What a lovely thread! Thanks very much to all of you for your very kind comments - Tikay and everyone else!

Trundling FTW.

 V xx

Hurray for you, Tommy (and David and Tikay). They're ripping apart my commentary failings on the other thread; this has cheered me up a lot! As I'm sure you'll know, having read it, that is an intensely personal book for me and I put my heart and soul into it; it means an awful lot to me when people say it meant something to them. Seriously, thanks very much.

Hello... Neil told me to have a look at the Blonde forum because "they're saying nice things about you". lol, MARVELLOUS....

Sorry you're not enjoying the LNP commentary. Just to clarify something though -

In my eyes, poker commentary should include a team of 2; a high level thinker with a good understanding of concepts and plays, and a lay person with an ability to translate these occasionally complex ideas into words understandable to the average Joe.  Vicky does not fit into either of these categories unfortunately.

  Sure: that's exactly the principle by which poker commentary's always done. On LNP, I'm meant to be in the second category! Tikay's right, you're looking at it in the wrong way: you're thinking of me as a poker player, and disappointed that I don't seem to be on top of the technical lingo you'd use to analyse plays. But that's not how the audience would be thinking of me generally. James is there for the pro analysis, and I'm there to introduce / translate / fill in narrative / make the odd joke. When you say "a lay person", have you thought about what it would be like if that job was ACTUALLY done by a lay person? It has to be someone who plays poker, otherwise it's like getting a translator who only speaks English and has no idea what his Japanese client is banging on about.
  I'm working in exactly the same tradition as Jesse May (and so is Nick Wealthall), trying to bring colour and humour and a bit of explanation alongside the technical stuff. I'd never claim to be as good as Jesse, only an admiring disciple of his approach, and of course I'm sorry if you think it's rubbish - but it's a bit harsh to say that Jesse's brilliant and I'm clueless about poker. That's not comparing like with like. A more logical comparison would be: Jesse's entertaining and I'm just dull lol. Or, of course, it could be: Jesse's brilliant at poker and I'm terrible at it - but you'd really have to say that based on watching us both play, rather than anything we're trying to do in the commentary box.

  Another note of clarification:

She is fit though.

  Of COURSE I'd take that as a compliment! Anyone who thinks I wouldn't... jeez, if you think I take life that seriously, then my intro jokes on LNP really AREN'T working!

Anyway, that's all - sorry I won't see any replies to this, but I don't look at poker forums much (only the Hendon Mob when they put my column up really, in case anyone has questions) - not that this isn't a great forum, but I'm always juggling too much stuff and don't have time.

  Also means you're quite free to carry on saying what a terrible commentator I am and I won't see that either... but I've got the gist. ;-)

if you felt that you needed to justify it you could have said something last night or this afternoon to my face.FRAN

I had no idea about it last night. Today a friend of mine told me there was this weird post/thread on this forum - obviously I looked for you immediately to have a word about it but you weren't around. So I left a message for you with Maria. Sounds a bit like you've still got the hump with me, I honestly have no idea why, maybe I'm being dense but I can't do much more than say that you imagined me saying something that I hadn't and wouldn't.
  And no problem Dana - I'm sure you wrote it because you thought it happened, but in future I'd love it if you could check with *me* if I said something, rather than other people! People have strange agendas - normally I don't look at poker forums (I only came on here because Neil told me about it and I wanted to clear it up) and I hate the idea of any future times when people might think I've said or done something I haven't. I'd really appreciate it if you hear of me saying/doing anything horrible in future that you ask me if I have before printing it! I'm a nice person really, I promise, and I hardly ever do horrid things..... :-)
  Enough now, I'm logging off, good luck to the remaining runners & best wishes,
  VC x

Someone just told me about this "reporting" which happened on day 1B:

"Poor old Fran is indeed OUT....Apparently then spoke up Vicky Coren, "I think that's the result we were all hoping for." Which seems a bit unnecessary. Anyway. Unlucky, Fran."

!! It's hard to know where to start really. Why on earth would I have said that??? A few hours into a three day tournament, a young woman I've never met or spoken to gets knocked out and I'm supposed to say "That's the result we were all hoping for?" Why??!! Just to be horrible?! I hope that anyone who's ever met me would know that I wouldn't say anything like that even if it was the final table and somebody's exit won me £50,000 ! But at level 3 or 4, when nobody's exit makes any difference to me one way or the other, why would *anybody* think I would say that? What am I, Satan?!
  Needless to say, of course I didn't say that! I said "Well that's not a good result". And it wasn't meant to be horrible to Steve Jellinek either - he'd just won loads of pots in a row, he was chip leader on the table, this knockout gave him lots of power, so it was just a way of showing a bit of sympathy for the woman who'd been knocked out, and a bit of banter with Steve because I didn't want him to have quite so many chips. I wouldn't have said it if losing the pot could have damaged Steve; he had a big stack already, so it was just a kind of joky thing about it being bad for us that now he had even more.
  Fran - it did seem that you were annoyed with me when you walked away and I had no idea why; I now realize you must have thought I said that too. Not at all - quite the opposite! I was sorry to see you go; I'm always sorry to see someone get knocked out, unless I've got the chips myself or (selfishly) we're on the bubble - and even then I'm sympathetic because it's always a horrible moment when your hopes get dashed. I would never cheer when I knocked someone out or anything like that. God knows I certainly wouldn't cheer when someone ELSE knocked someone out!!! I'm incredibly sorry if you thought I was being mean, but I hope you realized quite quickly that OF COURSE I wasn't - there's only a tiny handful of people in poker who'd be quite that horrible, and I'm not one of them!
  But to the person who 'reported' this... really I think perhaps you might have spoken to me before you wrote that down in public for people to read. It's a very unpleasant allegation, and even if it didn't occur to you that there must have been a misunderstanding, you should always check a quote before you attribute it to someone. It's kind of irresponsible not to.
  And Fran - sorry again if you misheard me, I really hope this clears it up, and good luck in your next tournament.