“Competition is Our Life” – RealityNewsOnline’s Exclusive Interview with The Amazing Race 15's Maria & Tiffany

RealityNewsOnline: Hi, Maria & Tiffany! Thanks for talking to RealityNewsOnline!

Maria: Thank you.

RNO: What made you decide to apply for The Amazing Race?

Tiffany: Maria and I, after I became the last woman standing in the 2008 World Series of Poker, we just had this [idea of] the back-to-back last women standing in the series idea of a team. As well as being good friends – we thought it would be really interesting. Competition is our life. So, to do a competitive show like The Amazing Race, competing for a million dollars in a competitive format around the world – away from our usual place of the poker table – would be a really amazing adventure.

We’d both seen some of the show before. It has seven Emmys for a reason. I think it’s an amazing show. It’s an amazing adventure. When we had the chance to do that… I mean, it was definitely out of our comfort zone, but we were interested to see how our gaming backgrounds could apply to something like The Amazing Race.

RNO: Why did you guys decide to lie about that poker background to your fellow competitors?

Tiffany: Actually, from a strategic point of view, going into the race, Maria and I have watched a lot of Amazing Race’s in seasons past. We saw, in Season 7, when Rob & Amber were on, that a lot of the teams had animosity towards them because they had already won a million dollars and they had success on TV. A lot of the teams felt like they didn’t need to be there. They kind of shunned them and didn’t help them during the race.

So, Maria and I felt like it would be a better idea… Poker isn’t our lives, it’s part of our career, but we’re also involved in charity work. We’re involved in performing arts. I’m specifically involved with an organization called the Los Angeles Youth Network which helps house homeless youths in Los Angeles. I do a lot of fundraising with them.

So it is an accurate part of our lives that we decided to highlight – instead of playing poker – because we know how beneficial it is later on to have teams want to help you. We felt it could be more detrimental if we highlighted the thing about being poker players, as opposed to talking about other, really wonderful aspects of our lives. You definitely do need some help along the way from other teams.

RNO: Given that, why did you admit to that man in the airport that you were a professional poker player?

Tiffany: We were away from all the other teams at that point. We didn’t realize that, after that conversation, he would end up going into the terminal. He happened to be on our flight and ended up, out of excitement, telling the rest of the teams who Maria and I were. We didn’t know he would then go and break the news to everyone else.

In the long run, it didn’t really end up mattering. We ended up becoming good friends with Sam & Dan and all the other teams. Nobody really minded the fact that we didn’t volunteer the information that we play poker.

RNO: You've won and lost a lot of money at the poker tables and I'm sure you've taken your share of bad beats – so why did you start crying at the bell-ringing task when I'm pretty sure you would never cry at the poker table?

Maria: You know, the race as a whole was just so intense, both physically and mentally more demanding than we ever thought it would be. It just looked so much easier when we watched it on TV. Once we got out there… The emotions run really high any time you’re in a competitive situation. So, I think that the main reason why Tiffany and I cried at the bell ringing challenge was partially because it was very frustrating to know that we were really giving it our all and to feel that sense of defeat – of not being able to complete it.

But it was honestly more that Tiffany and I had come so far on the race – our friendship has definitely benefited so much from being on this race together. We kind of just realized at that moment that we were each other’s support system. At the end of the day, this was the time where we had hit our wall and had to throw our hands up and say, “We can’t do this.” At least we were there with each other. We felt like we had taken so much from the race at that point – we were ready to face whatever our fate would be. It was just a really nice moment, I think, for our friendship, more than anything.

RNO: Obviously you were struggling with both of the Detour tasks, you went back to the Farmer’s Dance option after you had tried for quite a while to ring that bell. What was the reason you decided to go back there again? Did you consider skipping the bell and taking a penalty, like Brian & Ericka did?

Tiffany: This is how that works out. We spent over three hours between both tasks. What happened with the Detour is, you don’t have an option to skip a part of a Detour. If you are unable to complete either side of a Detour, you get a 24-hour penalty. Brian & Ericka incurred their penalty getting to the Detour.