How seating scripts work

Most of you know this but the purpose of a seating script is to get a seat, optimally to the left of a recreational player without having to play other regulars 3handed. The seating script constantly scans tables waiting for a third player to join and start a game. Once somebody clicks on an open seat, the seat will be shown as reserved and the player is now given 45 seconds to choose a buyin amount or cancel. This will automatically trigger the seating script to reserve a seat next to the seat that was just reserved.

Ultimately, if a recreational player buys in, the user of the seating script will accept the reserved seat and play until the game breaks.


The issue

The seating scripts trigger each other. Once a seat is reserved, script #1 will reserve a seat, script #2 will reserve a seat, script #3 will reserve a seat and so forth. This cycle doesn't break no matter if a player joins or not, whether the game runs 3handed or not, the seating scripts will keep triggering each other blocking the free seats on the table.

This means that if I'm playing a 3handed game on 10/20 with 2 other regulars, the 3 seats that are left will be blocked by the reserved button. During prime time it can easily take up to 10 minutes to win a clicking battle against the scripts and actually join a running table with regulars (obviously impossible to get a seat if a recreational player joins the table).

Needless to say this is extremely bad for the economy. Nobody wants to go through the process of fighting against 20 scripts just to get a seat in a 3handed game of regulars. And the worst part about it is that it hurts those the most who put in the most effort to get the economy going. The tablestarters.

I have no mathematical evidence for this but if seating scripts were banned or regulated this would easily increase the high stakes volume by 15-30% as it would give so many players so much more incentive to start and play games.


Ethics

There's not much to say here. It's obvious. Using a seating script is scummy in each and every way. It gives you a robotical advantage over other players and decreases their potential income by ruining the economy. I know there's at least a dozen scripters on here that are openly defending scripts and I won't comment on them for now. Feel free to come here and post your opinion.

SScripters should be beaten to death with baseballs bats and then set on fire...thats my opinion..

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The only part of that post that has the potential to get stars to care is the claim that hs games would increase with the ban of this software. If you could prove that, maybe they would listen; but i dont think they care as this issue has been around for a while and they havent done anything about it.

Should defo be banned, if not then they should make all games zoom, and add antes to stop everyone fast foldin nit style, also min buyin 90bb's, would make the games fun again

It boggles my mind how they're not even thinking about doing something about it.

+1

Can't you just use the "find me an empty seat" feature or whatever it is called, or are you also doing the same kind of fish hunting?

Cash game poker will eat itself.

How do you know they didn't think about doing something about it but decided against it?

It is horrible. At least make it against The rules so that The People doing it Will know with themselves that they are cheaters. Stars and FTP has dropped the ball a bit lately.

something needs to be done scripts are so bad for i-poker

yeah, all of this is great. i wonder why they dont implement this....

They are bad for the poker economy and growth of the game.

I really can't believe that PStars has not done something about it yet.

Probably a matter of short-term and long-term thinking. In the short run, perhaps Stars sees seating scripts as a mechanism to get regular players to play. If so, they would have no incentive to ban/regulate them.

In the long run, it would seem this would be a net negative for the "poker eco-system," akin to abolishing bag limits for fishing and hunting.

At least, this is assuming I understand this issue correctly. How long have these been around? I don't remember hearing about seating scripts pre-BF, but then I didn't play high enough for it to matter.

This is a great post. A few of them are probably even ethical enough to stop in fairness for the community.

And really, this is something that could be fairly simple to spot. Proving it might be harder.

You can't really blame for people using scripts at this point. It's impossible to get a seat without a script now. So the only way to play without a script is to sit and play HU/3way with the best regulars at a certain stake (understandable why someone isn' a big fan of that, especially since it doesn't even make it likely you'll play vs fish later because of the R script loop), or play zoom.

The fault really is in Stars hands now imo. They've just let this get out of control to the point where there's less grinding and recreational players have more trouble getting a seat. To be honest, a lot of Stars's moves in the last 6-12 months have been pretty poor and they will only have themselves to blame when their profits drop.

it's worse than no effort, they are explicitly allowed

now that Amaya owns what Isai & Co left them, seems unlikely this will change

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/prohibited/

search "Q.Can you give some examples of acceptable tools and services ?"

reality is that scripts are a natural progression for online poker

smart internet kids are always going to figure out a new way to gain more edge

let the progress work for you, think differently

Against scripts, but other than providing better service I don't see stars changing. There is more hands and more rake from this issue.

Scripts reserving seats creates more tables and more hands per hour. 6 players at one table, vs same players spread over 2 tables 3 handed. Also promotes playing more tables if more rec players sit.

Again, I'm against scripts since it automates something that should be granted on a more manual priority basis. Having faster technology should not entitle you to have an advantage. But again stars is benefiting from it.

This is plain out wrong. Scripts are extremely bad for the flow of games in the lobby. Waiting for some of the other 2k guys posting but to give you an example.

If it's prime time and I start a session and see 3 regulars battling 3handed it will! take me at least 5 minutes of high effort to get a seat on that table and join the game. If I have 5-6 tables open already it will take me ten minutes as I can't constantly mouseclickbattle for an open seat against 20 scripters. This will slow down the progress of getting a 3handed games 4handed drastically. A lot of the times one of the regulars playing 3handed has got enough tables already and therefor won't be able to open another 3handed. A 4th player can now help start new tables 3handed. This is how the economy should work.

But it will take the 4th player 5-10 minutes alone to join the 3handed game. From that point it will take another 5-10 minutes to start a new table.

That means the natural growth of 1 lobbygame is delayed by 10-20 minutes. This process would take roughly 2 minutes without seating scripts. It will also be much less frustrating for the regulars putting in time and effort to start games so that others are given incentive to play.

This is the worst part about it. The regulars who are pushing the economy by playing low edge games, sometimes knowingly losing money or playing breakeven just to keep the lobby lively, are the ones who are dealing with the most frustration and disadvantages created by scripts.

not sure about this

the bumhunters who will, by definition, be the ones using seating scripts are also exactly the type to stack a fish and leave, which is how almost every game breaks online now

regs stacking fish and games breaking quickly is very bad for sites for very obvious reasons

seaters only perpetuate this

PS may be too big to feel the hurt yet but ask 888 how seaters are doing for them

They made a well known bumhunting seat scripter a team online pro LadyMace89 its obv they do not give a ****.

/thread

you're not going to win this battle OP

a game breaks just b/c someone busts is about the worst thing that player that just busted can see after doing so along with getting majorly berated. A bunch of people seeing that would never come back again afterwards... It looks like you're literally playing robots. (and it's not untrue given most people's playing styles these days...)

Another company with another short term view on the game at the expense of the long run but that's standard in today's business. It's not a natural progression of online poker, it's an accelerent on the natural progression of the slow decline of it.

+1, rich fish who play high stakes might be bad at poker but they're not stupid. They can tell they're being targeted when regs make it so blatantly obvious.

if you had actually played in high stakes private games with the rich fish you mention then you'd know they play pros who are better than them for a range of reasons including their ego gets the better of them or they just don't care, they play for the challenge and are fully aware what they're getting themselves into