Amazing Race: Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho Eliminated in the Netherlands

Sunday night marked the end of the road for professional poker players Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho on the Emmy Award-winning CBS reality series “Amazing Race.” The duo quit the race after encountering two insurmountable Detours in Groningen, the Netherlands.

The episode began in Dubai with all six teams traveling on the same flight to Amsterdam. There, teams made their way to a causeway and located a statue to find their next clue. On departing in second place, Michelle told “Amazing Race” cameras, “Second place is awesome, but we’ve learned from poker that it’s really, really easy to get comfortable and get involved in pots that you shouldn’t.”

After landing in Amsterdam, Michelle and Ho arrived in fifth place at the statue, where their clue instructed them to head to Martintoren, the town’s church. There, the leg’s Roadblock tasked team members with counting the number of bells inside its massive tower. Michelle breezed through the task after Sam, one-half of brothers Sam and Dan, told her the correct number when they passed each other on the stairs of the structure. Sam explained, “It was a smart move, in my opinion, because they’re a team we can beat.”

Meanwhile, former Miss America Ericka Dunlap struggled to count accurately, ultimately causing her husband and her to fall considerably behind. Meanwhile, teams arrived at Vierhuizen de Marne, where the town’s windmill served as the route marker. There, they encountered the leg’s Detour, a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons.

The options this time around were Farmer’s Game or Farmer’s Dance. In the former, teams had to strip down to their underwear and swim across a creek. Then, they had to use modified golf clubs with wooden shoes affixed on the ends to play three holes of golf. Team members had to alternate shots and complete each hole in eight or fewer strokes.

In Farmer’s Dance, teams had to ring a high striker (a carnival game requiring hitting a mallet to ring a bell, usually dubbed a test of strength). Then, they had to learn a traditional Dutch folk dance, perform it up to snuff, and eat a salted herring. Michelle and Ho elected to dance, but after 30 failed attempts at ringing the high striker, switched tasks and hit the links. Meanwhile, Dunlap finally completed the Roadblock. However, her team neglected to travel by bike around the Detour as instructed in the clue.

Upon arriving at the golf course, the last women standing in the 2007 and 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Events realized that completing each hole in eight strokes or fewer was challenging given the oversized ball in play and a stiff wind. Consequently, they elected to head back to the high striker and try again. After 50 failed attempts at the carnival game, the pair “hugged it out” and tried to rally.

At the end of 72 unsuccessful rounds at the high striker, Michelle and Ho headed back to the links. Michelle commented, “We were back at the golf course weaker than we were before and more freezing than we were before.” Meanwhile, Brian and Ericka were penalized 30 minutes upon arriving at the Pit Stop in fifth place due to not riding bikes as instructed, setting up a dramatic finish to this week’s installment of “Amazing Race.”

However, Michelle and Ho could not overcome the elements or muster up the strength to bash the high striker. Instead of checking in at the Pit Stop as is customary, Michelle and Ho were met by host Phil Keoghan at the golf course, where they announced that they were quitting the race. The duo finished in sixth place in the show’s 15th installment (out of 12 teams) and represented the only all-female team to compete.

“Amazing Race” airs at 8:00pm ET on Sunday nights on CBS.

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Useful poker information:

POCKET PAIR - Generic Hold'em term for 2 hole cards of the same rank.
SPREAD LIMIT - A variation on fixed limit wherein the minimum and maximum bets are different. A 1-4-8 game allows bets from 1 to 4 in the early rounds and 1-8 in the last round. A 1-4-8-16 game allows bets from 1 to 4 in the early rounds, 1 to 8 in the next-to-last round, and 1 to 16 in the last round.
FIFTH STREET - In stud poker, the fifth card to be dealt to each player. Sometimes used to refer to the last card dealt in Hold'em, although the more common term for this is RIVER (q.v.).
BIG SLICK - In Texas Hold'em, hole cards of A-K, suited or not.
SUITED - Two or more cards all the same suit. Ant: OFF-SUIT.
TOP TWO PAIR - In flop games, having hole cards that make the highest possible two pair hand.

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