On Saturday, there will be two big charity poker events with proceeds donated to COVID-19 relief. Run It Once Poker will host a special heads-up tournament featuring 16 of the top players in the world including Phil Galfond, Sam Greenwood, Parker Talbot, John Cynn, and Dan Smith battling 16 qualifiers. Meanwhile, over at America's Cardroom, several big-time celebrities will be taking part in the festivities including Tom Brady, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Tobey Maguire, John Hamm, Adam Sandler, Aaron Paul, Jason Bateman, Cheryl Hines, Brian Cranston, Sarah Silverman, and Adam Levine.
The coronavirus pandemic is something that has locked down the entire world while everyone stays at home and self-quarantines to do their share. Every country is affected in some way or another with the coronavirus outbreak. At this point, the coronavirus has affected your friends and family in horrible ways. Luckily there's poker to help keep your mind at bay and plenty poker players and celebrities will be going to the virtual felt to help raise charity for COVID-19 relief efforts.
Phil Galfond has been making headlines over the last week for crushing his heads-up PLO highstakes battle against VeniVidi. Galfond finally surged ahead after falling behind 900K. The Challenge is almost done. But for now, Run It Once Poker will be the location of a special heads-up charity event with 16 of the top pros in the world playing against 16 qualifiers.
Phil Galfond heads the list of 16 of pros/personalities that also includes Andreas Froehli, Dan Smith, Luc Greenwood, Jamie Kersetter, Marle Cordeiro, Richard Gayler, David Tuchman, Ben Slusky, Sam Greenwood, John Cynn, Parker Talbot, Kevin Martin, Dan Dvoress, Kevin Rabinchow.
And yes, 16 qualifiers will face each of the named pros in the opening round.
The COVID-19 Heads Up Charity event begins at 8:00pm PT and will be broadcast over at Run It Once's Twitch feed.
And over at America's Card Room (aka the somewhat shady ACR), they will be hosting a charity poker tournament for COVID-19 relief as well. For ACR's event, they have many top pros such as Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Jamie Jeff Gros, Timex, and Jeff Boski.
Among the celebrity athletes playing will be Tom Brady. Yes, that Tom Brady who bailed for the New England Patriots to sign a dope contract with the Tampa Bay Bucs. He will be in attendance along with Pats superfans, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. We suspect Matty Boy talked Tommy Boy into playing. Everyone knowns Affleck is a degen so he was in before anyone asked.
Other notable celebrities playing include John Hamm, John Krasinski, Tobey Maguire, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle, Aaron Paul, Adam Levine, Sarah Silverman, Cheryl Hines, Jason Bateman, and Adam Sandler (fresh off his role as a degen in 'Uncut Gems').
Anyone else want to see Tommy Boy tilt Hellmuth? Or how about Adam Sandler just doing voices for 90 minutes while donking it up?
You can tune into ACR's Twitch feed for coverage of their charity tournament on Saturday starting at 11am PT.
