I've been noticing a lot of spots like this that I tend to autopilot but need to be fine-tuned to build winrate (especially with SoCal rake...)

~$500 effective stacks. I've been card dead and playing pretty snug but I've opened and won pots on a few flops (in addition to one more hand which I'll get to in a sec) so I have a decently aggressive image but not loose.

Villain is early/mid 20's, bought it for $300 but I missed his big hands. I would guess he's played a fair amount of poker based on his lingo and he seems to think about hands. General vibe of borderline competence but plays fishy, limping a lot and calling a lot of opens, though I haven't seen his cards so he could be running hot for all I know.

I've seen him open JJ a couple times and squeeze KK huge from a $12 open to $75.

Only big hand we've played is I open $12 UTG, loose guy calls next to act, villain overcalls UTG+2, and weird tricky guy overcalls in the blinds.
Flop J75tt, I bet $35, loose guy and villain call, tricky guy folds.
Turn offsuit 9, I bet $75, loose guy snap calls and villain tank calls
River offsuit 2 I shove $200, loose guy folds and villain tank folds, saying he has AJ.
I friendly-needle him a little for thinking so long with AJ.

Now this hand.

I open KQ UTG to 12. Villain calls and a mediocre TAG flats out of the blinds.
Flop 874r, one club. Checks around.
Turn K, TAG checks, I bet 25 into 32, villain calls and TAG folds.
River J, pot is 82, no possible flush.

I'll chime in with my thoughts and one more segment after a few responses if a discussion gets going.

I think it's a value bet, something smallish like 40-45 because I don't think you are going to get called by a worse 1 pair hand if you size it closer to pot. Probably fold if you get raised which I wouldn't expect to happen too often and is probably not a bluff ever.

Any chance this was played at the lake?

This seems to be standard b/f. Villain sounds like a loose-passive: KJ, T9s, KTs, 99-JJ make up his range. I don't see him bluffing often, so don't like a c/c.

Looks like a pretty standard b/f, around 60 looks good.

Against a calling range of KQ, KJ, KT, and a few AK combos we have exactly 50% equity so a bet against that would be even money.
If we add two combos of K9s we come out slightly ahead, but a villain flatting K9s against an EP open could be flatting a combo or two of K8s, K7s, which again evens it out.
Now if w account for T9s combos, a bet becomes definitely -EV.
Question is if villain bets KQ/KT/K9 himself on the river, but if not, then best option then is c/fold (unless villain bets tiny, which re-weights it towards Kx)
Thoughts?

I would typically lean towards open limping suited broadway hands since they play fine multiway so we're cool with seeing a multiway flop. As played, we did narrow the field to 3way (ok) but we're also OOP to a decent player (bad). Attempt to play bloated pots in position, not OOP, imo.

Not a great flop to cbet since we can't rep any card on board. But I'd probably take a stab at it anyways with a 1/2 PSB, especially OOP since checking doesn't guarantee me a free card.

I also bet the turn.

Admittedly, this is a really gross river card. KJ (one of the few Kx hands a loosish but nor horrendous villain might call a raise with preflop) just got there, as did one of the only draws (T9), plus we might have been behind to AK the whole way. I mean, a bet basically targets KT and a non-believing pair hand (like 7x or whatever, but wouldn't almost any pair be betting the flop when checked to?). I usually go into auto bet/fold here cuz I hate missing value, so in the heat of the moment I probably bet/fold $35 (and I don't think this is horrible cuz he's already folded to us once on the river and is therefore more likely to look us up light). But there might be an argument for check/fold?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Should be a value bet. Can get called by worse K. Your check otf limits your ability to properly range V

Unless the villain is extremely loose being the first caller of the preflop raise, there are very few worse Kx hands that he should be showing up with.

However, it's possible we do get looked up by a hero calling underpair (which might fit the action, although even those might lean towards a flop bet when checked to).