Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Coren Mitchell, pictured at a tournament in March, has lifetime winnings of £1.5m

Journalist and broadcaster Victoria Coren Mitchell made poker history on Sunday by becoming the first two-time winner of the European Poker Tour.

She beat 556 competitors to win a cash prize of £391,932 and a watch worth more than £4,000 in Sanremo, Italy.

Her victory came after a finale, in which she fought back from eighth place in the Tour, a week-long international tournament.

Coren Mitchell, who presents BBC Four's quiz show Only Connect, won in 2006.

I've long since lost the sense of what my day job is. Am I a professional writer who plays poker as a hobby? Or a professional poker player who writes as a hobby? Victoria Coren Mitchell

In doing so, she became the tournament's first female winner. Her second victory brings her lifetime winnings to £1.5m, putting her in the all-time top 10 female earners at the poker table.

"I WON! I bloody WON!!!!!!" she wrote on Twitter after defeating Italian player Giacomo Fundaro.

"Sorry for that language on Easter Sunday. But I WON!!!!!! That is at least partly thanks to the amazing support, God bless everyone."

Phone calls

"People in poker know it's about showing a profit," Coren Mitchell said as she accepted her trophy.

"The minute I won 8,000 euros (£6,576) it was a good trip. But tens of thousands of people (on Twitter) got behind me. I thought I'd be happy with sixth, but also thought they'd be disappointed."

She added: "I kept calling my husband during the breaks asking, 'Is sixth place all right? Fifth place?'"

Her husband, comedian David Mitchell, added from the side of the stage: "I thought perhaps I should have been saying, 'You must be first!' Not, 'Eighth seems great.'"

Image caption Coren Mitchell presides over high-brow quiz show Only Connect on BBC Four

A member of the elite Team PokerStars Pro, Coren Mitchell is the daughter of broadcaster Alan Coren.

She writes weekly columns for the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and is a regular panellist on shows like Have I Got News For You and Question Time.

Following her victory, a post on the Poker Stars website quoted Coren Mitchell as saying: "I've long since lost the sense of what my day job is.

"Am I a professional writer who plays poker as a hobby? Or a professional poker player who writes as a hobby?"