I hear you, I really do but... and this is coming from 10+ years of online & live (low stakes) experience: I am still SHOCKED (not sure why), the types of hands that show up in any given hand at showdown. I have had to work HARD to unlearn the wiring in my brain that tells me that my opponents are using the kinds of hand ranges that I am using (or that are even close to "correct"). I'm just telling you, that you will not be as profitable as you could be, if you continue to assign top of range to your opponents in these spots.
The range he gave him pre was too narrow but the inclination of them to bluff is not necessarily something that would make you want to call down lighter. AK is clearly too high up in your range to consider folding but if you had something like A5s the fact that he had queens doesn't mean he's going to be bluffing often enough to call. you might get more shoves from hands that shouldn't be bluffing but you're also likely to get more value bets from hands that AK beats, like AQ or AT (or another combination of AK).
For the Queens folding though, what do you guys think? Is it because the implied odds vs. an Ace are horrific?
It's because of how narrow both of your ranges are going into the flop. It's one of the worst hands that you gave him to be getting there with, and only one hand that you have in your range (TT) isn't crushing him. and yes, you would be bluffing with TT some of the time, but bluffs are supposed to work some of the time.
Makes sense. I applaud you for going so deep with the solver, it's impressive honestly. But using GTO solver approved lines at the lowest stakes is in my opinion not nearly the most profitable way to play. Realize (as I'm sure you do!) that you are using very advanced methods (1/4 flop bets with top/top) and not taking exploitative lines. Learning GTO is great for understanding balanced strategies but it's not great at playing low stakes vs fish imo.
it's not always so clear that betting larger is an effective exploit, but even if it is, it might be that you'd only increase the bet size by a little bit, not to half pot or larger. keep in mind that the solver chose 1/4 pot bet but it likely would have gone even smaller if it had the option. going half pot (or larger) is not a small deviation, and it's not even so clear whether it's better against someone who gets there with too wide of a range and/or stacks off too light.
pretend you bet 2/3rd pot on the flop.
well, a person who calls that bet too wide a) also likely stacks off too wide on later streets and b) floats too wide against smaller bets yet they might fold to large bets. i think what's likely is that most people who call there with QQ or TT on the flop against very small bets will still fold for something at half pot or larger. and do you make more against AQ or AT? probably not because with only 1.5 pot sized bets behind going to the flop you're likely getting stacks in anyways. there'll be some subset of hands that perform slightly better and some that perform slightly worse, of course, but deviating from the GTO solution significantly (and betting half pot is a very large deviation) will lose you money unless they're deviating substantially. and the biggest mistake i think casual players make is assuming that everyone they're playing against sucks in the same way.
yes, you see the occasional fish donking off their stack and it stands out in your mind because those are the ones that go to showdown but there're tons of nits even in the micro games, and they're the ones playing multiple tables. if you have a HUD up you can tell who is who quite easily but if we're going in blind, you shouldnt heavily weight your read towards it being a maniac because there really aren't many of those even in the micros. him having QQ here makes him look nitty if anything - he didn't shove with 1.5 pot sized bets behind preflop in a spot where he definitely should have. yes, the float was slightly loose, but only very slightly, and the river jam is actually reasonable in that this is the bottom of his range and you are in a very tough spot with AQ or KK (which is a lot of your range).
if you did have a specific read and you think the person is playing too loose, a safer 'exploit', given ranges he chose, would be to not bluff here with TT and bet 100% of the time with AK instead of checking it back sometimes. adjusting your size becomes a more obvious exploit the deeper. in this situation i actually think larger bets hurt you even if they are loose because it gives them an easy excuse to fold their underpairs where they may have otherwise made the mistake of calling with a hand that either has 10% or 0% equity.
