Bad Beat or Bad play?

Ok I need some help with this ppl. Yesterday in a home tournament I encountered a very difficult situation. The table is 7 handed. I receive pocket aces in the fifth position. Blinds are 100/200 1st position folds, 2nd postion shortstacked goes all in for his remaining 725. Everyone else folds to me. I Decide to just call rather than go all in as to induce action from the remaining players behind me. The button folds and the SB goes into the tank for a couple of mins and decides to call. BB folds.
Flop comes
10 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 10 /images/graemlins/club.gif 9 /images/graemlins/club.gif
the SB who is 1st to act goes all-infor 1600+
I call quickly and turn over A /images/graemlins/heart.gif A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif
SB turns over J /images/graemlins/heart.gif J /images/graemlins/club.gif the other guy who was all in before the flop turns over Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif Q /images/graemlins/club.gif
turn brings a brick in 6 /images/graemlins/heart.gif
River brings the J /images/graemlins/spade.gif and my pocket aces are cracked sendin me Home. /images/graemlins/confused.gif
The question I have is should I have gone All In pre flop in order to drive the rest of the players out of the pot? Or was I correct in slow playing the aces preflop by just calling?
I can't get this outta my head.....
DAn if you are reading this Please help...
Thanks
-young Sam Farha

[RLilley]

I like the play. Who knows that JJ wouldn't have called anyway? You just got bad beat on the river.

[HeroInBlack]

You played it perfectly. All of your plans and reads were right. You got the maximum amount of chips in with the best hand. You can't do any better than that.

What an ideal situation to have Aces against Queens and Jacks, you lost to a 2 outer, that happens. I like the pre-flop call to keep the jacks in, keep playing like that and you'll be fine in the long haul.

[nightlyraver]

This was clearly a bad beat in this specific case, but your description seems to suggest that you only have about 10-11BB's preflop. That said, I would be less concerned about inducing action and more concerned about getting the pot heads up. I'm moving all-in. However, you got called by a hand you dominated, and he sucked out...

What about this hand made you suspect that you played poorly? Every step to this hand went as perfectly as you could have wished, with the exception, of course, of the third jack falling.

Pushing all in preflop may have gotten you heads up, but if you did have a stack with 10 or so BB's, then I wouldn't mind a third person calling preflop. Chances are he's got a pocket pair or AK, both of which you have dominated, and the vast majority of the time you're going to take the pot.

Thanks for the input....not gonna let this beat phase me anymore....

[Drizztdj]

You got the maximum amount of chips out of the other players while holding/flopping a superior hand.

Isn't that the whole point of poker?

Just a bad beat man /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[ZootMurph]

When you get all your chips in as an 85% favorite, and you lose, that's a bad beat no matter how you slice it.

I think I push allin preflop though, and the reason is if everyone else folds you have the dead money overlay. Additionally, you have less outs to beat you with less players in the pot. In any case, he still may have called, so the point is probably moot here. But your play wasn't bad, and probably no better or worse that preflop push.

[nightlyraver]

In hindsight, yes, Hero got the call he wanted. However, the original open-push was only for about 3.5BB's and Hero only has about 10BB's. This is a spot where you probably do not want overcalls. If Hero flat calls from the CO, the Button gets over 2.5:1 on a call and the BB gets about 3.25:1 on his call assuming no others call. Those are great odds for a hand like JTs to enter the pot with - exactly the kind of hand that has the best chances to crack the aces. With only about 10BB's, Hero isn't in a spot to get cute. By pushing, he almost always gets the pot heads up and wins - this almost doubles his stack!

This is just my little take on tourney strategy. The river jack is still a bad beat no matter how you slice it.