Victoria Coren

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Victoria Coren bigraphy, stories - British writer, presenter and poker player

Victoria Coren : biography

18 August 1972 –

Victoria Elizabeth Coren (born 18 August 1972), sometimes credited since 2013 as Victoria Coren Mitchell, is an English writer, presenter and professional poker player. Coren writes weekly columns for The Observer and The Guardian newspapers and hosts the BBC Four television quiz show Only Connect.

TV and radio credits

  • Off The Page: Presenter
  • Fourth Column: Presenter
  • The Pedants’ Revolt: Guest
  • I Love the 80s: Guest (2001)
  • Double Entry: Judge (2003)
  • Balderdash and Piffle: Presenter (2006–2007)
  • Only Connect: Host (2008–present)
  • Heresy: Presenter (2008–present)
  • You Have Been Watching: Guest (2009–2010)
  • The Wright Stuff: Guest panellist (2009, 2010)
  • The Bubble: Guest panellist (2010)
  • Question Time: Guest panellist (2010, 2013)
  • Have I Got News for You: Guest panellist (2010–2012)
  • My Teenage Diary: Herself (2010)
  • Frank Skinner’s Opinionated: Guest (2011)
  • Would I Lie to You?: Guest (2011)
  • QI: Guest (2012–2013)
  • Room 101: Guest (2013)
  • 8 out of 10 Cats: Guest (2013)
  • Goodbye Television Centre: Presenter (2013)

Ormerod hoax

In December 2008, Coren revealed that in 2007 she had instigated a hoax in order to trap a group who turned up to memorial services for people they had never actually met. She created the fictitious and recently deceased Sir William Ormerod, and placed an advertisement in the main British newspapers for his memorial service "followed by a drinks reception".The Times, 14 August 2008. Coren reported that the group duly applied for tickets claiming to have known Ormerod.

Poker

Coren was the first woman to win an event on the European Poker Tour and the first player to win both a televised professional tournament (EPT London 2006) and a televised celebrity tournament (Celebrity Poker Club 2005). She frequently plays at the Victoria Casino in London’s Edgware Road, where she plays Texas hold ’em. As a commentator/presenter, Coren 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, Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (Channel 4), Ultimate Poker Challenge (Channel 5) and William Hill Poker Grand Prix 2 (Sky Sports). During her poker career, Coren 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 24 September 2006, Coren won the main event of the European Poker Tour (EPT) London earning a prize of £500,000 and defeating Australian professional Emad Tahtouh. As of 2008, her total live tournament winnings exceed $1,200,000. Coren is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

On 20 November 2011, Coren finished second in the International Federation of Poker’s inaugural The Table World Championship, eventually losing heads-up with 29-year-old Spaniard Raul Mestre. She received $100,000 for second place, $10,000 of which she donated to Age UK.

Coren has said that she regularly stays up until 6 am, "Smoking and drinking and gambling. But I like cooking and gardening too, which makes me sound like a very strange mix of an old lady and teenage boy." When asked about this she stated: "It is still true. I’ll grow up one day, but not quite yet."

Notes

Personal life

Coren lives in London. She was at one time romantically linked with Harry Thompson. On 20 March 2012 she announced her engagement to actor and comedian David Mitchell. Coren has joked that she and Mitchell met at a party; it had previously been speculated that they had first met during the filming of The Bubble. Mitchell says they first met at a film premiere in 2007, but that three years passed before they properly got together. Their wedding took place on 17 November 2012.

Writing

Aged 14, she had a short story published under a pseudonym in Just Seventeen magazine and then 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 and Once More, with Feeling, about her attempt (with co-author Charlie Skelton) to make the best hardcore 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 the newspaper columns of John Diamond into a play called A Lump in my Throat which was performed during the 2000 Edinburgh Festival at the Assembly Rooms,Sarah Sands , telegraph.co.uk, 25 August the Grace Theatre and the New End Theatre in London, before Coren adapted it again for a BBC Two docudrama with Neil Pearson, which was broadcast in 2001.

Victoria and Giles Coren wrote an introduction to Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks, an anthology of the best comic writing by their father Alan Coren, published by Canongate in October 2008.

Her poker memoir For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker (the subtitle changed to Confessions of a Player when released in paperback in 2011) https://twitter.com/VictoriaCoren/status/297039495189123073 was published in September 2009, and was well reviewed in The Times and The Observer, as well as other places.

Early life

Coren was born in Hammersmith and grew up in Cricklewood next door to Cricklewood Studios. She is the daughter of Dr Anne Coren (née Kasriel) and the humorist and journalist Alan Coren, and the sister of journalist Giles Coren. She attended girls’ independent schools from the ages of 5 to 18, and read English at St John’s College, Oxford, graduating with a first class degree.