When patients talk about West Palm Beach obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Steven Silverman, his ample medical acumen isn’t what they mention first. It’s his kindness, his sense of humor, his love of travel and his talent for photographing his adventures.

The final table is set in the World Series of Poker $3,000 no-limit hold'em shootout, and it is stacked with notable players, including Steven 'Zugwat' Silve. World Poker Tour and partypoker, an online poker company Sexton cofounded, confirmed his death.Fellow poker champ Linda Johnson said Sexton 'had been battling prostate cancer' that had spread to. New Jersey obituaries and death notices, 1985 to 2020. Find your ancestry info and recent death notices for relatives and friends.

Lost to coronavirus: Dr. Steven Silverman, longtime West Palm Beach OB-GYN, dies from COVID-19 Patients at Silverman's practice, Comprehensive Women's Medical Center, remember his humor, his love. Herbert will be remembered fondly by friends and family for many things, including his passion for golf, poker, gin rummy, horse racing, driving (frequently at death defying speeds), singing and whistling, writing notes and letters (on the back of junk mail), short telephone conversations and an exceedingly perverse sense of humor.

Debra Flannery was a patient for more than 25 years. “I had always gone to female doctors,” she recalled. “I was a little bit hesitant. But right away he made me feel very comfortable. He’s a jokester. But he was a serious doctor.”

Flannery, of Jupiter, is one of a wide range of patients and friends mourning Silverman’s passing Sept. 10 from complications related to COVID-19, the respiratory ailment the virus creates. She said she could discuss anything with him.

“It was never, ‘Hurry up, Time to go.’ He loved helping people. He was a selfless person. Just an amazing man.”

Mimi Martin of West Palm Beach is a nurse who was a patient for at least 30 years. “He was so caring. He always had a smile on his face. He made everything fun,' she said.

Comments like those don’t surprise Valerie Silverman. “People found him easy to talk to,” she said of her husband. “He wasn’t just their doctor. They considered him their friend. People trusted him. He practiced as much psychology as medicine in his office. He was just a kind, generous person.”

Silverman was 71. He and Dr. William Casale shared a practice, Comprehensive Women’s Medical Center, on Forest Hill Boulevard.

Steven Silverman Poker Death Certificates

More: Lost to coronavirus: Both parents die four minutes apart; 2 of their children in hospital

'He’s delivered thousands, thousands of babies that are here in Palm Beach County over the last 40 some-odd years,' County Commissioner Greg Weiss, who counted Silverman as a constituent, said at the board's meeting Tuesday. 'He was in good health, and it’s a loss to the community, to lose anyone.'

Silverman had no underlying health conditions, his wife said. He was a runner and a cyclist, even pedaling on weekends as far as Delray Beach from their South End home in West Palm Beach. He also worked with a personal trainer.

'He was in excellent shape,” Valerie Silverman said. “He didn’t want to retire.”

But when he experienced a sore throat and a headache last month, he got tested for the coronavirus. The test was positive. Within days of being admitted to a hospital, he was in intensive care and on a ventilator, and remained on one until his death nearly four weeks later.

“It ruined his lungs,” Valerie Silverman said. “He never knew if he got it in the office. He was very careful.”

More: Lost to coronavirus: A love for the ages cut short by COVID-19

In addition to his wife, Silverman is survived by his children Aimee (Greg) and Michael, grandchildren Ethan and Andrew Horowitz, sister-in-law, Betsy (John) Brod and their children, Seth Brod and Jennifer (Jeff) Bernstein.

The family had a Zoom funeral with about 330 guests – some from as far away as Australia and France. His daughter eulogized Silverman as a fervent fan of the band Maroon 5, and somebody who mischievously taught her youngest son naughty song lyrics. Most of all, she said, she will remember his gift to “create relationships and maintain connections.”

Silverman’s son said his father provided the family with wise counsel and a good life, and did so with a sense of humor, adding that “not much was sacred at the dinner table in our house growing up.”

Among those attending the funeral was County Mayor Dave Kerner, who said at Tuesday's meeting that Silverman delivered him in 1983.

Kerner noted that Silverman never stopped serving patients even amid the coronavirus 'because of his commitment to the public health.

'We remember him. We honor him and we keep him in our thoughts as we move forward cautiously,' Kerner said.

Silverman was a New York City native. He skipped two grades and began college at 16. He graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a degree in psychology, then spent two years teaching sixth grade at a Catholic school in that city.

But he opted for a career change and attended the medical school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, followed by a residency at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

Steven Silverman Poker Death Penalty

It was there that Silverman met his future wife, a school social worker. They married in 1976 and moved to West Palm Beach in 1977.

The warmer weather appealed to a young doctor who might have to go out nights to deliver babies. “He figured if he was going to be getting up nights, he didn’t want to be sloshing around in the ice,” his wife said.

Silverman developed varied interests such as growing orchids and travel. Destinations included Africa – three times – Europe, China, Australia New Zealand, Hawaii and Antarctica. He was a fine photographer and prints of his trips adorn his office.

“He loved life to the fullest,” his wife said. “I thought we’d have another 20 years, at least. He was my best friend. Even our dog misses him terribly.”

Steven Silverman Poker Death Row

Those wishing to honor Dr. Silverman’s memory can do so by making a contribution to the Steven D. Silverman, MD Scholarship Fund at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Steven Silverman Poker Death Notices

Staff writer Hannah Morse contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lost to coronavirus: Dr. Steven Silverman, longtime West Palm Beach OB-GYN, dies from COVID-19