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About
In September 2006, Victoria Coren won the European Poker Championship, and with it a cool one million dollars. Overnight, she became one of the world's most famous players. But how did she do it?
In For Richer, For Poorer, Victoria Coren's long-awaited poker memoir, she answers this question. It is an intensely honest story of twenty years of obsession, of highs and lows, wins and losses, friendships, power plays, loneliness and addiction. Coren takes us from the grimy underworld of illegal cash games to the high glamour of Monte Carlo and Las Vegas, vividly capturing the incredible excitement of a poker match and getting to the heart of why poker has become the world's most popular card game. It is a razor-sharp, accessible, entertaining, and intensely gripping story.
1988
The World Series of Poker might as well be the moon.
My brother's game is on the other side of that wall. It makes the whole house smell of smoke. It sounds like a murmur and a clatter at once. Clop-clop go the clay chips, like a sound effect for horses' hooves. Clink-burble go the ice cubes and the whisky in the glasses. The conversation is low, male, rumbly, burst sometimes by laughter or howls of injustice. It is a rebellious, beckoning sound. I want to be there.
We're doing Twelfth Night this term. I'm enjoying it. I like Illyria, the magical island of nowhere. I like Feste, who drifts in and out. Where does he come from? Where does he go? Nobody knows. I like the madness below stairs, the rebellion of the uncontainable games, the playfulness and cruelty, disguises and secrecy, the whirligigs of time bringing in their revenges.
But right now, I can't read it. I've been staring at the same page for an hour. Don't want to study Shakespeare. Don't want to solve equations, don't want to write up the effects of iodine on saliva, don't want to learn the dates of Henry VIII or draw an oxbow lake. Don't want to go to bed. Clink-burble-clatter go the chips and the drinks in the other room. The smoke floats and the boys laugh. I want to be there.
The boys speak a weird language of 'trips', 'bullets', 'cowboys' for kings and 'a nugget' for a pound. Matt wears a T-shirt which says NOT ALL TRAPPERS WEAR FUR HATS. He is going out with Al Alvarez's daughter. That's why the boys play this funny game that nobody else does, because Alvarez led the way. Al Alvarez has climbed mountains and written poetry, and he's been to the World Series of Poker, which might as well be the moon, and he has written a book about it. Al Alvarez is God.
And God knows why they are suddenly letting me play. What do they think? Maybe it's funny. Giles's kid sister — short, chubby, bookish, growing up slowly — putting her pocket money on the table and trying to fit in with the boys. I don't want to flirt with them. I want to be them.
In For Richer, For Poorer, Victoria Coren's long-awaited poker memoir, she answers this question. It is an intensely honest story of twenty years of obsession, of highs and lows, wins and losses, friendships, power plays, loneliness and addiction. Coren takes us from the grimy underworld of illegal cash games to the high glamour of Monte Carlo and Las Vegas, vividly capturing the incredible excitement of a poker match and getting to the heart of why poker has become the world's most popular card game. It is a razor-sharp, accessible, entertaining, and intensely gripping story.
1988
The World Series of Poker might as well be the moon.
My brother's game is on the other side of that wall. It makes the whole house smell of smoke. It sounds like a murmur and a clatter at once. Clop-clop go the clay chips, like a sound effect for horses' hooves. Clink-burble go the ice cubes and the whisky in the glasses. The conversation is low, male, rumbly, burst sometimes by laughter or howls of injustice. It is a rebellious, beckoning sound. I want to be there.
We're doing Twelfth Night this term. I'm enjoying it. I like Illyria, the magical island of nowhere. I like Feste, who drifts in and out. Where does he come from? Where does he go? Nobody knows. I like the madness below stairs, the rebellion of the uncontainable games, the playfulness and cruelty, disguises and secrecy, the whirligigs of time bringing in their revenges.
But right now, I can't read it. I've been staring at the same page for an hour. Don't want to study Shakespeare. Don't want to solve equations, don't want to write up the effects of iodine on saliva, don't want to learn the dates of Henry VIII or draw an oxbow lake. Don't want to go to bed. Clink-burble-clatter go the chips and the drinks in the other room. The smoke floats and the boys laugh. I want to be there.
The boys speak a weird language of 'trips', 'bullets', 'cowboys' for kings and 'a nugget' for a pound. Matt wears a T-shirt which says NOT ALL TRAPPERS WEAR FUR HATS. He is going out with Al Alvarez's daughter. That's why the boys play this funny game that nobody else does, because Alvarez led the way. Al Alvarez has climbed mountains and written poetry, and he's been to the World Series of Poker, which might as well be the moon, and he has written a book about it. Al Alvarez is God.
And God knows why they are suddenly letting me play. What do they think? Maybe it's funny. Giles's kid sister — short, chubby, bookish, growing up slowly — putting her pocket money on the table and trying to fit in with the boys. I don't want to flirt with them. I want to be them.