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Victoria Coren
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Victoria Coren (born 1973) is a British writer, presenter and poker player. Coren writes weekly columns for The Observer and The Guardian newspapers and regular articles for other publications.
daughter of the late humourist and journalist Alan Coren and sister of journalist Giles Coren, she is a graduate of St John's College, Oxford.
14, she won a competition in the Daily Telegraph to write a column about teenage life for their "Weekend" section, which she continued writing for several years.
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Encyclopedia
Victoria Coren (born 1973) is a British writer, presenter and poker player. Coren writes weekly columns for The Observer and The Guardian newspapers and regular articles for other publications.
Biography
The daughter of the late humourist and journalist Alan Coren and sister of journalist Giles Coren, she is a graduate of St John's College, Oxford.
Writing
Aged 14, she won a competition in the Daily Telegraph to write a column about teenage life for their "Weekend" section, which she continued writing for several years. Her books include Love 16, King Lear: Fathers and Daughters and Once More, with Feeling, about her attempt (with co-author Charlie Skelton) to make the best hard-core porn movie ever. This came off the back of their jobs reviewing porn films for the Erotic Review - a job which led them to believe that most of what they were watching was terrible and that they could make better films themselves.
Coren adapted C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too... by John Diamond into a play called A Lump In My Throat which was performed at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, the Grace Theatre and New End Theatre in London, before Coren adapted it again for a TV play on BBC2 starring Neil Pearson.
Victoria and Giles Coren wrote an introduction to Chocolate And Cuckoo Clocks, an anthology of the best comic writing by their late father Alan Coren, published by Canongate in October 2008. In December 2008 she revealed that she had instigated a hoax in order to trap a group who turned up to memorial services for people they had actually never met. She created the fictitious and recently deceased '', and placed an advertisement in the main British newspapers for his memorial service "followed by a drinks reception". Coren reported that the group duly applied for tickets claiming to have known the late Sir William.
Presenting
Radio
On BBC Radio 4, she has presented the Off The Page programme and Fourth Column, and in May 2008 took over from David Baddiel as the chair of the BBC Radio 4 show Heresy.
Television
Coren has presented two series of the BBC TV programme Balderdash and Piffle. In September 2008, she became the host of Only Connect, a new quiz programme on BBC Four. She has also acted as presenter or commentator for programmes on poker on several commercial channels and appeared with Charlie Skelton as judges on the final episode of the reality TV show Double Entry.
Coren briefly appeared in series 4, episode 2 of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, where she appeared to present a documentary on BBC4 called "A History of Corners with Victoria Coren", emphasising Brooker's channel ident theme for the episode before he stormed into her "programme", shoving her off-screen and berating her with "Yeah, hooray for fucking corners, come on, piss off Coren.".
She is the only woman to date to have won an event on the European Poker Tour, as well as being the first player to win both a televised professional tournament (EPT London 2006) and a televised celebrity tournament (Celebrity Poker Club 2005). She frequents the Victoria Casino in London's Edgware Road, where she plays Texas hold 'em. As a commentator/presenter, she has presented Late Night Poker and The Poker Nations Cup for Channel 4, World Poker Tour for ITV2, and commentated on The Monte Carlo EPT and The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (Channel 4), Ultimate Poker Challenge (Channel 5), and William Hill Poker Grand Prix 2 (Sky Sports).
During her poker career, she has become a close friend of The Hendon Mob, and mixes weekly home games with frequent visits to two regular casinos.
Coren appeared in five episodes of Late Night Poker, although she never made it to a series grand final. However in Late Night Poker's spin-off Celebrity Poker Club, she defeated Willie Thorne to win the series two grand final before joining Jesse May as the commentator in series three.
In the 2003 Hold-Em 100 tournament in London she was a guest dealer for the final table.
On Sunday 24 September 2006 Coren won the main event of the European Poker Tour (EPT) London earning a prize of £500,000. After a gruelling four-day event she found herself heads up with Australian professional Emad Tahtouh. After only two hands of heads-up play the table saw a flop of 5-3-4. Emad bet out and Coren called. After a 10 on the turn, Emad moved all-in and Coren called instantly. Emad showed 8-6, and Coren had 6-7. Having flopped the straight and avoiding a seven on the river to give Emad a higher straight, she defeated her opponent.
As of 2008, her total live tournament winnings exceeded $1,200,000.
Coren is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.
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