Poker pros Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho were spared elimination on the premiere of the CBS reality show Amazing Race, which is entering its 15th season. Michelle and Ho arrived at the first pit stop in last place.
The 15th installment of the CBS franchise began in the L.A. River, the site of movies like “Grease.” Twelve teams arrived by bus, including Michelle and Ho, who told other teams that they worked for a non-profit instead of admitting they were wealthy poker players and the last women standing in the 2007 and 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Events.
In a new twist, the first challenge took place immediately, with the last team to complete it eliminated at the starting mat. In it, teams had to sort through 1,000 license plates for one of 11 from Shinagawa, Tokyo, their first destination. Despite confusing license plates, some with misleading Japanese symbols on them, Michelle and Ho finished the task first and headed to the airport to fly to Tokyo. On completing the task first, Michelle quipped, “We have our Asian lucky charm right here,” referring to Ho. In the end, married yoga teachers Eric and Lisa were eliminated in Los Angeles.
All teams flew to Japan, where they were told to head to the Tokyo Tower Television Studio. There, a live audience awaited a game of “Sushi Roulette,” which capitalized on the popularity of Japanese game shows. The Roadblock, which is a task that only one team member can perform, asked contestants to stand in front of a giant roulette wheel and eat the food that landed in front of them. The two players who received scorching hot wasabi bombs had to consume it in less than two minutes in order to receive their next clue. Play continued until each team had eaten a wasabi bomb.
On-screen graphics like an alligator breathing fire added flair to this task, which saw the wasabi land on Ho’s space on the third spin. However, she was unable to eat it within the two-minute time frame and had to play again. As luck would have it, the wasabi once again landed on her space on the fourth spin. Ho told Amazing Race cameras, “My hands were shaking. I was tearing up. It was just like one of those moments where people say it’s mind over matter.” Ho finished her wasabi with two seconds left on the clock.
After completing “Sushi Roulette,” the teams received a colored flag, which corresponded to the visors of 20 audience members. They had to lead their group to the Konno Hachimangu Shrine across town on foot navigating Tokyo’s congested streets. Dating couple Meghan and Cheyne arrived at the Shrine, the Pit Stop for the leg of the race, first and received trips to Aspen and Vail.
Michelle and Ho stopped at a hotel to get a map to the Shrine, sharing its location with brothers Sam and Dan. Michelle explained, “They’re both young, hot, 20-something guys who have become our friends.” Meanwhile, two members of Michelle and Ho’s group became separated in Tokyo’s maze of crowded streets. After hunting around, the poker players were unable to locate their lost crowd members and checked in at the first Amazing Race Pit Stop in last place. Michelle and Ho were assessed a two-hour time penalty for not completing the task, but were spared being sent home in a non-elimination leg. As punishment, they would be forced to complete a Speed Bump, which is a task that only Michelle and Ho would perform, in the upcoming leg.
The teams were then dispatched to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where they were taken by bus to Cai Be. Despite departing three hours behind other teams at 3:22am from the Pit Stop, Michelle and Ho were quickly able to catch up, as the first flight to Vietnam did not leave until 10:30am. Meanwhile, Lance Layne, an engaged lawyer from Massachusetts, lashed out at Michelle and Ho for not being eliminated on the previous leg: “I can’t believe they gave those two chicks a Speed Bump. Bastards should have been sent home.”
A person at the airport recognized Michelle and asked, “Did you get into the Top 15?” This generated doubt in Michelle and Ho’s stated profession as non-profit workers, eventually leading to other teams figuring out that they were actually poker players. Teams arrived at the Cai Be docks just before nightfall only to see that it did not open until 7:00am. In the morning, they proceeded to mud pits across the Mekong Delta and were tasked with scooping enough mud to fertilize a fruit tree by filling up its base to a designated red line.
Before completing the fruit tree task, Michelle and Ho served the Cai Be dock master soup for their Speed Bump. The poker-playing duo completed the extra challenge with ease before heading to the mud pits. Michelle and Ho were in last place leaving the pits due to the time lost while completing the Speed Bump, but gained ground in the leg’s Road Block, which consisted of herding 150 ducks across a bridge and back again in a fenced enclosure.
Michelle claimed that she had ducks growing up and “flew” through the task, leading to the team being in sixth place after finishing the Roadblock. The Pit Stop on the Vietnam leg was a boat, the Bassac III, and Michelle and Ho arrived in seventh place, surviving a chaotic two-hour episode. Father and son Gary and Matt came in first place and won kayaks.
Amazing Race airs every Sunday on CBS at 8:00pm ET. Next week will see Michelle, Ho, and the rest of the CBS reality show’s cast travel to Cambodia.