Poker is a gamble and IMO, we don’t always win playing the odds. But free poker at Replay is always fun !! 
Don’t overthink this or use this strategy unless you are in a shove or fold situation. Phil Gordon did not say do this whenever you have Ax. When you have to get all your chips in anyway this gives you a fighting chance to pick a good spot to do it. Past results are no guarantee of future performance.
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Hey Nafor,
First of all, many nowadays players, especially online ones, would consider Phil Gordon old school. I don’t, because poker is poker, and the basics are and will always be the same. The only new thing actually is all the available “stats” and info provided by solvers and trackers etc… which came from “Online software”. But when sitting at a live table, many other factors (Old stuff) come into play.
That said, I have to admit that I never stumbled on this Ax rule. It seems so easy like you said. But applying it is a different story. Thank you for sharing those equity numbers. They definitely made me look at it from a different perspective. Still, I totally agree with you about how to take a chance using it. It certainly depends on many factors: stacks, type of players left behind and tournament stage among others, which ultimately brings us back to the basics (Old ways again)…
I love this…I use it in principle to one steal blinds with position even without ace x…but you have to be wary of a ton of things position how far to money the players history at table versus you…Do they protect blinds…Notes are a wonderful thing in this situation…But yes if your down chipped etc…its a good thing to follow and take shots imho …As said Ive used this for a long time to steal so to speak pots without flops 
Is a good thing to try later in tournaments when its tighter close to money etc… I use this principle if dont play a hand in a round so 9 people playing…I want to play once per round at least if have ace x I will do a decent raise or shove to get the blinds depending on my history at a table… gl all
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All hands have a loss percentage, AK vs A2 has a loss percentage, we have to accept it, and the more hands we play, the more chances we have of losing, but in the long run we will be winners and we know when to fold or go all in.
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It’s not just the equity of the hands that will call, but also the percentage of hands that will call. So fold equity is part of the equation also.
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I believe that this rule comes down to everything we learned about range concepts, so I imagine that within a tournament this is something automatic, poker is a very complex game, and each opponent brings a different statistic, aggressive players have a statistic of victory with a much stronger strong hand against a tight player, so regarding this rule it must be measured based on the profile of each opponent you will play against, which is why as you mentioned it is seen as crude, as it only covers the issue of percentage without taking into account these nuances about each player, in short I believe that in a tournament a good player will be able to know the value of his hand against each player, without needing to follow or remember this rule.
I liked what I read and your calculations look quite interesting. I’ve never heard of this rule, but I can understand why it’s being criticized so much. There are a lot of universal tools, unlike this Ax rule. In addition, no matter how simple it may seem to us in theory, it is not easy to use it in practice.: There are so many additional criteria to consider: limits, position, opponents, stages of the tournament itself, and we can go on and on. The idea is very interesting, but it’s really difficult to make this rule work for us.