Here is how Hero was thinking as the hand unfolded.
Preflop - $15 was intended to create a situation where the SB never calls. With his short stack he should be jamming or folding. That didn't work.
Flop - $40 was too big and I knew that moments after betting - Hero did the math for a $60 pot (2/3 pot = $40) when he should have bet $30 if he were going to bet anything. Obviously we aren't getting Button to fold with top pair and a flush draw.
Turn - Hero is hoping to get a free card on the third diamond and often would get one from this villain. But not in this case. Hero calls the villain's $50 bet thinking he is getting reasonable direct plus implied odds but that was really wrong. The RIO risk is sizable and crushes Hero's hopes.
River - Hero ponders the big bluff seriously. The way the hand played out, Hero could easily hold a flopped set that filled up. The betting makes perfect sense for that from Villain's point of view. However villain is a calling station AND he is playing mostly on profit. Even if Hero makes the 2x jam (or what ever), I fear villain is going to {sigh} call way too often for this to be profitable. Maybe the bluff would be viable if villain were in for $1,000 and happy to have gotten half way back to even but on this night where the villain bought in once, he is calling way too often.
Overall, Hero's play went down hill as the hand progressed. Preflop seems ok, but the flop was a wasted $10 on a too big c-bet and the turn was total spew. At least Hero didn't blow $500 on an unlikely to succeed bluff.
DrStrange