

And then also there's the element of like when people are staking each other and then they all end up at the same table in a tournament.

Is that going to affect the way they want to play against each other?

Right.

It's not in my best interest to knock you out if I have 50% of your action.

And if we find ourselves at the same table, maybe, you know, soft play can happen, collusion can happen.

there's all of these things that you don't really know um when there's so much you know people there's people sharing a lot of you know bankroll and and there there might be a lot of um inner workings that you're not aware of at the table because they're not making it known um so Generally speaking, I stay away from all of that unless I really trust the person.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So are you allowed to stay people that are playing the same game as you?

Yes.

Really?

Yeah.

And you don't have to disclose it too.

People in poker are trying to start making a rule of like, okay, well, if we all are at the same table and I have 30% of three people, then we need to disclose it.

But that's also just trusting that people are going to be open and forthcoming with that information.

Yeah.

And who knows, right?

It's

just trusting that they're going to be honest.

That's interesting because athletes can't bet on their own games.

I don't think poker would be the same.

Yeah.

And I think that's also the problem with why poker is maybe not as in the mainstream perceived with the same respect that some other traditional sports or even chess is, right?

Because it doesn't feel that regulated, right?

There feels like there's a lot of things that could happen that might be a little sketchy.

And I think that it's so important for us as a community to try to clean up the image that poker has.

Absolutely.

Now, I know you're friends with a lot of these guys, and I don't want them to get mad at you.

Oh, no.

But who do you think the greatest poker player of all time is?

Oh, well, this is funny because no matter what I say, every poker player that's on that short list is going to think they're the best anyway.

So they're going to be like, oh, Maria, she just, she doesn't know what she's talking about.

It is me, but she just,

but I would have to say,

gosh,

I feel like.

Daniel Negranu is up there for me.

Not just because he is the biggest or one of the biggest names in poker.

It's truly because, again, when we go back to that old school poker player, new school poker player, he's the one that's been able to bridge that gap.

He's the player that came up back in the day when nobody really knew what the set strategy was.

Nobody knew what game theory optimal in poker was, and they just had to figure it out.

So you already had to be particularly insightful to be able to figure it out as you go.

But then once everybody started using solvers and once people were studying differently, he also embraced it.

He didn't reject it.

He wasn't like...

He wasn't like, oh no, I already know what I'm doing.

I don't need to learn the way that these newer players are learning.

He wanted to know how to improve on his game and he wanted to know how to keep up with the influx of new players that were having so much success.

So he's really been able to merge both styles and he still has success.

To me, the most successful poker players of all time are the ones that stand the test of time because the game is evolving really rapidly and players are getting better and better and better.

And Daniel has continually put up results over a long period of time and I don't see him slowing down because at the end of the day, you have to love the game.

and i know daniel loves the game absolutely i notice there's not a lot of players that have stuck around for over like 15 years poker is a revolving door it's like you see people and whether it's because they're not good enough they can't hack it or they're losing money in the pits or they have life leaks right there's a whole slew of reasons why you'll see 10 faces and they're the most popular poker players they're coined the best poker players and then five years later they're gone

yeah yeah it's pretty crazy one of the skills you have to develop as a poker player is being able to read people, which you've gotten really good at.

Have you been able to take that skill outside of poker and just know if people are like good people?

Yeah, I feel like that was one of my strengths even before I played poker was I thought I always had a really good sense of judging people's character, but also a really strong intuition.

So I've just always felt like there was a little bit of a sick sense of kind of knowing something was wrong or something was off before something bad happened.

And so when I started playing poker i really tried to hone in on that and try to utilize that in my game um and so off the table it's funny because uh my friends call me um the cheater whisperer because I've caught a few of my my girlfriends, significant others cheating on them.

And I feel like it's like, because when someone sits down in front of me and they're talking to me, I feel like I know when they're lying.

It's like the same as when I'm sitting at a poker table and someone's trying to tell me a story with their hand, right?

Someone's trying to bluff me and I'm able to figure out, okay, this story that you're telling doesn't make sense for X, Y, and Z because of your bet size or because of your physical demeanor.

And so I find myself, I feel like it's a bad habit, but I find myself every time I'm like, even just having dinner and conversationally and casually talking to someone, I'm always looking for

that tell.

I'm always looking for like the weakness in their story or, you know, poking holes and everything.

And maybe that's not good.

But I think it served me well in business as well because, you know, I've done a lot of business deals where I've always wanted to meet people in person I don't ever like closing a deal over the phone because I feel like I get a lot of information by being face to face and so that's definitely something that I think I've used a lot off the table yeah I agree that's why I do these in person and not over zoom because it's more real yeah yeah I feel like I feel like it's so nice to be able to just

Yeah, it's the eye contact.

It's just certain things that I think people don't feel super comfortable with if they weren't being completely honest.

So what else do you do outside of poker?

You're into business?

Yeah, so poker was something that I just did because I loved it and I didn't really know where it would take me.

But poker has opened the door to a lot of other opportunities and a lot of other business opportunities.

And I have been able to also create a brand for myself within poker where I think back in the day, poker was just, you know, you played poker, you won money playing poker.

There wasn't other avenues where you could use that skill set or use yourself to promote poker or to promote other brands.

And so I have, I've built up, you know, my social media following and I've built up kind of a lifestyle following based on, you know, travel and poker and all of that.

And so that has led to a lot of different crossovers.

And

that part's been really interesting because that was not something I planned for.

You know, I got into poker just because I love the game.

And, you know, also being on the amazing race was one of those opportunities that i don't think i would have gotten if i weren't yeah poker so i was just gonna ask about that i used to watch that show what was that like going on the amazing race well did you watch my season or i actually didn't

far right please don't you're not because it was not my finest moment i really don't like anybody knowing me personally to watch that because i'm like oh that's not the the best light that i could be uh put in but no i mean it's the hardest thing i've ever had to do really i am not a naturally very athletic person, but I am incredibly competitive, which is probably why I love poker, right?

Because I don't have to be very athletic to play poker, but

on that show, it's the most nerve-wracking feeling to wake up every morning and to have no idea what you're doing for the day, where you're going.

They prepare you for nothing, right?

You have to expect the unexpected.

So it's just that intense

anxiety that comes with having a type A personality and wanting control over everything and being like, oh, I need to know what's going on and then not knowing.

And, you know, for all the armchair quarterbacks out there, it's just one of those things where when you sit at home and you're watching people do things on the amazing race, you're like, I could do that.

That looks easy.

And then when you get thrown into the mix, you realize how hard it is.

And so it's also nice to put yourself to the test in that way and to challenge yourself because how often can you really say, oh, I pushed myself myself to the limits?

Right.

So was there a lot of athletic involved with that show?

Because I thought it was mainly mindset.

No, there's a lot of, it's half physical and half mental.

Like some of the challenges are, you know, brain gains and some of the challenges are going to be physical.

And there's also some running because in the end, the last team that's on the mat for the day gets eliminated.

So sometimes it comes down to a foot race, which I am not a runner.

And so, yeah, it was really difficult for me.

And it was really intimidating and scary.

And it's one of those things where you always want to think that you're good at everything or that you'll, of course, try your best.

And it's very humbling to realize how bad you can be at something in a very competitive environment.

And especially because it's a show with teams and you don't want to let your teammate down.

Whereas poker, you're very insulated.

Poker is just a single person game.

You never have to rely on anybody.

solely yourself.

It's you against every single other person.

So it's a very different mindset that you have to shift into.

Okay, now I'm on a team.

I don't want to let my teammate down.

I have to make my decisions with that in mind and considering that other person.

Whereas in poker, you know, it's all me.

So you wouldn't go on survivor?

Yeah, I've shied away from survivor because I felt like survivor is a little more physical and I'm really, really mean when I'm hungry.

So I'm like, I don't know.

It's a bad combination.

I don't really want to go on a reality show where I can't eat.

Yeah,

food is amazing, man.

It'd be tough to eat rice for a month.

I know.

I mean, I don't even, nowadays in Saratoga, they don't even really get rice.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, they're like hundreds of people.

Oh, man.

Make evolved anymore.

Jeez.

Yeah.

What are you working on next?

So after the World Series, I will, you know, be traveling abroad.

I do broadcasting for poker.

That's another thing that I kind of found through poker.

I was actually a communications major in college, and I wanted to study broadcast journalism, maybe become a news anchor or something.

And then, so in poker, it just was an opportunity that came up: oh, do you want to do strategic commentary for this poker show?

And I had never done it before, but I did have a little bit of my communications background.

And I'm always one of those people that I'll try anything once.

And if I fall flat on my face, then you know, it's okay.

I'm okay with being embarrassed a little bit.

And so I did it, and I loved it.

And I enjoy that part.

And that's become a big part of my poker career now.

Is now I'm spending half of my time at the tables and then a big chunk of the other half doing broadcasting.

So

I'll be doing broadcasting for a couple of other tournaments

outside of the US.

And yeah, I mean

this is such a draining time for me that afterwards I just really need to take a little time to decompress.

You know, I'll go home back to LA and just kind of regroup.

And then, you know, a poker player's life never really stops.

But it'll be on to the next tour basically after that.

That's awesome.

I see a lot of potential in live streaming.

Twitter's taking it very serious.

There's a lot of live streamers getting a lot of money.

So that's a good path I think you chose.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, poker, there's so much content creation now with every industry.

And poker is just one of those things where it's also really interesting and fun.

And I love the idea of making poker more accessible to people because it's such a great game, but not a lot of people have found their way into it.

And so all of those things I think are bringing more eyeballs.

Absolutely.

Maria, thanks for coming on.

Of course.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, where can people find you?

I'm on Twitter at Maria Ho, and then on Instagram at Maria underscore Ho.

There we go.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

I'll see you next time.