blonde poker forum

article here....

"discussion moved onto seating scripts, which are a type of software program that automatically sit the players who use them at the juiciest tables. And, once again, the accusation against them is that this is posing a real threat to the poker's future. In a nutshell, the seating scripts are computer programs designed to automate and optimize the process of table selection, a truly crucial aspect of the game.

"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 three-handed,"

http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2014/10/are-seating-scripts-killing-online-poker-15511.htm


In a long blog post dedicated to the issue, Microgaming’s Head of Poker Alex Scott tried to give his opinion about the effect that seating scripts can have for the industry and the way operators deal with them.

http://www.thempn.eu/blog/scripts/

Surprisingly quiet this thread, string 'em up I say  :D

yes they are.

It's less about what seating scripts are, as in isolation they are fairly irrelevant, but it's this culture that now develops where its a constant battle to out-grim each other, takes focus of the games and makes the enviroment of poker worse for everyone, recs and regs alike.

Like the cold war, Russia had a nuke so US gets 3, so Russia gets 13, so US gets 41 and before you know it there's enough nukes to destory the planet 300 times over, all just to ensure that no-one, ever, fires a nuke.

This is 100% something that affects regs not recs - really badly too.

Should all play zoom imo :D

A fun game when you're a bit tilted is to troll the seat scripters.

Sit down at at any empty full ring NL cash table on stars at 2/4 or higher. You'll be surrounded by regs before you've even sat in.

Gonna do this now and report back

I used to do this on ipoker all the time for lol's at 50/100 waiting for action in PLO games, then one time I get myself sat into a HU hand with KKatya (proudlikeagoat/Katya_19) I had a $2k stack and a pair of 9's and he knew my game so spited me AI with a  QTo and won.

So there's some justice right there...

Just been doing this for a while now as can't play any mtts for another few hours.

The best I managed was 13 on the waitlist at 400NL without ever sitting in and watching regs having to play an orbit against each other amused me. Thanks for this!

I wouldn't recommend this.  I had a go last night on the app before bed, and ended up dealt in the blinds.  I thought I'd do an orbit so I didn't end up just paying the blinds.  Hit TPTK vs a set, and then a low pair and bad end of the straight draw vs a pair and the other end.  Did near $500 :(  I probably have less than 100 hands total ever on stars cash and the rest of them weren't much better from what I remember.

The sad thing was I snap left when the big blind came round and the rest had gone in a couple of minutes.  Sorry state of affairs when somebody joins the table, plays like an idiot, does over 100 BBs in one orbit and the regs can't even wait 2 minutes to see if I return.  It must look absolutely appalling to a rec playing the game for the first time.  Most of those regs shouldn't spend one single second criticising stars for the changes they have made. 

I'm a regular in these games and these scripts are really annoying particularly the musiclal R's which stop games from starting quicker. I don't have a script, and i don't generally play HU at 6m tables as it takes up too much of my attention while multi-tabling but as a by product i think theres more reg battling 4/5 handed (usually non scripters like myself who can't get on a table otherwise) than there has been in the last 6/7 years.

One thing i will mention aboutt tables snap breaking when a fish leaves is that bumhunters will snap quit and regs in my position know this and know we will get buttoned so your damned if you do and damned if you don't. Im on course to play 4000 less buttons than BB's this year which will probably cost me a low five figures which eats heavily into any midstakes regulars yearly income.

exactly, exactly this.

last year i paid 3600 more BB's than BTN's, I took the average win p/btn and added 1800 more of those to my overall bottom line and deducted 1800 average losses per BB and the difference was a shade under £29,000.

No money in poker, everyone's button-stealing.

brutal :(

like you say though it's all the snap sitting out when rec's quit that is shady and that is because of this.

Why, why on earth there isn't something programmed into the software where when it quits to 3 handed you have to play a level number of btns/bbs/sbs, or be stacked, in order to quit the game? Seems so easy, then no-one would mind and people wouldn't need to risk insta quitting when the recs quit cos they know they'll get  an even amount of btns.

From 2+2: Seating script in action at $3/6...table has no fish so the script rejects the table:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKkVfCcfONA

What a complete joke online poker has become with these scripts and cartels.

Ugh.

How utterly ridiculous.

What is happening to our lovely game?

Come play some 7 card stud with me

you dont have to worry about seating scripts, just the huge team of chinese players sharing data and funds*


*allegedly, nothing has been proved, which makes me wonder why only 2 are allowed on a table at a time, and often the lobby has a large amount of tables with just 2 players sat, both of them chinese, and not playing until someone else sits


got to love this beautiful game!!!

Well as it happens, I still love poker, love it to bits, but there are many reasons for that, & I don't get involved in all these seating scripts, deliberate sit outs, "running down the clock" tricks, cartels or hows yer father.

It's a hobby to me, as it is to 90%+ of all Online players.

I sit & play small ball SNG's, talk to my friends, play on a site where all third partry software is banned, & I somehow manage to win around £100 per month. So there are little pockets where we can still play poker as it was intended, & for recreational purposes, & if we are good enough, we can win a bit, & enjoy ourselves without feeling some players are taking advantage of our limited abilities. I suppose it's inevitable that some try to find every little edge, & if it's legal, or Compliant on that particular site, fair enough.

Each to their own, eh?

Seems a touch hyperbolic.

Even if you decided that every real money NL/PLO cash table 2/4+ was tainted due to seating scripts, every NL heads up SNG $60+ was tainted due to cartels, every high stakes NL 6max hyper was tainted due to people timing down and every 7 card stud table was tainted because you suspect that players are hole card sharing I would contest that you're still talking about a fraction of one percent of all of the online poker games running, even if you only include real play.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=44939003&postcount=273


Its a shame its been over 3 years since these issues became really highlighted and nothing got done that really fixed the problem in any way.

but you are fighting a perception, that the recreational players increasingly think that "every real money NL/PLO cash table 2/4+ was tainted due to seating scripts, every NL heads up SNG $60+ was tainted due to cartels, every high stakes NL 6max hyper was tainted due to people timing down and every 7 card stud table was tainted because you suspect that players are hole card sharing"

thats very difficult to change, for an industry that constantly needs an influx of new players to replace those who fall by the wayside, whether pro or rec, for whatever reason

Hyperbolic, Dan?

I don't think so.

There are very few sites where we can play safe in the knowledge that no third party software is permitted.

That may not bother others, or many, & I'm not going to get in an argument about the pros & cons, but personally, I prefer it like that.

So I think "little pockets" is reasonably true. I simply don't want to play where my opponents may well have all sorts of info on me or my play. That may seem a bit olf-fashioned - guilty as charged - but it's just my personal preference. 

I've always been a huge fan of 'Stars, & I think they have a magnificent site, but I really can't find the enthusiasm to ever play there again, having learned what I have recently. I'm quite sure they'll manage without me though. ;)

I do understand your views, you are a Pro, & its different. I'm not. I suspect at least 90% of 'Stars players are not Pros, either.

We each enjoy different things in poker, I don't see the problem with that. There are around 130 (!) different types of third party software which are Compliant on 'Stars. I think that's a bad thing, generally speaking, thats all.

Correct, it's the perception, rather than, perhaps, the reality.

I know not ALL formats & Tables have these "edge sorting" sort of advantages, but the ones I am on MIGHT have. That's how the mind works.

It's fine, others can & will do what they want. It's not for me though. 

I think this is the key difference between sports betting and poker and why one market is booming and the other is declining rapidly.  Tony Bloom has all the software/data/%'s etc etc which the rec's don't have (similar to all the poker software) to beat his punters on the exchanges/markets.  However, the perception isn't there to the recs that they are getting ironed out in an unfair way.

Perception really is a lot more important than the vast majority of poker pros realise.

Bugger, they've found the ultimate bit of software to expose me, I'm doomed.


http://www.tervola.com/DonkeyTracker/


Lol @ "Donkey Tracker"!

Guess they have to be careful who they market that to when, by definition, 90% of us are qualified donkeys.

lol

Not every recreational player is scared by computers. Some like seeing their own stats and trying to improve. Some like trying to emulate Moorman and play 12 tables getting ace 9 in. Some recreational players like to try and win. They think software will help. I'd be interested to be whether the majority of HEM/PT4 users are winning players. I'd hazard a guess at no.

Does the Racing Post ever run articles like "Is Bet Angel destroying the betfair exchange?" I don't really understand why Tikay in particular is happy for stars to grind the market out for everything it can but when professionals do it, it is all scummy. I don't take advantage of someone when my team beats them at 5 a side, my team is just better. We aren't taking advantage of your limited ability, we are having fun.


Why is it professional poker players are the ones left to be fighting this perception that the recreational players are getting screwed. I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but it is the professional players fighting the corner of the recreational players against the sites. The currency charges introduced by stars should never ever effect any professional, but there was uproar. If only we could get the media in poker to forget their advertising revenue and actually talk about legitimate things for once instead of hiding away producing puff piece strategy and full page adverts. Has any journalist ever done anything to investigate the botting scandals? Superuser scandals? Anyone done anything to investigate the Malta LGA? Has anyone ever investigated the owners of these sites? Did anyone in the written media really pan UB/AP?

By journalist do we mean poker journalist?

Most publications are heavily subsidised by site advertisements. I doubt many of them are free to bite the hand that feeds.

Almost all stories of substance are uncovered by players and  broken on forums.

Most poker journalism resembles music and sports journaliam: puff opinion pieces, advertising by proxy, lame questions and listmanias. It has its place as infotainment but expecting that industry to break stories that rocks the establishment is like expecting the 3am girls to uncover the next watergate scandal.

Most poker magazines rely totally on advertising revenue don't they?  I have never bought a poker magazine in my life.  Is it actually possible to pay for them?  I thought they were just free in cardrooms.  I have never seen them in a newsagent etc for sale.

Poker Player is in my local WH Smith's, not sure if it sells well though.

wouldnt be in your local whsmith if it didnt

thats not necessarily true

Amaya taking positive steps on this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/seat-scripting-issues-pokerstars-1487640/

fun seeing that the EPT sats are sponsored by Skrill PAYMENT PROCESSING. not what tournament you are playing like you used to be able to see on the felt itself.

amaya tho. obv still waiting on support a few days since the farce with the UK software and rebates, it's actually impressive how quickly they've destroyed the business ethos stars had built up.

PokerPlayer was 100% paid for when I edited it. More subscriptions than newsstand sales, but a decent number of those in its heyday. Genuinely no idea on current numbers. But it was still hugely reliant on advertising as are 99.9% of all newspapers and magazines. Doesn't mean they can't be objective.

That said teddybloat makes a very good point. It's ridiculous to expect entertainment-focused sites or magazines to suddenly start doing in-depth investigative reporting. That's not why they exist and that's not what the people who write for them are trained to do. In fact in many cases (poker websites in particular) most of the writers aren't trained at all. They wouldn't really know where to start.

You also need to remember that there are quite draconian libel laws in this country so you need to be absolutely 100% certain of your facts before reporting anything or you can get yourself in all kinds of legal trouble. Even then it's still a huge risk. And dedicating the time and resource to that kind of reporting is a resource-heavy and expensive thing to do.

/derail

PokerStars vow to start addressing their Seat Scripting problems

http://calvinayre.com/2014/11/12/poker/pokerstars-vow-to-start-addressing-seating-script-problems/


p.s why won't they simply ban them?

I believe its very hard to change the current software to do so automatically. When everything is setup and works fine, you can't just chuck a bit more code in.

 They have also used them as an excuse to move games towards zoom and lower winrates/increase rake in the past. You could watch the tables and do it that way I guess but they feel like it might be inaccurate. I found seating scripters at .5/1$ full ring last time I checked.

I cant imagine it's actually that hard if they wanted to, by signing up and using their software you basically give them cart blanche to install/run whatever they want on your computer so it shouldn't be too technically challenging to regulate what other software is running whilst stars is on.

If they put it in there T&C's that seat scripts are banned, how many regs would risk their bankroll and still use a script? it would be a similar situation to using a VPN in USA. I think theres a large amount of truth in what rfgqqabc says in that it drives players to zoom, where they cut the sharpest profits. I can't see how it can be dressed up as anything but terrible for the players.....

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2014/11/pokerstars-looks-to-ban-seating-scripts-19809.htm

A lot of regs would risk it and still script as they just wudnt b able to win without one.

I can think of a fair few names who. 3 years ago were very much at the top of the limits they were playing online and have since fallen into extremely weak players as there game has turned entirely into chasing weak players about. All there effort goes into that and no energy at all onto getting any better at actually playing the game.

A few years ago no one wanted to play them, now you're delighted to see them at the table, and there is no reason why they couldn't have progressed with everyone else either as they very clearly have the aptitude for it.


That's just the way of online poker these days I'm afraid :-(