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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Poker talk:

FAMILY POT - A pot where all of the players at the table are participating, even after each has had an opportunity to act.
TELL - Any personal mannerisms that reveal the quality of one's hand. E.g., constantly looking at one's hole cards is often a tell of a poor hand. (Some players, knowing this, will at times check their hole cards when they have a great hand and don't need to look.)
JOKER - A 53rd card in the deck, distinct from the others, used as a wild card or as a BUG.
ON TILT - Playing worse (usually, more aggressively) than usual because a player has become emotionally upset.
BIG BLIND - A blind bet, usually a raise of an earlier blind which would be called the SMALL BLIND. In limit poker, the BIG BLIND is usually the size of the minimum bet on the first round of betting.
BUTTON CHARGE - A periodic fee paid by whoever is the button, perhaps every 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Constitutes part or all of the HOUSE CUT.

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