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.
For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker
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Review
A touching, personal memoir and a glimpse into the fascinating, colourful, deeply flawed world she loves so much. -- Dave Gorman
It's faithful, epic, and true to every loveable miscreant she's faced across the green baize. -- Jesse May
Shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act. -- Al Alvarez
Terrifically funny and terribly moving. Victoria Coren plays cards like a demon and writes like an angel.
-- Patrick Marber
Victoria Coren writes, on several levels, with wit, honesty, and perfect freshness. -- Martin Amis
It's faithful, epic, and true to every loveable miscreant she's faced across the green baize. -- Jesse May
Shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act. -- Al Alvarez
Terrifically funny and terribly moving. Victoria Coren plays cards like a demon and writes like an angel.
-- Patrick Marber
Victoria Coren writes, on several levels, with wit, honesty, and perfect freshness. -- Martin Amis
Review
Shrewd and - for a poker player - astonishingly modest and frank. A class act.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By H. Lewis
Format:Hardcover
Of all the books I have read on poker in the last few months this is the only one that conveys any atmosphere, real feeling or depth. You can explain anything technically, but if someone described kissing the way most books talk about poker you'd never want to try it. This book conveys what it's like to give poker a passionate snog and feel your knees wobble. The prose is a joy to read.
By way of explanation - I'm learning about poker from a starting point of no knowledge whatsoever, hoping to make it into the gaming industry and a friend recommend I read up on Victoria Coren's articles on poker and her website. I was lucky - this book was due out the week after and I yummed it up, cover to cover. Poker aside, it's an honest and moving memoir, as well as being pant wettingly funny in places.
Oh and I start my new job in poker next week. I can say this book was instrumental in helping me understand so much more than the technical. I've snogged poker and I liked it...
By way of explanation - I'm learning about poker from a starting point of no knowledge whatsoever, hoping to make it into the gaming industry and a friend recommend I read up on Victoria Coren's articles on poker and her website. I was lucky - this book was due out the week after and I yummed it up, cover to cover. Poker aside, it's an honest and moving memoir, as well as being pant wettingly funny in places.
Oh and I start my new job in poker next week. I can say this book was instrumental in helping me understand so much more than the technical. I've snogged poker and I liked it...
135 of 152 people found the following review helpful
By C. McVeigh
Format:Hardcover
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 the lovechild of 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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Mr. K. Rance
Format:Hardcover
Ms Coren is something of a queen of all trades - a former schoolgirl correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and stand-up comedienne, she tells how she first played cards to hang out with her brothers Giles's cool friends. Clearly a gambler at heart, she learned the hard way that the house always wins at roulette and turned her to attention to poker. The book details the high and lows of her `career' which coincide with the seemingly inexorable rise of poker. Anyone tempted to chuck a few (hundred) pounds at internet poker would be well advised to invest in this book beforehand and you'll realise who your virtual opponents might be. The game remains first and foremost a social event and Victoria amusingly brings to life the motley crew who have kept her company at card tables from seedy London clubs to the ersatz glamour of Vegas.
Readers (like me) who know jack about knaves are strongly advised to start with the appendix which makes the action much easier to follow.
But you don't have to play poker to enjoy this book.
Readers (like me) who know jack about knaves are strongly advised to start with the appendix which makes the action much easier to follow.
But you don't have to play poker to enjoy this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good one VC
This was the first purchase on my Kindle. I had been a fan of VC before I knew she was into poker. That only made me like her more! The book is very honest at times. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Robert Morris
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read
A very good read indeed. Better than just a poker book...
An enjoyable read without too much technical poker details, good to read even if your not into poker. Read more
An enjoyable read without too much technical poker details, good to read even if your not into poker. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars
I just called to say - I like you
Have always been a fan of old VC - who plays with old men and basically gives anyone a shuffle, up the Old Vic, ever since Late Night Poker was broadcast for the first time on... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ace reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely disappointing
I was looking forward to reading this, given the author's obvious intelligence. I have a library of over 200 books of this genre, many of which have been read more than once. Read more
Published 7 months ago by robert dudley
5.0 out of 5 stars
An enriching experience
I know nothing about poker. This didn't stop my becoming totally involved in the characters and their lives, and a story of a significant age in the development of poker, and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by teribus
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book I have read on poker
Victoria Coren's love affair with poker... Throughout her life it has provided an escape from her real life troubles, from learning to play with her older brother when she felt... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Habeeb
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The Old Vic" by the young Vic.
This is an 'ace' book even if you have little understanding of poker.
Like her wonderful dad, Victoria Coren is clearly a tremendously likeable character. Read more
Like her wonderful dad, Victoria Coren is clearly a tremendously likeable character. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Sue Kichenside
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyed
Read other reviews which said this book is not all about poker and there is some other stuff as well. Read more
Published 9 months ago by David Sanders
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, want to know what happened next!
I loved this book!
Part of this is because I play a lot of (very small stakes) poker and have followed the poker world for several years so understood the game and knew... Read more
Part of this is because I play a lot of (very small stakes) poker and have followed the poker world for several years so understood the game and knew... Read more
Published 12 months ago by BBT...
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ok if you like poker
As a huge poker fan I enjoyed reading about the early days of poker before you could play online. Victoria Coren has interesting stories to tell about some of the well known poker... Read more
Published 16 months ago by pavman
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