[Ed Miller]

Against many yutzes, your one-pair hand (which is what AQ or AK will usually build) is a dog.

This is where you are mistaken. Yes, you are correct. In a 3-way pot where you hold the boss made hand, there are two draws against you, one solid and one weak, there is a range of pot sizes where the weak draw loses money by calling... and so do you.

Your problem is that you are vastly overestimating this effect. The made hand virtually never becomes a dog (at least a money dog) to the draws.

Let me show you the leap of logic you have made. Your claim is that sometimes weak draws cost you money after the flop by calling. That is certainly true. You therefore conclude that you should keep the pot small preflop with offsuit hands. But the information that weak draws cost you money after the flop is not enough to draw that conclusion. You also have to take into account how much money you lose preflop by failing to raise.

For instance, say we played a headsup no limit holdem game. We both have $1000 in front of us. I have AA and make it $999 to go before the flop and you call (you don't have AA). Then the flop comes and I bet my last dollar. I lost money (a lot of money, actually) from you calling. I would prefer that you fold. But that does not mean that my preflop raise was bad. In fact, it was good. If I know you will call my $999 bet before the flop, then it is simply wrong to bet anything less. The reason is that I am granting reverse implied odds after the flop. That is, I am going to put my money in after the flop no matter what, but you (as the drawing hand) have a choice. So I make the most money if I get as much money as possible in before the flop.

In other words, simply because weak drawing hands can cost you money after the flop by calling does not mean that it is wrong to raise preflop. There is a tradeoff, and to draw an informed conclusion you need to balance the tradeoff. Unfortunately, it is difficult to do that (which is why this debate still rages) as poker is a pretty complex game. The bigger your edge preflop (the poorer the hands that your opponents will enter the pot with) then the more correct it is to raise preflop. The smaller your edge preflop, then the more correct it is to keep the pot small. The edges preflop, however, are usually pretty big in these very loose games. The "schooling" effect that people love to talk about, however, is often not particularly big, even when there are several draws against you. This is because it is difficult to improve to the best hand in holdem. Most draws are quite weak. You are usually much more desperate to knock people out in 7 card stud if you have a hand like Kings on 5th street in a multiway pot than you are to knock people out with a top pair of Kings on the flop in holdem.