Victoria Coren has been playing poker for 15 years and unlike most gamblers, has won quite a nice sum of money, not least in 2006 when she won $1m in the European Poker Championships.  The subtitle of her book, “A Love Affair with Poker” hits it on the nail, but this is a love affair with no happy ending, just a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, complete ecstasy when things go well and misery when they don’t.

You have to admire her persistence.  She joined the world of poker when it meant mixing with disreputable people in dingy clubs, the lure of the cards overcoming the distaste for her surroundings.  The book, For Richer For Poorer, chronicles her journey from playing her big brother Giles and his friends for pennies, through to the time when she carries a fat roll of bank-notes around with her.

You’d expect the daughter of humorist Alan Coren to be witty, and For Richer For Poorer is certainly light-hearted enough.  Victoria can laugh at herself, and her self-deprecating, almost confessional tone makes the reader warm to her.  The book is autobiographical throughout, starting with stories of her childhood and ending with the sad death of her father, the much loved writer and broadcaster.

Victoria hated school with a passion and as someone who had a similarly unhappy time at school, I found much resonance with her feelings for that time of her life.  While it was bad enough being unhappy at a boy’s school, Victoria suffered equally or more among girls, her liking for her members of her own sex being somewhat thin!

Boys show off and tell jokes and shout when they’re angry.  They don’t smile and ask personal questions, then bitch behind your back, and share your secrets with the class.   They don’t write diaries, all sweetly floral and girlish on the outside, for you to be unable to resist flicking through at break-time, which say things like, “I hope Vicky leaves school soon, we all hate her, the fat cow”, and then smile at you across the tuck shop and offer you a Highland Toffee.

Soon enough she is freed from school and develops a stand-up comedy act and travels around America before going to University to study English Literature.  On leaving she commences her career as a journalist and begins serious poker playing at the Victoria Sporting Club (the “Vic”) in Edgware Road and at the Stakis in Russell Square.  It seems difficult for a woman to get accepted into these poker playing circles, but Victoria persists and before long is mixing with people with strange names and starting to win small amounts of money.

Around this time (the year 2000), the game of poker is being transformed by television, with Late Night Poker on Channel 4 being well known and attracting large audiences.  Victoria finds herself playing with Martin Amis, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry, and as online poker develops, she finds more opportunities and also sponsorship (gambling with other people’s money certainly makes life less stressful!).

The autobiographical sections are interleaved throughout the book with a running account of the tournament which led to Victoria’s big win – the £500,000 prize accompanying her award of European Champion (I am not spoiling the book here as its very obvious from the first chapter what this is all about).  These sections tend to be a little technical but provide great insight into the calculations you need to make and the sheer wads of experience you need in order to win.  While playing poker with friends at home for small stakes may be fun, to play competitively for big money you need an obsessive streak which will keep you at the card tables for most of your spare time.

I don’t play poker, and there isn’t much in this book which would make me want to start (but then I’ve invested quite a bit of time in becoming a reasonable backgammon player).  Gambling for money is just not something that appeals to me, but Victoria lets her readers understand the drive towards the big win which keep people coming back to the tables.

Victoria is obviously very good at poker, and prepared to spend the time and intelligence to think about her playing strategies.  There are some sad stories about lesser people who have a large win and immediately leave the poker tables to lose all they’ve won on blackjack or roulette.  At one point in the book, Victoria is set up on a radio programme to discuss gambling with Gamblers Anonymous and this is a sad affair with neither side communicating effectively.

I wouldn’t want this review to appear at all judgemental – this is a very entertaining book and allowed me to learn what motivates poker players and to understand the world they inhabit.  One can’t help but warm to Victoria, whose remarkable candour makes this a fascinating read.  She speaks frankly about her broken-heart when love affairs fail, and also about the resulting depression which affected her for months afterwards.

There was a fierce bidding war for this book and I would imagine that Canongate will find it money well-spent as I’m sure it will be read for years to come as both a history of poker over the last 20 years or so and as an insider’s view on the rather seamy world hidden by the glamorous image presented by the high-rollers.