First time playing live NL; an AK hand

[sweetjazz]

Is the general consensus that I should be worried about a big hand sitting behind me and try to get to a cheap showdown?

I come from a limit background and so one thing I am trying to understand is when to watch out for being trapped, without becoming weak and giving up on too many big pots when I have the best hand. I have difficulty when the pot is big but my stack is also big, as I don't know what the principles are which should determine whether I should be using my stack to protect the pot and maximize my chances of winning it (something you always are looking to do in limit HE, though you're usually risking a lot less and you're only going to knock out weak draws) or whether I should be worried about being stacked off and being ready to get rid of my hand.

So what I really want to know is what should I thinking about to decide what my turn action is in the hand. The Bends gave me some things to think about, and if I perceived my opponent to be a good player, he suggests that I strongly consider trying to show down for cheap, because the only smooth calling hands would be monsters that have me in bad shape.

Anyway, any advice on what I should be thinking about, or even what I should have observing before this hand took place, would be very helpful.

This is the first time I have ever played full ring NL with a big stack. While that was nice to have and the players were so bad that I maintained a big stack despite the fact that I made several boneheaded plays. (It also helped that I didn't take any bad beats when I was in with the best of it.)