AA, KK, QQ are super strong hands preflop. They should be profitable against random hands; if these hands are costing you chips long-term, then it is probably because you are not isolating enough. With great preflop hands like these high pocket pairs, you usually want to be raising for value and also to get inferior hands with equity to outdraw you to fold.
AK is another monster hand, but this one is trickier for some people to play because they sometimes overplay it when the Flop turns up nothing and they are just sitting on Ace-high. Generally, same principle here to though - you want to be raising and ideally be heads-up against someone with minor exceptions.
Why should we isolate if we could get value from worse hands joining us in the Flop? This would be a good question - especially since different play-styles might advice different approaches here. However, the danger (regardless of playstyle) in letting too many players stay in the hand is that SOMEONE will probably out draw you.
Let us take this fictional example:
You are on the BTN (Dealer button seat) with QQ in a full-ring game (9 players). Let us now say that UTG position limps into the pot and now everyone else does too. I know this is a drastic example (which may or may not apply to you on a scale anywhere near this), but what could the opponents have? Your QQ is probably the best hand right now. Only AA or KK are ahead and AK is a flip, so you should be betting and raising for value as well as generating some folds.
With 9 players potentially seeing a Flop cheap, probably someone has at least an Ace (even if Ace-rag like A2o) and probably someone has at least a King. If the Flop comes with an Ace or a King, then you are now behind because you let them outdraw you!
Let us say you raised QQ pre-flop instead (how much to raise depends on many factors including play-style, but let us just go with 3X the Big Blind for this example). If you raise with QQ, then how do you think your opponents with K2o or A6o may react? Chances are they will fold, or at the very least they may fold. If they call anyway, then you are just getting value from them when they don't hit.
In our example, let us say that you made it 3X and now only two callers join us. Maybe MP and the BB. The rest in proceeding is poker. Do we c-bet? Do we slow-play? Do we sense weakness and bet? It depends on many factors including play-style again. However, what we continue with is not important for our original question because now we only went 3-ways to the Flop versus 9-ways; this alone should generate a bigger profit than if you hadn't raised - we have QQ, a real premium hand!
Another possibility is that you raised QQ and everyone folds. This is perfectly fine for us. We didn't get outdrawn and we picked up some chips. Getting everyone to fold is almost always a good thing for us
