Latest poker community COVID-19 victims: Bill Chen and PCA tournament directors Mike Ward & Tammy Ward

[Dan Druff]

Bill Chen was the most recent known poker player to come down with COVID-19, and for him it wasn't pretty.

Here was his description on Facebook:

It was digestive. Diarrhea and huge loss of appetite first, and so tired it took all my energy to stand up and pee. Yeah I figured out I could sit down eventually. Then gastritis from not eating, vomiting bile every hour or two sometimes 36 hours from last meal. doc prescribed medication, two weeks to come back fully from that. I lost 30 pounds from it.

Chen is around 50 years old. He didn't have any preexisting conditions to my knowledge, but he was overweight. This was a public post on someone else's well-read Facebook thread, so I figured I'd share it here.

He has since recovered, but I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered permanent damage from this.

It seems that the super-extreme fatigue is a common symptom for those over 45 who come down with the virus.

Some of you also might know of Mike and Tammy Ward, especially if you attended the Pokerstars PCA in the Bahamas. Mike was the tournament director, and his wife Tammy was the tournament coordinator. Both caught COVID-19. Mike had tough symptoms but was not hospitalized, and recovered. His wife Tammy, who had previously dealt with breast cancer, wasn't quite as fortunate. She passed away, likely because she was immuno-compromised from the cancer.

Mike Ward was involved in a small controversy at the PCA in 2016, where the PCA miscalculated the number of players paid and announced the bubble had burst when it hadn't, and then obnoxiously demanded the $500 back from that player later, in a confrontational fashion.

[tgull]

Some big time Broadway star got his leg amputated and just emerged from a coma from the corona. I have never been to a Broadway play in my life, I just think the whole premise is retarded, but some people love it I guess. The last play I was at was local and it was some Agatha Christie rendition and I was shaking my head on just how cheesy it was. Some lady actor broke out in the middle of a scene and began singing a song and I was like WTF is this. Anyway, RIP actor's leg.

[sonatine]

if you get the gut version of it, you are fucked for life.

hes not going to test negative (actually negative) for years.

[Dan Druff]

Just to make something clear, Mike and Tammy Ward did not infect the PCA this year because:

1) The PCA was always in early-mid January

2) The PCA stopped taking place after the 2019 version, so there was no 2020 PCA