Has anyone else noticed the account "emp14" constantly sitting in empty seats at tables, but never playing a hand? I've also never seen any chat from this account, so it makes me think that it's a bot someone is using to datamine the higher stakes cash games. I don't know if doing this breaks any rules, but it's annoying because the player is often taking a seat at the table that could be occupied by someone who actually wants to play, not to mention I'd rather not have someone able to track the way people are playing without risking any of their own money. Has anyone else noticed this player, or has anyone seen them actually play at any point?

See hims lots, sits and never plays.

I do not recall seeing him. But I will watch for him now.

Yes, he occupies seats and wastes space. It's frustrating.

Googled his SN:

http://www.pocketfives.com/profiles/emp14/

lmao soooo glad i found this thread. Emp is super annoying and yea ive yet to see him play. he sits at 1-2 or 2-4. Its a shame that bill or anyone from wsop wont see this because this guy needs to get banned. He literally just wastes a seat, doesnt contribute a penny in rake. I think he just sits in to feel cool... or like op said hes datamining hands for another midstakes player.

i will be on the lookout for this guy.

With poker tracker and holdem manager you can't data mine until you play your first hand!

Not True for me.

Example: if I sit down at table with 5 players I've never played with, and wait 3 hands for BB, when HUD appears, I have 3 hands of stats on them.

This is with poker tracker.

Also, you could datamine WSOP/888 without even sitting.

If you observe a table and click the replay last hand, it allows you to replay and copy that hand history to clipboard. Would take a simple script to automate it.

Pretty dick to take up a seat though, support will probably stop it from happening sometime in 2015.

It's a pretty big leak in the software that players sitting out that have missed a blind or not played a hand can see mucked hole cards.