Bad beat ... or was it?

I had the following situation occur last night in a single table tournament and it has been driving me crazy all day, so I thought I'd post it here to get others thoughts on the matter.

This is the hand the way that I remember it. Both players start with approx. $50 Stacks, blinds are 1/2:

Bob - raise $10
Rick (JJ) - re-raise $10
everyone else folds
Bob - calls
pot - $43

Flop - 2s 7c 10c

Bob - check
Rick - bet $5
Bob - calls
pot - $53

Turn - 5s

Bob - check
Rick - bet 10
Bob - calls
pot - 73

River - 6h

Bob - bets 15 - All in
Rick - Call 15
pot - $103

Bob - Shows 8h9h
Rick - Shows JJ

Bob takes down $103 pot. Rick left with $1. So, this is where I think I made my mistakes. I should have made a continuation bet of at least $10 on the flop (since I still had to be worried about an overpair based on the huge preflop raise), and gone all in on the turn when Bob checked to me again. I gave him pot odds before the turn and river cards, so in hindsight, he was right to call there (other than the fact that calling those bets would put him out if he misses). It's a tough call though because he should have let go of the suited connectors with such a big re-raise preflop, so I had to put him on QQ, JJ, maybe 10's or something like AKs, AQs. If he had AA or KK, he probably wouldn't have raised it for $10 preflop, hoping to get a caller or two. I'd be interested to hear any other thoughts on this?

(BTW, I actually doubled up twice and went down on an AI call As9s against Ks8s before going out. Had I won that hand, I would have been back in the game, so it's true, chip and a chair is all you need.)

thats not a bad beat. It was about 80%/20% preflop in your favor, but postflop it gets to about 75%/25%, meaning every 3 times you win, you're gonna lose to that straight draw once.

you want to replay situations like this over and over to see the true value of it. Your JJ will hold up more often than not.

I would never have put him on 89, I would have put him on 2 overs, and I would push the flop.

Your flop bet is bad, you got a good flop, but with little chance for improvement, your $5 bet is meaningless.

If you haven't pushed the flop you must push the turn. The $10 put you pot comitted.

Most of the time when someone check-called you all the way to the river and then bet means he either slowplayed a strongf hand or imroved on the river, it was pretty clear you are beat when he bets, but given the size of the pot I can't fault your call.


I can't call it a bad beat, since you practictly gave him a chance to draw.

Like the others have said, you need to push all-in on the flop to eliminate any draws. That is an extremely draw heavy flop and you don't want to give such juicy odds to call you.

A great example of when you should be pushing you jacks

You need to bet at least 20 on the flop to cut down drawing odds. Since this is most of your stack, you should just push all-in. Your $5 bet is a money losing play. That bet is so small relative to the pot that almost any reasonable hand will show a profit by calling you.