Poker Pros Compete in Amazing Race

Poker professionals Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle have teamed up to take on 11 other teams in the 15th season of the successful reality television show The Amazing Race.

Taiwan-born Californian Ho and actress-turned poker pro Michelle missed out on the 2009 World Series of Poker to participate in the program, which began filming in July and began airing in the United States on Sunday.

The two got off to a slow start in the first leg, narrowly avoiding elimination after finishing 11th out of 12 in the race from Los Angeles to Tokyo. However, they improved in the second leg from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to move up to seventh place out of the 11 remaining teams.

Ho, 26, was the last woman left in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event, when she finished 38th out of a field of more than 6 thousand players. She is 37th on the women's all-time prize money list.

Michelle, also from California, finished 17th at the Main Event in 2008, and has had two money finishes on the World Poker Tour.

The poker stars are up against some tough competition, including the Harlem Globetrotters' "Flight Time" and "Big Easy," in a series that will see them travel through Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, Sweden, Estonia and the Czech Republic on the way back to the US for the grand finale in Las Vegas.