Brad "Yukon" Booth Eliminated in 22nd Place ($48,300)
Log: Brad "Yukon" Booth raises to $75,000 from the cutoff, Phil Laak moves all in from the small blind, and everyone in the media swarms to the table. Booth calls all in for $534,000 with As-Jh, and Laak flips over pocket aces (Ac-Ah). Booth will need to catch a miracle to survive here.


The flop comes 10c-9s-2d, and Booth needs a runner-runner straight or running jacks to stay alive. The turn card is the 10h, and Booth is drawing dead. (The meaningless river card is the 5d.) Brad "Yukon" Booth is eliminated in 22nd place, earning $48,300.


I can't even fathom calling all my chips off with AJos in this situation...absolutely terrible. The raise isn't bad, but when an opponent pushes over the top for all your chips, how can you possibly think that AJ could be the best hand?

Credit Phil Laak for reading that the guy would call his all in with Rockets, I would have re-raised and let the guy hang himself, just because I could never believe that anyone would call such a massive raise for all their chips with such a modest hand.

It's easy to say when you see the results, but what if Laak had been doing this consistently as a resteal like he is capable of. Then it seems like AJ is an ok hand. Still questionable when he has that many chips left, but not as horrible as you make it seem.

You're right, there aren't enough facts given to call the actual player a donkey, but the play itself definitely reeks of donkishness. It's entirely possible that Phil had been stealing left and right, but Phil wasn't exactly in commanding chip position when this went down (500k with 10k/15k blinds) so I think it's fairly likely this went down as described.