Product Description

In September 2006, Victoria Coren won a million dollars on the European Poker Tour. In this, her long-awaited memoir, Coren tells the story of that victory, but also of a twenty-year obsession with the game. It is a journey which has taken Coren from a secret culture of illegal cash games to the high-stakes glamour of Las Vegas and Monte Carlo, and brought with it friendship, laughter and money, but also loneliness, heart-break and defeat. With disarming honesty, Victoria Coren lays all of this bare. For Richer, For Poorer also tells the story of the poker revolution. How did this cult card game, populated by a small community of colourful and eccentric players, move from the back streets to the mainstream in a few short years? It is a fascinating story from a trusted insider.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #654 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review
Victoria Coren writes, on several levels, with wit, honesty, and perfect freshness. --Martin Amis

Shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act. --Al Alvarez, author of THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN

It's faithful, epic, and true to every loveable miscreant she's faced across the green baize. --Jesse May

Honest, funny, highly personal and nostalgic memoir about friendship and belonging.
--Financial Times

Review
Shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act.

Review
A touching, personal memoir and a glimpse into the fascinating, colourful, deeply flawed world she loves so much.

Customer Reviews

A Belter
A lifetime ago I saw Vicky Coren in a pub in Oxford. Didnt know her from Adam Dalgliesh at the time - she stuck in my mind because although she looked like a right posh bird, she laughed like a cross between Sid James and Dot Cotton.

A few years later she turned out to be An Famous and more especially, An Famous who played cards on the telly. An Famous who played cards on the telly, who I'd seen in a pub. Brilliant. Pub Story Gold. According to the rules of popular culture she became an anecdotal fixture in my life whenever poker, laughing and/or posh birds came up in the conversation.

"That Vicky Coren, yeah she used to drink in my local, got the best laugh in the world that girl, and she plays cards on the telly. She's lovely she is."

All based on nothing of course but clearly repeated often enough to ensure that when Once More With Feeling hit the bookstores I got 7 copies as birthday presents. I had to return 6 of them and to this day I'm still known to the staff in my local bookshop as "the porn book guy".

So, skip some years and replay the scene. This year I only got 4 copies of For Richer, For Poorer - clearly I've lost some mates over the years - but still not a bad show. In the birthday gift Top 10 that got her third spot behind some rather nice malt whisky and a painting by Sadie Hennessy - a good result for a random, one anecdote, half serious, 14 year old, pretend celebrity crush.

And now she's gone and ruined it.

Not only has she written one of the most honest books about the poker lifestyle ever, but in a surprise move she's thrown the rules of conventional Celeb-Biography out of the window - she's only gone and been straight up about herself.

No more mysterious, half imagined, poker playing posh bird with a cockney sparrow laugh, no more saucy funny bird tucked up on Charlie "it's not a panel show" Brooker's silly chair. Oh sure, she's still An Famous but now she's gone and revealed herrself as an actual real life person. A real person who has the same thrills and spills as the rest of us. A real person who gets down about herself sometimes, who sometimes gets overdrawn at the bank, who muddles on just like we all do. How on earth am I supposed to have a pretend celebrity crush on her now? Play the game Coren!

I suppose we had a good run but it looks like I'll have to buff up the Tracey Emin anecdote now and god alone knows where that'll all end up.

Buy this book. It's a belter, and so by all accounts is she.

if you love poker you will love this book
i have never read a book from 1st page to last but, this book i didnt want to end.
if you have played poker for a few years you will enjoy this read.
buy it....you wont be dissapointed!

Magnificent
Having been an avid reader of Vicky's poker column in the Guardian, I was looking forward to reading this and my expectations were first well and truly met, then overwhelmingly exceeded. The book flows beautifully.

Vicky describes how she fell in love with poker at an early age, first the romance surrounding the game then the game itself. Each chapter is interspersed with key hands from *that* London EPT tournament. We follow Vicky through the early days at the Vic, vegas, and Late Night Poker. From the tuesday night home games to the WSOP. Heartfelt and heartbreaking, this is a rollercoaster read matching the rollercoaster of Vicky's relationships; with the game, the players and her family. It goes without saying that this is a must-read for any poker player - it will resonate with anyone who has picked up a few chips or a hand of cards and felt those first flutters of fear and excitement. But this book has broader appeal than just poker players.

I usually read quickly. But this is the first book in a long while that I've slowed down and savoured. It's magnificent, classy, elegant, and very very funny!