Last Sunday April 19th, PokerRoad employee Justin Shronk, passed away, apparently due to complications from previous health issues.

Although full details of what happened have not been released, what is clear is that the poker world has lost a beloved friend, fan, player and one of its greatest supporters, as a proud member of the poker media not only here at PokerRoad, but also in some respects for Bluff, PokerNews and previously at CardPlayer.com.

On a personal note, as a PokerRoad news person I’ve had to write a few of these kind of stories since starting this job, but I never imagined I would ever have to write one for Shronk and I sit here stunned, horrified and completely unworthy of the task.

The world lost an amazing person in Justin Shronk, but PokerRoad.com seemingly lost a major appendage that we will have trouble surviving without. Justin Shronk played a role in almost every aspect of PokerRoad and it is hard to imagine the company without him.

Along with the hundreds of other little things that he did around here that few knew about, Shronk was my news editor when I started working for this company as an intern less than two years ago and he was amazingly accessible and helpful, to a newbie that at the time didn’t know anyone or anything about the poker world.

Members of the PokerRoad forum knew him to be the same way, always available and willing to help out and answer questions no matter how inane or trivial. While reading those forums, in some hope of finding a way to write this without the guidance of my mentor and the one person I would usually ask, it is amazing to see the impact he made. For all the close friends he had, it seems there were thousands more he maybe wasn’t even aware that he had affected, fans of his writing, of his work with PokerRoad Radio and just of him and all the things that he did.

Justin Shronk was a huge part of our little poker world and he seemed to truly love being a part of it. Hopefully, that can be of some small comfort to all of us, his friends and family, now that we must continue on without him.