incredibly loose passive game

[Turner]

There is this poker room in Jacksonville, Fl at a dog track. The highest legal bets in Florida are 2 dollars so basically they have 1/2 hold em and stud and such. Last night I went for the first time and played a hold em table for about 4 hours. They had the structure where there is only one blind of $1 right to the left of the button. Basically everyone was calling preflop, rarely a raise, if there was everyone called. I took down a couple of large enormous pots but got drawn out a ridiculuous amount of course and broke about even. I know there is a key to winning big here but I want to get some opinions. At first I figured to just play premiums because of the blind structure I could wait all night at a full table for good hands and then bank off them. I did hit some big ones (like when I hit quads with QQ and this girl who was running hot capped on the turn and river with a one card, low end straight) but because there were so many callers even with raises the idiots were usually unwittingly correct to call with super longshots. I have read HFAP but just would like some more in depth discussion on these games. For example should I raise on the button with 7 callers with JJ or AK off? Somethng leads me to say no and play JJ looking for a set and AK looking for something way stronger than TPTK. Thanks for the insight.

[betgo]

Read SSH. Definately raise AK and JJ from the button. Raise hands with top pair,straight, and flush potential combined. like AJs or KQs. Play all pps and suited connectors and gappers. Don't play junk like KTo and A9o.

Fold quickly if you miss the flop, but stay if you have odds to draw out.

[foolamongfish]

I Live in Florida also and agree that this $2 game does require some adjustment to your game.
TPTK is 3rd best in Florida !
My first instinct was to sit back and wait for premiums but quite quickly realized that the odds to see the flop became just to strong to fold any of the small pairs or suited conx, suited 1 gap, etc... Generally speaking i've had the most success being generally loose on unraised pots and generally tight in raised pots but did make some loose calls with hands such as above being given fantastic odds and hoped that my sound post-flop decisions would help make it profitable in the long run. At first it seems impossible to lose money there but trust me with so much action you can flop monsters and get outdrawn by the craziest of holdings but it goes back to the issue that even an idiot with 6-3 off is getting correct odds to chase almost anything.
If your not careful to tighten up pre-flop you will run into similar traps since the odds will becken you to call J-9 to the river looking for the gutshot. Chasing some of these hands to the river are correct calls in theory, it would actually be a mistake to fold. The only way to play in Florida is to carefully select your preflop hands and avoid hands that you can't connect with two ways.