[cheapsuit]

i would have to differentiate between a bad beat and just being plain unlucky -- a bad beat being worse. like say you go all in preflop with AA and your opponent calls with KK and he hits his set on the flop and wins. i would consider that just plain unlucky and not necessarily a bad beat because your opponent made an okay decision (albeit wrong--but he had no way of really knowing that) calling your all-in with KK. what i would consider a bad beat would be you all in preflop with AA and your opponent calling with 27o and hitting two pair on the flop and beating you.

i would say that a bad beat comes from a player who has no logical right to be in the pot to begin with or has no logical right to stay with the hand as long as he did. so based on the example you gave in your post i think that would be along the lines of just plain unlucky rather than bad beat.