Live Session at the Grey Eagle ($1/$2 NL)

Friday night Will and I played a solid session at the brand new Grey Eagle Casino. The room was most definitely very soft, and we both saw a substantial increase to our bankrolls (+$340, personally). Of interest is that the maximum buyin for $1-2 NL there is $300, rather than the traditional $200. We spent the bulk of our time at a table that for the most part was very loose-passive preflop, but had people making very questionable bets/calls postflop.

Here is one hand in particular I'd like to discuss. UTG+1 seemed to be pretty standard tight-passive, hadn't gotten out of line and was able to fold. BB was on the loose-aggressive side, and somewhat tricky.

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Hand 1 (full ring, 10 handed)
UTG+1 (~$200)
Jason (BU) (~$600)
Will (SB) (~$500)
BB (~$300)

Preflop: Jason is BU with
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $2, 3 folds, MP2 calls $2, 2 folds, Jason calls $2, Will calls $2, BB checks

Flop ($10):
Will checks, BB bets $5, UTG+1 calls, MP2 folds, Jason calls $5, Will folds

Turn ($25):
BB checks, UTG+1 bets $15, Jason calls $15, BB folds

River ($55):
UTG+1 bets $50, Jason calls $50

UTG+1 shows

Result: Jason wins $155

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Despite taking this hand down, I don't like how I played it because I really didn't know where I was at on the river. Some would suggest raising preflop, but with multiple limpers out in front I don't like that play. Had I raised the flop (in hindsight what I would probably do in a similar spot in the future), I likely would have picked up the pot at that point, and my hand had enough equity to do so. When I was debating the call on the turn, I thought I had 14 outs (9 hearts, 3 sevens, 2 sixes) which turned out to be the case, and making it a slight +EV play, ignoring implied odds.

However, after the strong river bet, I started second guessing if two pair was indeed the best hand. Because I had commited to the seven being an out on the turn I called the river, but I did not feel confident I was ahead. Raising the flop would have allowed me to find out exactly where I was, while still having outs against a strong hand calling (AJ, for instance). Perhaps the real problem with the hand is that because UTG+1 was so passive he did not raise AK preflop making his hand range very wide, and his flop call didn't make much sense at all. Thoughts?