Victoria Coren – For Richer, For Poorer

I have a friend very much like Victoria Coren: glamorous and posh, fantastic writer, lovely shiny hair. The last person you’d think of as being into poker, but constantly hopping over to Vegas to lose all sense of night and day. (N also has the most incredible vocal range, with a particular fondness for Christmas carol descants, and an ability to sing ‘do you believe in life after love’ complete with the wobbly bits which has to be heard to be believed.) I have not seen N in a little while, but I have been channelling her spirit by reading For Richer, For Poorer; Coren’s memoir of her love affair with poker.

This is not an expose, where an outsider infiltrates a secret underworld. Poker is Victoria Coren’s whole life; escape route, social circle, and eventually profession. And it is Just So Weird. It’s full of ‘shady gamblers, all questionable cash payments and sunglasses indoors.’ The other players range from hopelessly awkward to functionally incompetent. Even one of her boyfriends, who is a reasonably successful player, often winning thousands in a night and drives a porsche; lives in a flat over his mother, sits in the darkness one evening because he forgot to pay the electricity, and thinks that going to lap dancing is like going to an art museum.

Coren’s career begins as poker begins to change out of all recognition: the faded glamour and romance and the more grubby, vicious side of the game are both swept away by television and the internet. Poker becomes fashionable and cool, with games in smart clubs. Celebrities get into it. And a new breed of player who talks game theory and needs constant massage comes to the table. Some of the dirt gets washed out, but some of the mystery and authenticity is lost along the way too.

The most interesting aspect for me was the ‘woman in a man’s world’ side of things. At times, the misogyny is absolutely unbelievable. When Coren expresses disgust that women continue to find Mike Tyson attractive, one of them says ‘not all women are as fussy as you’. But that misogyny also comes mixed with an odd sort of old-fashioned chivalry – as Coren says: ‘I am ‘a lady’ so they mind their language. They want to bankrupt me, destroy me, but not offend me’. There are few wives and girlfriends (perhaps unsurprisingly, given what I’ve told you about most of the players) and even fewer women players. There are, however, lots and LOTS of prostitutes. Lovely.

The utter weirdness is what makes this so compelling: every single person is A Character. And you don’t have to speak poker to enjoy it: the descriptions of the games were oddly hypnotic and melodic, even though I had no idea what was actually going on.

Being a nice middle-class girl who keeps a level head, Coren does sensible things with her winnings, like pay off her mortgage, and stays away from things she knows are bad for her, like roulette. The really bleak side of gambling doesn’t appear here: while there are some stories about big wins being converted immediately into catastrophic losses, most of the players seem to keep their heads above water. I felt this was probably misleading about gambling as a whole; but then, Coren’s telling her own story and doesn’t have to moralise.

I am the world’s worst poker player: I can’t even bluff in kids games like Go Fish. The one time N did try and involve me in a proper game I was more interested in the crisps than the chips and kept having to ask what was going on. Victoria Coren would scoff at me, but I pretty much love her.

I have no affiliation and make no money out of this, but I thought some of you might like to know that you can get a kindle edition for £1.14 at the moment; saving you £7.85 to put in the pot.