More pocket aces go down

Unless you are in a pretty high stakes game, pocket aces never seem all that great in a limit hold em game.
That's one reason I do like to play places with aces cracked bonuses. This week I had mine cracked by trip jacks. It's still a tough spot.
On this particular hand I had the aces, and about 4-5 players are in the hand. Flop comes JJ7. One guy leads out, I call and the others all fold. Turn is a dead card (3 or 4 I think, off suit). He leads out again. I call. Then the river was a 10. He checks, and it's at this point that you have to think about the hand. a bit more. Did he check because he doesn't have anything? Does he have a boat and hope that I bet and he can reraise. In either case, is it worth betting? There's always a small chance he throws away the hand that would crack your aces if you do. In this case, he might have. I check he sheepishly turned over J8 for trip jacks. I turn over the aces and we're all happy.
The reason he might have thrown it is I called the whole way, the flop call was easy if I flopped a full house, since there was action behind me I'd want most of it in. After it's me and him on the turn, if I had a full house and raised on his bet, he'd know it and likely fold. So odds are better I let him play to the river and try to extract the extra chips then. And my action would also be consistent if I had a hand of like J8 myself. Decent flop, weak kicker, and it would be easy for him to put me on a jack.So if he put me on one of those hands, it's not out of the realm of possibility that he folds. If you have him beat, so you don't get the extra chips, but the risk/reward ration for the bonus would justify not betting on the river.

But then playing later after aces crack hours were done, I get them again and am short stacked. Action comes to me and I do what I have to do by raising. I go all in on the flop which is 34J. Couple callers and then on the turn, one lady bets out everyone folds, she turns over a 3-4 and her two pair end my poker day. If it was no limit, she's not even in the hand since I'm raising likely 4-5x the blind at that point.

Crazy hand

Everyone has the story about the craziest play they ever had that turned out good. Here's mine.
A single table tournament with what seemed to be full of normal players (no crazy raisers, raises usually represented what the player had) and the blinds were still low.

I should have never even been in this hand after being dealt 3/5 hearts and was second to act. After the first player folds, I thought maybe I can limp and try to steal after the flop, So I call the 20 blind. Next guy calls, then third guy raises to 110. A few folds and a call back to me. So the pot is 260 and it costs 90. Terrible odds for my holdings, but still I decided to call. Then the guy next to me who had limped shoves all in.
I prepare to muck but then noticed the initial raiser calls as does the other caller. The first all in guy is the only one who has me covered and he initially limped.

My thoughts are simply two players have AK or AQ and the third might also but likely has a medium pair. At this point though, the pot is near to 4000 and I only have about 1000 left. If indeed both players have a high ace and the third has a high pair (10s or higher) he cuts into their outs. It's still early and if I'm going to make a random play, this is it. So I call.
Mind you, had it been later in the tournament and nearer the money, no way do I call. But this is a play I might make once out of every 10 hands or so.
Here's what the others show:
AJ clubs
AK diamonds
pocket 8s

And the board comes:

9c 5s 4s 6d 5d

And my trips take down the pot eliminating two players and giving me a huge chip advantage.