are people using solvers actively during game play?

Doubt it. I have heard it's resource intensive and takes quite a bit of time to solve spots.

Some people are no doubt looking at pre-computed solutions, for the flop at least, and particularly for HUSNGs or Spins.
I've seen a demo of one tool that used screen-scraping technology to "grab" the flop, allowing the user to look up the solution for that board. (The user had apparently run 17,000+ flops through GTO+ to find the optimal c-bet strategies).

At lower stakes wouldn't using a solver against players that are not playing GTO be potential -EV. I'm no GTO expert and I study exploitative strategy but my understanding is GTO is only effective vs an opponent playing GTO. Would there be a benefit to using it vs regs?

You will get banned instantly by any site if you use a solver during play.

How is this a theory question?

I would be curious how they would do this. I don't think they can even keep bots off the network which presumably interface with their software let alone keep someone from running a solver.

It would be nice if that were true. Pokerstars appears to have the best security in the industry, but there have been several cases of suspected bots or users with "GTO advice tools" playing for months/years. One of the highstakes cash crushers (Oborra?) had his account suspended and reactivated a couple of times before finally being banned for life. In Spins, I suspect that use of pre-solves/advisor tools at mid/high stakes is endemic. Stars tries to weed out the cheats by making the players film themselves playing (in order to prove they aren't using software), but it's not a foolproof system, as the software users tend to be pretty damn good at the game.
On sites not called Stars, people get banned for spurious reasons (Party likes to say "Use of AI", without offering any evidence), but bans are far from instant.

im not sure if it would be absolutely negative -ev, but, it would certainly be suboptimal. There are a lot of solutions and spots for balance that a solver will spit out, that, very quickly become evident that you can nix.

for instance, if you use monker for PLO, it will suggest using naked sets/low sets (just a set, no combo draw) as a slow play - presumably to balance your call range/ not stack off vs only better sets. HOwever, when you're in a pool and you see people stacking off with bottom 2pair/an overpair, naked bottom set becomes pretty juicy to stack with, i don't see any reason to slowplay it. I can only speculate from experience, but, in this spot i would say it would still be somewhat +Ev to follow solver.

as im sure its been said a million times, the real value is knowing gto so you can identify deviations in good strategy and adjust accordingly, i think true gto would still be marginally profitable due to all of the leaks others are making into you, and gto v gto would be break even minus rake.

It's a misconception people commonly have because they don't realize just how hard an equilibrium strategy would crush recs and regs alike. If you could really play GTO at 2NL you would win at an insane rate.

The view that a GTO strategy would do poorly versus low-stakes players or versus players not playing GTO themselves is one of the most insidious views in all of poker. The view is truly moronic and displays a total lack of understanding of a great deal of poker theory.

To see it frequently espoused in the Poker Theory forum makes baby jesus cry.

As I said I don't know a whole lot about GTO. Just the jist of it. What I do know is it designed to play so your opponent can not exploit you and that no human can do perfect GTO because the game is not solved. Outside of that I know the word balance is used a lot. No idea how I would approach a game with a GTO strategy. I'm sure it is more than just having a 2:1 value to bluff ratio.

I may do some GTO without realizing it. I float a lot of flops and call Cbets OOP then donk bet HU to get my opponent to fold. Two barrel if necessary if I'm not raised on the turn. Especially defending my BB. Sometimes I have it. Sometimes I don't. You'd be surprised how effective it is.

Run solver all the time during play and don't get banned.

Obv not for in game advice

you have a bunch of trees pre solved and then just pull them, or time bank while you run one with just a few nodes? Lol

i agree you would win, just do to all of the mistakes people are making into you, but, do you really think you would CRUSH? i feel there are a lot of lines where you would be missing out on a lot of value

In the micros I think straight 2006 ABC poker wins it with zero deviation from that. So many calling station and spewy players there’s no reason to get fancy play syndrome or worry about balance.

Try bluffing a flush with the A blocker and KQs as two of the flush cards and shove just to get called by 2 non flush card jacks. That’s the micros in a nutshell.

i like the cut of your jib

This is pretty far off, I'd do a lot more reading on the subject before posting about it.

A GTO strategy isn't optimal at lowstakes

Just like using a manual screwdriver isn't optimal when powered screwdrivers exist

The problem is that the player refusing to learn GTO because he thinks he is using a power drill, is actually using his bare hands

It was kind of a joke. Was semi funny in my head. I said I’m not familiar with it. Unless I graduate to the nose bleeds one day I will probably never learn it. I’m sure I use some of the principles just being a thinking poker player but not playing any higher than $200nl I’ll stick with exploitative. It works for me.

Why the F are you posting in this thread then?

Because I had a question earlier. Is that ok or no?

While I agree GTO is unnecesary for the micros, studying GTO does help your exploitative play. It also starts being directly useful from NL20 and up. I`m crushing regs at NL20 and 50 that have no idea how to defend against an overbet or defend his capped ranges or dont even seem to understand bluffcatching. If I were to start learning poker from scracth again I would do the grinders manual or something like that, play 30k hands in the micros, and then jump directly into tMoP, applications and GTO study

What’s tMoP? Mental game of poker?

MoP is usually an abbreviation for the Mathematics of Poker. Guessing tMoP is just including "the" which is a part of the full title.