Thanks, biondino, I appreciate your response.

I definitely get what you're saying about isolating preflop with the aces; they always seem to get cracked with multiple callers. I was thinking my 60 cents would do it, but now wonder if even 80 or a buck would have. (I've gotten so darn gunshy this week that I'm even playing around with limping big hands preflop... but that REALLY goes against my instincts.) My thought on the flop is that no one would have cards in the 4-8 range, unless they were playing a weak ace or something. And so I wanted to keep my bet within reason to draw people into the pot, with an overpair or the weak ace. (In hindsight, I think you are right, I did give the flush draw too good a price.) I definitely thought I had best hand at that point. When the first two called, I felt good (thinking, maybe flush draw, or lower pair), but that big raise floored me.