Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 08 January 2010 / Leave a Comment

We gravitate toward poker -- we love poker -- for a variety of reasons. One reason why many of us enjoy the game so much is for the stories it produces. As it happens, some of us play poker well, and some of us tell stories well. And then there are a few who can do both. In her new poker memoir, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, Victoria Coren proves herself to be one of those few. Relating her own adventures in poker's wonderland, Coren's book is a smart, witty, captivating narrative that not only shares her own exciting experiences with the game, but sheds light on the poker's recent, rapid evolution from a disreputable pursuit to a culturally-accepted vocation.

As far as Coren's poker playing goes, her story begins in 1988 with her introduction to poker by her older brother, her early experiences with home games, and her initial visits to the poker club in the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London (the "Vic"). A bit of serendipity lands Coren as a player on a couple of early series of "Late Night Poker" (where she'd eventually do some commentating as well), followed by trips to Vegas and the WSOP, then further participation in larger tourneys. Then comes the climactic moment of Coren's poker career, her victory at European Poker Tour London in 2006 -- at the Vic, in fact -- where Coren became the first woman ever to win an EPT Main Event. Soon after that nifty £500,000 score came an invitation to join Team PokerStars as a pro, further ensuring Coren's place on the professional circuit to the present day.

For Richer, For Poorer does much more than merely summarize these various poker highlights, however. Coren is, after all, a writer, having authored books before as well as produced regular columns for both "The Observer" and "The Guardian." As anyone who has read her columns or her earlier Once More, With Feeling (co-written with Charlie Skelton) already knows, Coren is both an especially entertaining and a remarkably insightful writer. Her knack for comic timing and wordplay keeps us smiling throughout For Richer, For Poorer, while her honesty and directness also yield genuine insights -- about poker and about life.

A few different themes emerge as the book progresses. As the title suggests, part of Coren's purpose is to examine the place poker has had in her life -- to investigate and explain this perhaps improbable "love affair with poker" in which she's found herself. What is it that makes poker so attractive, so inviting to her?

Quite a lot, it turns out.

There is what Coren refers to as the "romance" of poker, perhaps diminished somewhat in recent years thanks to game's growth in popularity. "I was drawn to poker by this sordid romance," she writes, "the dark history, the whispering corners." The seemingly limitless series of characters one encounters at the table provides another attraction. So, too, does the "music of poker language" seduce Coren, with its "unique mixture of past and present tenses" which can convey "the suspense of the turn card, the narrative of a hand."

Speaking of, Coren's own narratives of particular hands played are themselves highlights of the book. While the book's primary plot is chronological, tracing Coren's poker odyssey over the last couple of decades, each chapter is punctuated with a hand from that 2006 EPT London final table won by Coren, with the two narrative threads dramatically tied together near the book's conclusion. The device helps build suspense as the pages turn, with Coren's inspired hand descriptions further enhancing the reader's enjoyment.

To give one example, the first hand Coren relates from that final table is an all-in confrontation between herself and Sid Harris. Both Coren and Harris held pocket pairs, with Coren's jacks needing to outlast Harris' nines. A dramatic moment for both players, to be sure, but the kind of hand that for some might yield a less-than-interesting tale. After all, the players' decision-making had concluded before the flop, and now the players passively await their fate in the form of the five community cards.

But Coren makes the hand come alive. Indeed, she even makes the cards come alive. "Pairs are so pretty, so enticingly symmetrical," she writes. "Two curvy jacks, like Christmas stockings hanging in a fireplace." Will they yield gifts in the form of more chips for Coren? Or will the dealer produce one of the two remaining nines, thus destroying her pretty pair? "Two fat apostrophes," writes Coren of the remaining nines. "Two evil hand grenades, waiting to explode out of the dealer's fist and kill my brave jacks. My vulnerable knaves. Poor boys. I will protect them."

The image of Coren protecting her cards perhaps recalls Alice in Wonderland, one of many allusions to Lewis Carroll's book throughout Coren's memoir. That motif is given added emphasis on the Australian cover of Coren's book (pictured at left). In fact, there are many literary allusions throughout For Richer, For Poorer, adding further richness to the storytelling. There's also an awareness here of that category of "poker literature" represented by names like Al Alvarez, Anthony Holden, David Spanier, Jesse May, and James McManus. That is to say, Coren seems conscious with her book of following in the footsteps of these other great poker writers, a tradition into which For Richer, For Poorer fits remarkably well.

Coren explores other themes and topics in the book, too, including discussing her experience as a woman playing a game primarily populated by men. One also finds anecdotes involving other poker personalities such as Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, John Duthie, Neil Channing, Phil Hellmuth, Roland de Wolfe, Hamish Shah, and the Hendon Mob guys (Ross and Barny Boatman, Rami Vaswani, and Joe Beevers). These anecdotes are numerous -- and usually humorous -- further adding to the fun.

As is the case with many relationships, Coren's relationship with poker turns out to be a complicated one -- perhaps cruel at times, but mostly characterized by genuine affection and even joy. And her telling of the story is a pleasure throughout.

There's much more to say about For Richer, For Poorer, a book I recommend wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys intelligent, funny, well-written narratives about poker. I'm going to stop here, though, as I had the chance to interview Coren and so want to give her room to share some of her thoughts about her book. Stay tuned for that interview which should appear here at Betfair soon!

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