Iraisetomuch,
I mostly agree with your analysis and respect your posts, but I cringe when I read a poster telling an OP to "buy in for more" as advice. Generally, and in most situations with most players, buying in for the max is the best way to get max value; however, maximizing EV is rarely a concern in this forum. Furthermore, players looking to do so usually state it clearly in their post. Most players in this forum are working on plugging leaks and asking generally strat questions, which means telling them to BI for the max isn't good advice. We have no idea what the OP's situation is in this particular instance. Is he a rec player? A semi pro? Did he get dragged to a card room with friends?Does he have a BR? Is he overrolled? Under rolled? Does he want to push every edge possible to maximize value? Can he handle those swings mentally, emotionally, or financially? Is he a proven winner?

In a perfect world I'd ask these questions in every thread before offering advice, but most posters and OPs don't really care to go this deep into their motivations and expectations for playing poker. A couple years ago it seemed like someone in every thread would tell the OP to max buy, sometimes that's all they would say. I'd hate to see that line of thinking creep back into this forum. So please remember that while a deep stacked play may have an EV advantage, during actual play there is no advantage created within the hand by playing deep.

I know the OP.

So while I agree with you in principle, I will disagree here.

No harm no foul though.

Spex, if the table is mostly fit-or-fold raising KTs and taking it down when we miss can be very profitable. If there are smart opponents behind us it's certainly unprofitable. There wasn't enough in the OP about table conditions to decide it either way so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I do agree with everyone who says the raise size is too small. We should isolate these limpers, not just raise them with a marginal hand.

Fwiw, I almost never raise KTs before the HJ, but having limpers in the pot would swing me in that direction. Sure, we end up owning ourselves against KJ sometimes but more often the flop has neither a K or J and we take it down with a cbet. Having players who call a lot behind would swing me the other way.

You could say that about any hand. I think we would all agree that playing KTo in this manner pre-flop is pretty bad. Suited-ness allows us more stack-winning opportunities. So....even though we're not admitting it out loud, we have CHOSEN this hand because it has stack-winning potential.

So play it with the primary goal of winning a stack. Stealing a pot with a c-bet should ALWAYS be plan B.

So raising to $9, preflop sends us to the next street with an SPR of 9 and a hand that is most likely to make Top pair/weak kicker. With a different stack size, a different position, or a different hand I could find it in my heart to agree with playing this hand. But in this specific situation, it's an easy easy easy easy super easy fold.

So, if anyone cares to know how the hand played out, I ended up folding to V's river bet. Afterwards, he told me he was slowplaying Kings. He said he looked down at his hole cards OTT to see if he had the Kh, which he did.

It's hard to believe that he had Kings there, but at the same time, I hadn't seen this guy make any moves, so I felt OK about my decision to fold.