Breaking Bad Star David Costabile Wins Charity Event

PokerStars hosted the Stars CALL for Action charity tournament on May 9 in what was an incredible event. Television and movie stars, sports personalities, and professional poker players all competed. Breaking Bad star David Costabile was the last man standing and banked $100,000 for a charity of his choice.

Dozens of A-list celebrities competed in a series of six-max Celebrity Shootout tournaments. One player from each of those tournaments progressed to the grand finale. PokerStars added $1 million to the final’s prize pool making this a serious tournament.

Half that sum went to CARE International with 50% going to other charitable causes. There was also $275,000 up for grabs for the final six finishers. The winner’s donated their prizes to a charity of their choice.

Three Breaking Bad actors participated. David Costabile (Gale Boetticher), Bryan Cranston (Walter White), and Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman) being that trio. Other competitors included Jason Alexander, Kevin Pollak, Macaulay Culkin, Lisa Kudrow, Jack Black, and Liam Payne.

Cranston was responsible for Hank Azaria busting; Azaria was key in organizing this event. The Breaking Bad star called Azaria’s short-stack shove with ace-ten and was again king-six. A ten on the flop and an ace on the turn ended Azaria’s participation.

Unfortunately for Cranston, his high came with the low of bursting the bubble. Cranston jammed 14 big blinds with king-queen suited. Soccer star Douglas Costa woke up with pocket aces and made the easy call. Cranston picked up a flush draw on the turn, but it failed to come in. The Breaking Bad lead busted in seventh-place and the surviving players cashed.

Costabile Of Breaking Bad Second In Chips in the Money

Invitee “TheLordLord” was the first player to cash. They committed their chips with top pair on a king-high board only to be out-kicked by Jen Shahade. Sixth-place weighed in at $15,000.

Former WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker fell next. Moneymaker’s ace-queen ran into the dominated ace-deuce of Casey Affleck. A deuce on the turn was a nail in Moneymaker’s coffin.

Affleck didn’t put Moneymaker’s chips to good use because he busted next. Affleck limped with ace-nine then called Costa’s jam. Costa flipped over a pair of red queens, which held as the board void of aces.

Costa sent Shahade to the rail in third when his ace-ten came from behind to beat ace-queen. This elimination left Costa holding a 990,000 to 150,000 chip lead over Breaking Bad star Costabile.

Costabile fought back after winning a series of all-ins. The final hand saw Costa shove with a pair of black fours. Costa called with ace-king of club. Costabile’s hand somehow held on the 8d-9d-Js-6h-Th board to take down the tournament and $100,000!

Stars CALL For Action Charity Tournament Final Table Results

Place	Player	Prize
1	David Costabile	$100,000
2	Douglas Costa	$75,000
3	Jen Shahade	$40,000
4	Casey Affleck	$30,000
5	Chris Moneymaker	$20,000
6	TheLordLord	$10,000

The Breaking Bad actor donated his $100,000 to World Central Kitchen. This charity supplies food to those who most need it.

Charity tournaments are popular than ever because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people are unable to work because of social distancing measures around the world.

GGPoker donated the entire $111 tournament fee from its $1,111 buy-in WSOP Super Circuit Series event to charity on May 10. Some 1,595 players bought in, making the donation a cool $177,045. It is the Nevada Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund that benefits from the donation.

Only last month, Ebony Kenney won a similar star-studded tournament at Americas Cardroom. Kenney found herself heads-up against Kevin Pollak, who she defeated for a sizeable donation to Feeding America.

Here’s hoping the poker community remains in a generous mood once this pandemic calms.

Matthew Pitt

If it’s something you can play online for real money, chances are Matthew knows a bit about it. He’s been writing about slots, craps and poker for the better part of the last decade. He’s written for PokerNews, PartyPoker and many other respected online gambling websites during the last nine years.

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