Big Friendly Poker Media Guy Passes
Barron Vangor Toth died last week, reportedly of cancer. He was an intelligent poster on 2+2 who would later go on to make his presence known around the WSOP writing for Gutshot … respected for his ability to capture the underlying excitement of limit hold’em and math in action. He was also the Connecticut state director for the Poker Players Alliance.
Prior to poker, Barron ran a shop selling comics and Magic the Gathering supplies … and from there became a game designer — most notably the co-creator of WWE Raw Deal (basically professional wrestling-meets-Magic) — which grew for seven years before being discontinued at the end of 2007. At the time of his death, he was site director for PlanetWWE.
Barron wrote a little about his health struggles here. He was 34.
California Jen says:
March 5th, 2008 at 11:14pm
Boo. 🙁
I didn’t know him well, but he seemed to be one of the nicest guys at the 2007 WSOP.
Rest in peace.
snake says:
March 6th, 2008 at 6:58am
RIP Barron…perhaps my favorite person to run into every summer at the WSOP.
Benjo says:
March 6th, 2008 at 2:34pm
So fucking sad… I didn’t know Barron prior to the 2007 WSOP, but we ended spending a lot of time together with the Gutshot Team. One of the nicest guys I met in the business. I’ll remember a bright and talented person, very alert and funny at all times, with a great way of juggling with words.
Frank Frisina says:
March 6th, 2008 at 2:38pm
My condolences to his friends and family. He will be missed.
steve hall says:
March 10th, 2008 at 2:00am
Wow. This is a shock.IMO the most talented writer in the media room
(OK I cannot read pokernews in Dutch). I don’t know his poker background
but he focused on some of the less obvious players and found an interesting
angle.
. I would read his live blog updates with my morning coffee.
A sad time for the Gutshot crew.
Pauly says:
March 12th, 2008 at 3:37pm
Wow, very sad day indeed. RIP Barron.