Book info

• Title For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player
• Author Victoria Coren
• Year 2009
• Genre Memoir

Author, columnist, and BBC show host Victoria Coren Mitchell has won and lost at poker all over the world, from Liverpool to Las Vegas, and from the Isle of Man to Monte Carlo. She began playing as a teenager “to make friends and meet boys,” but by the age of thirty-three she had won the million-dollar European championship and forgotten to have kids. Something had either gone very right or very wrong. This is a true story of happiness and heartbreak, smoke and mirrors, bright lights and shady characters. It is a touching and very funny memoir of friendship and belonging, love and loss. It might also teach you how to win a million.

Thoughts

I really don’t know anything about poker, but I was keen to read this after realising just how fabulous Ms Coren is. Although it is all about the game, it’s not hard to read. Even when going into details about particular hands, you only have to have a basic grasp of deal, raise, and fold, which is the extent of my knowledge. It’s a tale of how one person can do what they love and do it well, and a chronicle of how poker has grown and changed but still retains its essence. The most important lines in the book circle around: “It’s not about the money.”

(As an aside, this is the first proper fail I’ve experienced via ebook. There’s a great bit at the end where the rules of several poker variants are explained, along with a glossary that would have been very useful had I know it was there before. I went through the entire book not knowing what a flop was.)

One of my favourite things about the book is the style. Written in the first person, but also in the present tense, it’s unusual and very engaging. The short sections make it easy to get into and to come back to, and the nicknames also help keep all the many different players clear in your head.

Highly recommended, as it’s a great story which tugs at the heart-strings, but also a refreshing approach to life.

Rating: 4 / 5