The USA might be responding at a snail’s pace to the growing threat of Covid-19, but at least the poker community is pulling its thumb out. Sort of.
Following on the heels of outcry against continued brick and mortar poker events from people like Daniel Negreanu the first U.S. poker tournaments are now being affected by the virus.
Maryland’s Live! Hotel & Casino has cancelled its weekly poker tournaments and the WPT Deepstack events the casino was supposed to be holding from the 13th to the 23rd of March 2020, have all been postponed.
Players who have satellited into the events will be able to redeem their entries for cash if they are unable to make the new dates when they are announced.
The announcement came after a now deleted Tweet which suggested the WPT events were cancelled, the correction followed shortly after.
The decision was taken on account of nine confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Maryland. Wherever there are confirmed cases the actual infection count is assumed to be much higher.
Poker players seem torn over whether cancelling events is a good idea or not. Current advice from experts is to avoid getting within two metres of infected people and to avoid touching anything they touch. Both are difficult tasks when playing live.
We can expect more cancellations to follow on the heels of Live!’s decision.