Well Brian,you are correct. Dennis was doomed to lose no matter what due to the size of Ernie's stack. Ernie should have pushed all in and then Dennis would have folded(in theory),but if he does then he does not get Dennis's chips. No matter what though ,Dennis is behind at the beginning and is not going to win this pot no matter what he does,so I cannot say that Dennis suffered a bad beat. Just bad luck.
Isn't poker grand?We can analyze till the cows come home.