Book Review: For Richer, For Poorer by Vicky Coren

(Photo: Radiotimes.com)

Coren on Poker

For Richer, For Poorer is one of several autobiographical works from Victoria Coren (now Coren-Mitchell), including Once More, With Feeling (an attempt to produce the ‘greatest porno ever’), and her short collection of essays on being a teen: Love16, which was bound and printed when she was still in her teens.

For Richer, For Poorer is her poker biography. And in contrast to your average chip-slinger poker is only ever her obsession and addiction, never her day job. It is hard not to be charmed by the self-deprecation of someone who still considers themselves an amateur despite a £500,000 EPT title and a sponsorship deal.

The book is structured around that first EPT win, with each chapter flashing back from a given hand to tell a story from the past while retaining that present tense voice used by every poker player to relate their table-stories.

Structurally, from sentence to chapter to overarching sweep, the book is far more interesting and well put together than most collections of poker anecdote. Coren may be an ‘amateur’ on the baize, but putting word two after word one is her profession.

Amateur Hour

The role of amateur and therefore outsider works; she is every home game hero who took a shot, by maintaining an outsiders wonder, she – like Al Alvarez or Anthony Holden – is a far more relatable guide to the poker world than a big game regular can be.

Whether she is trading silver coins in her Tuesday night home game or losing a wad of fifties betting on a (very) drunk Martin Amis at scrabble she always seems slightly unbelieving of her luck in being there.

(Photo: Cardplayer.com)

Once More, With Feeling

The book is also more candid about her feelings. Where most poker biographies are a list of tough times doled out by the cards, or drugs, or the law; for Coren it is a broken heart. There is a great deal of the author’s blood in the ink, including details of her dealings depression and her addiction to roulette. Not to mention the odd railbird romance. 

She even struggles with the moral dilemmas of the in a way that the more hardened pro does not:

"Compared to the solidarity of the dice table poker is sick and wrong. Every time I win, a fellow gambler has lost and I have taken his money."

(Photo: Time.com)

The Joy of Poker

‘“Are we not children anymore?” I ask the boys over blackened hamburgers. “Wasn’t that the idea to live like kids forever. But naughty kids.”’

The quote comes from near the end, talking to the now married-with-kids Hendon Mob. She remains the only person who keeps the love of the game alive the whole way through the book. For everyone else in the book it becomes a job or a disease, but for her it remains a game, a source of joy, and a place to go, where – especially nowadays – everyone knows her name.