Ranking of AK among best starting hands

[Joey2Cards]

To answer your query as to why you find AK harder to play than 22 it's because most of the time 22 is useless after the flop and can be chucked away. Easy.

You can get trapped with AK if you don't realise that it's a drawing hand. If you don't hit, you have nothing. It's easy to forget this because it looks so sexy.