This hand got me thinking wondering if I could have extracted more value.

$3.50 180 man Blinds 20/40 ante ?

9 players:
folded around to the BTN:

BTN: 1323 chips raises to 80
Hero(SB): 2900 chips re-raises to 360 w/AK
Villain (BB): 3610 chips calls the 360

BTN folds

Pot approx. 850
Flop: AA8

Hero: bets 500
Villain: Folds

I'm wondering if I should have checked to V or if my bet sizing was too big? There are FD's out there and he could have had a weaker A's (although unlikely), I put him on a PP. Any thoughts?

There aren't big hands, only big situations - which requires the other guy to have a hand too. This looked like it was going to be a big situation but it wasn't. Having said that, you could go like just under 1/2 pot 3 times to get it in rather than this 500 (if called you have awkward stacks on the turn).

So if you go 400 and get called, pot grows to 1650 and you have 2140 behind, then you can go 720 on the turn and the pot grows to 3090 and you have 1420 behind and shove river for maybe 45% of pot.

The alternative is to get it in over two streets, which means going much bigger. An SPR of 3 means two bets of 82% (about 5/6 pot) - so here you can go 700 into 850 (hopefully he jams a flush draw or weaker ace at this point), then the other 1540 into a pot of 2250 on the turn. The second way looks "scarier" but maybe also bluffier so he might level himself into calling lighter and you're giving him the chance to get the last bet in with any semi-bluff. If you want to get tricky you could also check turn and see if he puts the money in for you (some people auto-bet after a c-bettor shuts down), if he doesn't you can still jam river.

Thanks for this. Good options either way. I like the first scenario the best followed by the tricky C bet c turn option. I did bet 500, so for the second scenario to work he most likely would have folded with that bet. I think betting less than 1/2 pot is the way to go and I will keep this in mind.

I would normally continue for half pot on these kind of boards then adjust bet sizes on later streets, just the stacks are awkward for it this time (if 7x your flop bet is more than your stack then the other two bets are going to be less than half pot, so you need to adjust each one down a notch).

At one time I was doing 35% on all the boards that were difficult to hit but I now play on a site where you can't customise buttons so I've stopped that now. People didn't know how to play back against it and it's instant profit if they fold more than 30% and if they are really calling that wide (70% or more) then you can do your 35% bet with bottom pair or underpairs for value, actually with your whole range.

(BTW I've posted results in my mid stakes MTT thread you posted in earlier)

I like the small bet 30-40% of pot then line it up so all chips get in on follow streets. At these stakes players aren't used to seeing a wide range of bets they will most likely assume a small bet is weak.