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For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player by Victoria Coren (view source)
Revision as of 16:16, 8 March 2011
, 16:16, 8 March 2011no edit summary
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Some things are in the blood. For Victoria Coren it was cards. As a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack by their grandfather. He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was ''always'' the dealer and ''always'' the winner. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler. Victoria was one of life's risk-takers and she leant to the more adventurous side of her father's family. She was unhappy at school, preferring the company of her brother's straight-talking friends to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at school. In the intervening twenty years she's won a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the money.
For me the essence of the book is that within the poker community (and despite the fact that there are some seriously dodgy people within it) she's found friendship. There have been highs and lows and Coren is open about them in this intensely personal memoir. The competition in which she won the million dollars – the European Championship – is the theme which runs through the book with each chapter describing her progress until finally there are only two players at the table. It's a neat device to frame the story of her life and works much better than if she'd devoted a chapter to the tournament in strict chronological order which would almost certainly have left the non-poker player adrift.