Victoria Coren Mitchell

Victoria Coren Mitchell
Born Victoria Elizabeth Coren
18 August 1972[1]
Hammersmith, west London
Nationality British
Alma mater St John's College, Oxford
Occupation Journalist, television presenter,
poker player, writer
Spouse(s) David Mitchell (2012–present)
Parent(s) Alan Coren (deceased)
Anne Coren (née Kasriel)
Relatives Giles Coren (brother)
Victoria Coren Mitchell's voice
Recorded April 2011 from the BBC Radio 4 programme Saturday Live
Website
victoriacoren.com
Victoria Coren Mitchell
Nickname(s) Teacup[2]
Residence London, United Kingdom
World Series of Poker
Bracelet(s) None
Money finish(es) 2
Highest ITM
Main Event finish		 None
European Poker Tour
Title(s) 2
Final table(s) 2
Money finish(es) 6

Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (born 18 August 1972), credited before 2013 as Victoria Coren,[3] is an English writer, presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for The Observer and The Guardian newspapers and hosts the BBC television quiz show Only Connect.

Early life

Coren Mitchell was born in Hammersmith and grew up in Cricklewood. 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 between five and eighteen years of age,[4] and read English at St John's College, Oxford,[5] graduating with a first-class degree.

Writing

Aged fourteen she had a short story published under a pseudonym in Just Seventeen magazine[6] 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[7] and Once More, with Feeling,[8] about her attempt (with co-author Charlie Skelton) to make the best hardcore porn movie ever. Their jobs reviewing porn films for the Erotic Review led them to believe that most of what they were watching was terrible and that they could make better films themselves.[1][9]

She 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,[10] the Grace Theatre and the New End Theatre in London, before she adapted it again for a BBC Two docudrama with Neil Pearson, broadcast in 2001.

Victoria and Giles Coren wrote an introduction to Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks,[11] 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[12] (the subtitle changed to Confessions of a Player when released in paperback in 2011)[13] was published in September 2009, and was well reviewed in The Times[14] and The Observer,[15] as well as other places.

Ormerod hoax

In December 2008 she revealed that in 2007 she had instigated a hoax 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".[16] She reported that the group duly applied for tickets claiming to have known Ormerod.[17]

Poker

Coren was the first woman to win an event on the European Poker Tour, the first player to win both a televised professional tournament (EPT London 2006) and a televised celebrity tournament (Celebrity Poker Club 2005), and the first player to win two European Poker Tour Main Events (EPT London 2006 and EPT Sanremo 2014). She frequently plays Texas hold 'em at the Victoria Casino in London's Edgware Road. 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, 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. She 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 she won the main event of the European Poker Tour (EPT) London earning a prize of £500,000 and defeating Australian professional Emad Tahtouh.[18]

On 20 November 2011 she 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.

In April 2014 she won the main event of the European Poker Tour (EPT) San Remo, earning €476,100 and becoming the only player to have won two EPT titles.[19]

As of 2014 her total live tournament winnings exceed $2,400,000.

She has been a member of Team PokerStars Pro,[20] but in November 2014 she removed her endorsement of them a few hours after PokerStars had announced they were starting an online casino. She said she was uncomfortable about potential addiction by vulnerable people to a site where the odds are in favour of the operator, and did not want to be associated with such an operation.[21]

She 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."[22]

Personal life

Coren Mitchell lives in London.[23] On 20 March 2012 she announced her engagement to actor and comedian David Mitchell.[24][25] Mitchell says they first met at a film premiere in 2007, but that three years passed before they properly got together.[26] Their wedding took place on 17 November 2012.[26] In March 2015, it was revealed that they are expecting their first child.[27]

Television and radio credits

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Coren, Victoria (19 August 2002). "I made a porn film for my 30th". Evening Standard. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  2. ↑ "Victoria Coren: Life as I know it". Daily Express. 13 July 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  3. ↑ "Victoria Coren's new moniker unveiled". Evening Standard. 14 May 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  4. ↑ "Interview: Victoria Coren". The Jewish Chronicle. 17 September 2009. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  5. ↑ "Interview: Victoria Coren". The Cambridge Student. 13 November 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  6. ↑ Coren, Victoria (19 March 2012). "Girls' mags are not sexy, but sweet". The Observer. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  7. ↑ Coren, Victoria (1989). Love 16. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0712-63012-2.
  8. ↑ Coren, Victoria; Skelton, Charlie (2010). Once More, with Feeling. Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-1841-15437-4.
  9. ↑ Carpenter, Louise (10 August 2002). "Proud to be pornographers". The Telegraph. Retrieved 18 September 2013.
  10. ↑ Sands, Sarah. "You've got to laugh – haven't you?". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 August 2000. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  11. ↑ Coren, Alan; Coren, Giles; Coren, Victoria (2009). Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks. Canongate. ISBN 978-1847-67320-6.
  12. ↑ Coren, Victoria (2009). For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker. Canongate.
  13. ↑ Coren, Victoria. "Twitter status, 31 January 2013". Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  14. ↑ "Times Review". The Times. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  15. ↑ Edward Docx (27 September 2009). "For Richer, for Poorer by Victoria Coren". The Observer. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  16. ↑ The Times, 14 August 2008.
  17. ↑ Victoria Coren (12 December 2008). "Victoria Coren: My dad's memorial service was going so well. Then the ghouls turned up". The Observer. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  18. ↑ "The European Poker Championships, Main Event – No Limit Hold'em: Hendon Mob Poker Database". Pokerdb.thehendonmob.com. 24 September 2006. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  19. ↑ "EPT 10 Sanremo 2014 – Victoria Coren Mitchell makes History". PokerStars.com. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  20. ↑ "Victoria Coren". Team PokerStars Pro. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  21. ↑ Coren Mitchell, Victoria. "Goodbye Team Pro". Coren Mitchell's blog. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  22. ↑ "Vicky Coren, the Royal wedding and cucumber sandwiches". PokerStarsBlog.com. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  23. ↑ "Poker face Victoria Coren wins £½m". Daily Mail. 25 September 2006. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  24. ↑ "David Mitchell and Victoria Coren: Engagement Announcement". The Times. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  25. ↑ "David Mitchell and Victoria Coren announce engagement". BBC News Online. 20 March 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Freeman, Hadley (19 October 2012). "David Mitchell: goodbye lonely nerd". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
  27. ↑ "The Jonathan Ross Show". 21 March 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

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