I agree that advice is a little strong worded. Plus I think it's backwards. IMO, you want to raise with AK and depending on who else is raising you may want to fold it. Yes, it is a fool who goes all-in pre-flop, or often at all with AK in a cash game when they haven't made a hand yet or even if all they've made is TPTK. But if this guy says you can't even raise AK, then what the hell can you raise? Only QQ-AA? Yeah that's a good strategy.

The beauty of big slick is that it's the only hand where if you hit either card you've automatically got TPTK. From reading these forums I think I've learned that AKo is one of those hands that you make the most money with in the first two rounds of betting. I do not love going to showdown with AK when all I've made is TPTK in a pot with lots of action unless I'm up against one idiot. Therefore I think a preflop raise is correct, and responding smartly to anyone playing back at you is important.

Recently I was playing an opp. who was a pretty vanilla/ABC player. She raised preflop and I was the only caller with AKo. The flop came 3A3. I was sure by her raise and her previous play that she didn't have a 3, and had no problem believing she did have an A. I didn't smell AA though, and I check-raised her all-in thinking at worst we'd split the pot or she'd fold right there. She called with ATs and I took that one down.

In 2k hands I might get dealt AK 10-25 times and this kind of 'probable-win' scenario may happen 2-4 times. Naturally if I get called each time, 1 out of 5 will get sucked out, but as we know this is an occasional expense from playing low stakes NL anyway. The rest of the time I'm either folding to a raise which I respect, calling a small raise from people I have a read on, or opening with my own raise and paying close attention to any response.