Victoria Coren was born on August 18, 1973 into a middle-class Jewish family in North London. Her father was humorist and journalist Alan Coren and, at the age of 14, young Vicky followed in her father’s footsteps by winning a competition in the Daily Telegraph to write a column about teenage life, which she wrote for several years. Around the same time, her older brother taught her poker and she has been obsessed with both writing and cards ever since.
On the tables, Coren gained recognition after appearing on Late Night Poker TV, the first program to show players’ hole cards. Since then, she’s been on and off the tournament circuit, where she has shown a consistently successful performance. Her biggest score came in 2006 at the European Poker Championship in London, where she bested 397 players to take down the tournament in her own backyard. Her victory was worth a whopping $941K. In recent years, her most notable cash was 30th at the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $50K. All told, Coren has over $1.3 million in live tournament earnings.
Away from the tables, Vicky has kept up with her writing, authoring works like Love 16, Once More, with Feeling, a play called A Lump In My Throat, and her autobiography, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker. She also retains other duties, including writing a regular poker column for The Guardian, hosting a BBC radio show, and acting as commentator for various poker shows. When she’s not working, she spends her time cooking, reading, and playing cribbage, bridge, and Scrabble. Coren is also an active and entertaining presence in Twitter, where her poker performance and political opinions are always laced with a good dose of humor.
With a significant presence both on the felt and in the poker media, Vicky Coren is one of the most important British ambassadors of the game. A member of Team PokerStars, she can often be found playing online as Vicky Coren.
