That's one way to play it

Here's a strange hand from the Merge Network daily HORSE tournament that I just played. This is 7-card stud. Imagine the lower window directly to the right of the upper one, to read the hand history:

On 3rd street, my opponent calls the 15 bring-in, then calls my completion to 60. He's in for 65 (including his ante), and the pot is 170. On 4th street I pair my queen, so I make the optional double bet of 120. He calls. He's in for 185, and the pot is 410. 5th street looks safe, so I bet again, he calls again. He's in for 305, and the pot is 650. I don't like him pairing on 6th street, because he may well now have two pair, but in for a penny, etc. I bet again, he calls again. He is now in for 425, and the pot is 890. On 7th street, I bet once more, and he folds.

Now, this might not seem too unremarkable, except for one crucial fact that the hand history does not contain: He started this hand with 440 chips. He spent 425 of them--97% of his stack--then folded, getting a rather incredible 60:1 pot odds for calling with his last 15 chips on 7th street.

Of course, one of the good things about 7-card stud is that in some instances you can be absolutely certain that such a fold is correct, because if you can't even beat what your opponent has showing, it's impossible to win the hand, and it doesn't matter what his three down cards are. But if that's the situation you're going to be faced with, it's far, far better to put in your last chips on 5th or 6th street when you still have a shot at winning than it is to leave yourself with one quarter of one small bet when you know you've lost. He should have either folded earlier, or tried to put all his chips in earlier.

Last year I wrote about seeing a guy fold the river when getting 20:1 on a call. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a 60:1 fold before.