Maria Ho Partners with Amazon's esports

Maria Ho and Amazon have announced a strategic partnership deal in which the high-profile poker pro has agreed to represent the company’s esports initiative at special events, starting with the Mobile Masters Invitational that’s currently taking place in New Jersey. In fact, the 34 year-old has already been acting as on-screen host at the new Amazon created esports tournament series, which is being streamed live via Twitch, and features three popular games on the Amazon Appstore, such as Vainglory, Hearthstone, and Summoner’s War,
The $65,000 which is being offered to the winner of the contest highlights the increasing popularity of esports in general, with even Maria Ho describing herself as an “esports junkie.” Elaborating further on her long love affair with the world of esports, Ho explained that she became hooked on video games at the age of 7 after her father returned from a business trip to Japan with an original FamiCom, the predecessor to Nintendo. Amongst the games she then started playing was Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, and Counter-Strike.
Another one of her more recent favorite games is Heartstone, which has also attracted the attention of some of poker’s other top celebrities, such as Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand Grospellier. One of the many attractions of mobile games to poker pros is that they provide an accessible means of entertainment while on the road, with Ho explaining that she often uses her Amazon Fire tablet when she fancies getting a quick game in.
As well as being a gamer and a talented poker pro with $2,183,094 in live tournament earnings, Maria Ho is also an experienced TV personality and host, and talking about her partnership with Amazon, explained:
“.. I think they saw how interested I was in esports and became aware of my experience in poker broadcasting so they asked me to host their first ever casual mobile gaming tournament last December, Champions of Fire. With the success of that event we worked on forging a partnership for 2017 that has me not only hosting their Mobile Masters series, but I am also the official ambassador of Amazon’s esports initiative.”