Victoria Coren: Three Kings High

Victoria Coren is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. Victoria Coren is a poker-obsessive. Which comes first? Well, her book, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, released on Canongate, attempts to answer this very question. Told half in flashback and half in situ during the final of a tense poker final (where :spoiler alert: she went on to win a million pounds, being the first woman to do so), Coren explores the murky underworld of poker and her own obsession with it with charm, humour and honesty.

We caught up with her to talk about the book (soon to be released in paperback), poker and the time she tried to make an adult-feature film.

> Hello Victoria- can we call you Vicki or Vikki or Victoria?

Out loud, you're welcome to call me any of those things. Written down, I'm not terribly keen on "Vikki". Just the one k, one i and a y would probably cover it.

> Your book reads like a thriller in places: how did you create drama based around real events?

Thank you; I don't really feel that it was creating drama so much as allowing the natural drama to come out. The book is told in two parts. There are the 'normal' chapters, which are a memoir of life in a curious underworld- how I got sucked into the whole shady scene as a teenager, all the characters I've met, interesting or glamorous or terrible places I've been to, disasters of going broke and triumphs winning money, getting my heart broken by a gambler... Then, every other chapter is a story from a magical tournament in London in 2006 when I won a million dollars: of course that has drama because it is a big-money poker game with people getting knocked out or winning millions. But actually, the reason it's split into two is because some people might actually want to skip the poker bits and just read it as the story of a life. I hope that has its own drama, because most lives do, and mine is perhaps odder than most. There's a chapter in there about a poker game I played when I was spaced out on anti-depressants after my boyfriend left me, totally miserable and heartbroken, trying to beat a line-up of opponents that included Eric Bristow, Tom Parker Bowles and Nasty Nick from Big Brother. I mean, that's not normal, is it?

> What is your favourite moment featuring poker in a film?

Probably the bit in The Cincinnati Kid when The Man (Lancey Howard) warns The Kid: 'Women are a universal problem in our business.' Of course, he was talking purely about the distractions of sex when you're trying to concentrate on poker, but I always get a special thrill out of that. In casinos around the world, with a deck of cards in my hand, I try to cause men all manner of problems.

> This book is wildly different from your book with Charlie Skelton. What are your plans for a next ‘life experience’?

Well, they're very different. My book with Charlie, Once More With Feeling, is about an adventure we had trying to make an x-rated movie. It was a challenge we set ourselves: could we make an adult film of true quality, with a real script and a great storyline, with all the actors happy and being treated well, better than any adult movie ever made? Of course, the short answer is that we couldn't. But the long answer (in the book) is quite funny. Nevertheless, that was a single specific adventure which took up a year of my life and made a good story. Poker IS my life, it's what I've been doing ever since I was a kid. I've had years to sink deeper and deeper into the treacle well, like Alice in Wonderland. I'm sure I'll do other one-off quirky things in the future, and probably write about them, but I'll never have another story to tell like this one.

> Who was your favourite author when you were growing up and why?

Lewis Carroll, of course. Alice is actually a character in my book all by herself. On the poker trail with men like The Elegance, The Devilfish and The Catman, I have always identified closely with little Alice and her croquet games with flamingoes or her conversations with caterpillars that smoke and sheep that knit. The trick is to get to the other side of the chess board without going mad.

> How did you combat the largely male-dominated world of poker?

Combat can take many forms. It doesn't have to be aggressive hand-to-hand fighting. Sometimes it can be subtle and wily. Men have often told me 'Women are no good at poker,' but the same men usually complain that they find women infuriating in their romantic lives because 'You can't understand them, they're always saying one thing and meaning another.' Well, that should be our first natural advantage at the poker table.

> What are you currently reading?

The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis. I'm an incredibly slow reader; I read it for four hours a day all last week and I'm still only halfway through.

> What’s been your biggest poker-related regret?

Ah, well. One of the questions in my book is whether I play poker all the time because I haven't got married and had children, or whether I haven't got married and had children because I play poker all the time. Either way, I do and I haven't. Is it a regret, though? I don't know. You'd have to show me my alternative life, the road not travelled, and then I could tell you.

> Is there an easy way of remembering what beats what?

Yes. You lose a lot of money getting it wrong. And the next time, you remember.

> What would be your advice to any writer wanting to write a non-fiction book?

It depends what it is. My two books are very personal: my advice on that would be, if you can't be good, be honest. And the more honest you can be about the times when you weren't very good, the more people will enjoy it. You have to let them join you in your world, give them everything they need to feel like they're sitting there next to you, experiencing it with you. Also, I would always say, be as funny as you possibly can. Never say something seriously if you can say the same thing in a way that will make the reader laugh. But that's a personal prejudice, I inherited it from my dad. I don't think Dave Pelzer would give that advice, and he's sold far more books than I have.

Victoria's website