[lil feller]

If the board were 9 high I'd say this was a strong fold, but 7 high changes things. Your c/r on the flop says "I have a pair and want to protect it". His turn raise says "I know you have a pair and I either want to try and hit my AK of spades or I have a pair too and think its bigger than yours."

If the board is 9 high, you can pretty much assume you're toast here, but wouldn't he play 88 or 99 the same way? If he could only have a pocket pair 88's or bigger you're in front something like 38% of the time (admittedly not a math guy, but there are 12 ways for 8's or 9's, 18 for A's, K's or Q's right? If this is wrong please light me up). You're getting 4.5:1 to call the turn bet and a river bet so you only need to be good 18% of the time to make calling correct (again by my not so skilled mathmatical assesment). This does'nt factor in the times he gets out of line w/ A-big of spades, since he probably wouldn't do that everytime, and I don't know how to do that kind of EV math.

I really hope somebody responds to this, this sort of calculation is a big hole in my game.

lf