Today, the Team PokerStars Pro sits across this vast room with a look on her face that makes it appear we can approach. Then, just as well do, she's in the middle of a hand that--though we don't know it at the time--is not going to turn out well. She's called twice, raised once, and fired a big 5,000 bullet on the river. When it's all said and done, the board read [8s][9d][Ts][9h][2d].

"Aww," Coren sighed. "You were right. King-high."

Her opponent had aces.

I rushed back to my computer screen wand waited to see what Coren would say. Would she eviscerate the man with the aces? That was the hope, because schadenfreude is what gets me through the day.

"Half an hour into EPT London main event," she wrote. "I've already bluffed off 8000 chips. Of 30k. I think I *might* still be on tilt from yesterday..."

If you're just tuning in, it may be best for us to review the events of one day past.

See, Coren was deep in the EPT High Roller event yesterday and had run smack dab into a man she...affectionately...called " Horrible Eric."

There is history here. It goes back to the World Series of Poker when Coren first met the Canadian Erik Cajelais. The tale alone is worth five minutes of your time, because the lady from London is not only a fantastic writer, she also captures a moment unlike almost any poker player can. Consider this exchange she recounted from the WSOP.

"She check a full 'ouse!" he shouted at the man next to him.

"Well", I said, "I didn't think he would call if..."

"NO!" Eric held up a big meaty hand. "You have 'umiliated yourself in front of everyone. The more you say, the worse it get."

Bad blood being what it is, the animosity still had a bit of an edge on it when Coren was deep into the High Roller event. And that's when the Twitter lashing started. Here are some gems:

In the end, Coren went out on the bubble of High Roller event and spent much of the evening, in her words, "shell shocked."

We can't say for sure whether her immediate return to the baize made it better or worse. After a morning of signing copies of her new book "For Richer For Poorer, she went immediately back to the table where she is Twittering of bluffs gone wrong.

But, she assures us, it is not, in fact, tilt.

"Just missed my 18 outs and tried too hard to win it on the river anyway," she wrote.

It's just a few minutes to the first break of the day and Coren remains alive and well. For the past hour, her Twitter feed had gone silent.

We'll take it that means things are going okay.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole "Horrible Eric" story over on Vicky's blog.

Our readers in the UK now have another chance to catch her on the small screen as tonight (Mon) sees the start of her quiz show Only Connect on BBC4. Vicky presents the series, which is described by The Times newspaper as "fiendish, addictive, gripping". There you go, three adjectives for the price of one.

The program begins at 8.30pm (GMT). Enjoy!

by Vicky Coren

The art of multi-table tournament poker lies in the pace. There are two big general mistakes that beginners can make: either they play too slowly, waiting so long for good hands that they are blinded away by the relentless clock - or they play too quickly, pushing unnecessary hands and knocking themselves out as if they had a train to catch.

The balance is difficult to find. It's all about a mathematical equation: you are playing according to the size of your stack, the size of your opponents' stacks, the size of the blinds and the speed of the clock. But all these factors are changing all the time. It can be discombobulating. Playing a tournament is like climbing a long staircase, in which the size and shape of the steps is altered every few minutes, and (every so often) a tub of oil is tipped down them. If you stop concentrating, you'll tumble backwards and break a leg.

Generally speaking, the best principle is to let your pace gather speed with the blinds. That is the safest strategy: to play tight at the beginning (not overplaying marginal hands when the blinds and pots are too small to be worth stealing), and gradually broaden the range of hands you raise with, in direct proportion to the blinds going up and the field getting smaller. If people want to push you around at the beginning, let them. But when the blinds get serious, flex your muscles and take a stand.

By "playing tight", I don't mean waiting for aces. In a deep-stack tournament, where you can afford to see a lot of flops in the early levels, you can play pre-flop almost like a cash game: creeping in, or making unexpected raises, with those interesting hands like 8-10 suited or J9 suited, trying to catch a monster. It's more a case of (when you fail to hit) not throwing good money after bad. If you can afford to give up, don't get stubborn.

In a big opening field, such as the PokerStars Sunday Million, there can be a strangely hurried feel. Players want to jostle ahead of the crowd so they play aggressively, pushing marginal hands and even moving all in, from the earliest levels. Some of them want to build a big stack fast, or get out early. If this is the mood at your table, don't get sucked into the panicky betting frenzy: sit patiently and bet only when you want action. Pre-flop raises won't clear opponents away. Bluffs will fail more often than they succeed. But value bets should pay off nicely. Don't bother trapping with sets, straights or flushes: bet them openly. It's worth seeing a few cheap flops in late position with a wide range of hands, but play on only if you hit because you will get paid.

Remember, in a multi-table tournament you have two sets of opponents: those on your table (whose chips you are trying to take directly) and those on other tables who you may meet later. So you should always have an idea of what the average chip stack is for the whole field. On PokerStars, it's easy - the lobby will always tell you. In a live tournament like an EPT, there should be a wall clock with that information.

You are there to play poker and win the tournament, not count your way nervously towards the payout spots. But the chip average should be in your mind as a constant backdrop, to gauge the general health of your stack.

In the middle stages, you cannot afford to waste chips. At this point, it's all about selective aggression: picking your spots to play, and then playing like you mean it. In the early stages you can make speculative calls, in the middle stages you can't. Beware the mediocre hands like A-9 or small pairs; you're better off playing a 6-7 suited. Why? Because you'll know where you stand. You should be raising or re-raising your way into pots with hands where you know you want action, or know that you don't. The same applies after the flop. With every bet you make, be certain what response you want.

Around the bubble is a great time to increase your aggression. Many players will be loitering, trying to make the money. You must find the bravery not to be one of these people. But pick your targets with care. The small stacks are forced to gamble and the big stacks can afford to. Put pressure on the middle stacks, who may be trying to safeguard their chips for the payout spots.

What about the size of your own stack? You must make sure it never goes below ten big blinds. If you find you have 15-20 big blinds, it's time to start re-raising all-in while you can still make the original raiser pass. If you get to 10 big blinds or fewer, it's all-in or fold. You must not raise and then pass; it's like burning money. And you mustn't flat call, because timidity is tournament death. With ten big blinds or below, if nobody else has raised before the action is on you, you must be ready to move in with any hand at all. Anything. Even if you have 7-2 and somebody wakes up with A-A, you still have a 12% chance to win the pot - whereas, if you let yourself get blinded away, you have 0% chance of winning the tournament. And if you can find the nerve to start moving in with any hand in the late stages (or when you're on ten big blinds) you have a much higher than 12% chance that nobody finds anything to call you with, and you can boost your stack with those valuable blinds and antes.

Two important notes: what applies to you applies to everyone else as well. If you have good chips and someone else moves in with less than ten big blinds, you must widen your calling range to reflect their need to move with anything.

Second note: in any form of poker - cash game or tournament, Holdem or Omaha, multi-table or heads-up - you must always be counter-intuitive. Whatever your basic strategy (and the above, to increase aggression as the tournament goes on, remains the best) you must mix it up at least once per level. Never let your opponents get complacent. Do what's right but, every so often, just do what's unexpected.

The WCOOP $25,000 Heads-Up Championship turned out to be the most nerve-wracking tournament I've ever played. It wasn't the size of the buy-in (I've played for this crazy price twice before, once making a profit of $17,000 and once for nada) but the structure. There was something incredibly intense about being just three heads-up matches away from $100,000 - and six matches away from $560,000.

My first match turned out to be a relatively easy victory, although I was told that my opponent (named BBJ) is considered to be a very good player. When we sat down, I knew nothing about this BBJ except what I could glean from the information in front of me. Our opening conversation went like this:

Vicky Coren: Hi. GL.
BBJ: U'll need it.

From this I knew that my opponent was definitely male. It also told me that he was probably American, very likely under 30 years old, and - most usefully - that he was bound to play very aggressively. Nobody would make that opening remark if they were planning to play a wily, trappy game. Good; this was in my comfort zone. As a female player, I have plenty of experience (live and online) of opponents who think a battering ram will simply scare me off the table.

BBJ did indeed set off by raising every time he had the button, and continuation betting every street if I called. Experience told me my best strategy was to try and turn his aggression against him - ie. to let him pick up a series of pots without much contest, believing that he was running me over, and to play passively even when I had a big hand. This seemed like a player who would keep betting to make me pass, so all I had to do (if I hit anything) was not pass. Sure enough, our match burned itself out pretty quickly, with most of the field still in action, which left me time to make a nice cheese sandwich, mmm.

My second opponent, with the field of 64 down to 32, was named gunning4you. When I greeted him at the start, he replied in a much more relaxed and friendly manner - which was immediately more worrying. The cleverer the player, in general, the nicer they behave. Have you ever heard the old saying that you have nothing to fear from a roaring lion? It's the ones who slink about quietly that represent the most danger.

There isn't much to report from my second match, because I don't think I was in front at any stage. Gunning4you played a much slyer, more cunning and dangerous form of poker. He didn't inflate the pots too
much to begin with, recognizing this as unnecessary for a good player in a deep-stack tournament. His timing was strong, and his instincts sharp. He made excellent value bets on the river, which I was usually obliged to call when I was just a pip behind.

In my defence, I was on horrible form for that second match. I had only two decent starting hands (KK, which lost to A9, and AA which won a tiny pot since we both checked it down after four diamonds came) and missed the flop with everything else. If I tried a bluff, Gunning had something to call with. It was the kind of match where, every time you see a flop, you feel like you're being punished for something.

But this is not to detract from Gunning's play: I was really impressed. He seemed like a nice guy and a very strong heads-up player, I hope he goes a long way in the tournament. But I won't find out until it's all over, since it's time for me to go to bed and dream about what I would have done with $560,000.

Note: Once Vicky went to bed, her opponent busted out in the next round and stevesbets went on to win the bracelet. Read about that in the WCOOP Event #19 wrap up. Vicky is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

Today, she returns for Day 2 of the $1,500 HORSE event, and, if we're to believe a late-night dispatch from her, she is in this massive field of $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Players.

"A friend of mine has talked me (completely against my better judgment) into playing the $1500 NLH at noon," she said,"and then if I'm not knocked out in the first three hours I will be in two events - totally sick!"

Whether she's referring to the situation or herself is not entirely clear. Having known Vicky for several years now, I don't get the impression that she can't handle two tournaments at once, nor that she would feel too badly about playing both.

"What the hell," she reasoned. "Most serious poker players manage to spend seven weeks out here and play dozens of events. I had so much work in London, I only got here a couple of days ago and there were only about three tournaments left before the main event. So there's a certain twisted logic to trying to play as many as possible in the small window"

We probably should've seen this coming. When Coren arrived in town, she was eager. How eager. Check out the video blog below.

Watch WSOP 08: Victoria Coren Interview on PokerStars.tv

We're still looking for her around the room. Not finding her here immediately doesn't mean she didn't show up. It is only an indication of today's tournaments size. Whatever the result, Coren had pretty much rationalized it before going to sleep.

"My tired sun-struck brain can almost see the sense in it.. I wouldn't do it if I had a lot of chips in the HORSE, but a horrible final hand of Seven Stud left me with only 8900, so I'm gambling," she said. "This from someone who hasn't even learned to multi-table successfully on PokerStars yet, never mind live action. But I've eaten so much junk since I got here, I could probably do with the exercise."

The HORSE event is about to re-start for the day, so we should soon learn whether Coren woke up in the same mood. For the sake of the story, we hope so.

If you want to be spotted in a crowd you can’t go far wrong starting on the basis that bright colours will work - like yellows and oranges that assist the rescue teams if you're lost on a mountain, or out at sea. Bright pink works too. In this mass of people crowded inside the Amazon Room step forward Team PokerStars Pro Victoria Coren and her pink fedora.

Sitting forward in her chair, feet behind her and in the kind of elegant shoes rarely given a chance back in the bleak UK summer, she has adopted the best position for fighting the elements – in this case a ferocious air conditioning unit piping a cold breeze into the room funnelling it past her table - knees up on the chair, zip up on, arms crossed. It's the Pike position, aerodynamic and best for warmth.

Not that Vicky needs to try and stand out - her tournament record speaks for itself and amid her tournament palmares is a cash in this event last year.

But there are other things going against Vicky, notably jetlag. Having arrived on the same flight from London I can confirm that, for the English, this is technically the middle of the night. But it’s also Vegas and the motivation to stay awake comes from elsewhere. If only the cards were helping, which Vicky's wry smile went some way to explain. She’s down to around 3k in level 3.

Hats are a theme on this table. The seat one player has some kind of oriental pattern to his baseball cap while in seat six sits one of the newest members of Team PokerStars Pro, Poland’s Marcin Horecki. His style of headgear is the 'reverse beret', which sits next to his chips. His day has started a little better but when I arrived a deep thought hand had Marcin mucking after several minutes in the tank, a short sharp shake of the head accompanying the act of mucking, sending him back down to around 7k.

Into level four...

Postscript: Well, Vicky Coren is out. “That was a weird coup” (quoted from a text message she was sending) just about summed it up. A case of her all-in being called with one of those “mediocre” hands. But pragmatic to the end it’s nothing a cigarette break and a bit of sunshine won’t fix. Almost.

“4pm is an odd time to go out. 2pm and you can enjoy the afternoon, but 4pm...”

Regardless, there will be other events for Vicky before the main event starts next week. For now an evening off (probably spent in a card room close to here). No inclination to play the Stud Eight-or-Better later tonight though.

How so? Well, it's sort of hard to put into words.

Just check out this video blog to find out. When you're done with that, check out for all our video blogs from the World Series.

by Victoria Coren

When I'm playing on PokerStars, people often stop by to chat. I'm happy to do it - it's nice to 'meet' my fellow players - though sometimes it can be hard to answer lots of questions at once. This is especially true when I'm multi-taking in traditionally female style: simultaneously playing a sit & go, making a salad dressing and talking
to my mother on the phone. (Thank God for the sit & go, or I'd think I had accidentally turned into a sitcom housewife from 1973). In that situation, when the questions 'FANCY A $20 HU?','WILL U MARRY ME?', and 'Y R U SUCH A DONKEY?' come scrolling onto the screen in quick succession, I usually miss a couple of answers.

Generally, though, I enjoy the chat function. But it's been very depressing for the last couple of weeks, and I'd like to plead with my PokerStars compadres to stop coming into the chat box and asking 'R U AT THE WSOP?' Because the answer is no! And that's an answer that fills me with gloom every time I type it! I will be making it out to Vegas for the main event, and a couple of other tournaments just before, but it's a flying visit for me this year. I've got too much work in London to allow myself the luxury of six weeks in the sunshine. Six weeks of live poker. Six weeks of glittery bracelet-chasing. Six weeks of eating lobster buffets at midnight, laughing at Celine Dion impersonators, and shopping for gold Buddha money-boxes.

Hurray for the internet, I think to myself as I click onto PokerStars. At least, in 2008, I can find 24-hour poker without leaving home. It is my little respite from working, paying bills and putting the bins out. In the rain. But every time someone asks 'ARE YOU AT THE WSOP?' it reminds me that I'm not. It reminds me that as soon as this particular sit & go finishes (usually, for me, when there are four of us left), I will be returning to the work and the rain and the bins.

So ask me anything else, please. Ask me the capital of Paraguay. Ask me how to make a good salad dressing. Ask how my mother is. But please don't ask if I'm in Vegas, or I might start sobbing into the keyboard and fuse the machine while there are still five of us left.

"I could listen to that voice read the phone book," I said.

"She's quite a player, too," someone responded.

Before the day was complete, I learned the voice belonged to one Victoria Coren, TV broadcaster, writer, and top poker player. People who had the pleasure of watching Late Night Poker in its heyday will remember Coren from the tables there. Since that time, the already-famous Coren has become one of, if not the most famous women in British poker. That has been helped in no small part by her crowning achievement: Coren was and remains the only woman to ever win a PokerStars.com European Poker Tour title. Coren won EPT London in Season 3 for £500,000.

Today, PokerStars announced Coren is joining the ranks of Team PokerStars Pro, an elite stable of some of the world's top poker professionals. You'll be able to find Coren on PokerStars playing under the likely name "Vicky Coren."

So, next time you're sitting at the tables and you hear a voice that makes you turn your head, check to see if it's coming from underneath a PokerStars hat. If it's Coren, be careful. Her voice may be just hypnotizing enough to distract you from the fact she's taking all your chips.