These were the considerations we undertook before announcing today the introduction of Seat Me which aims to improve our ring game seating process by making it smoother, quicker and fairer. Seat Me eliminates the ability of players to pick their tables and seats at the tables, and will instead get them straight into the action automatically once a game and stake has been chosen. We will be testing this new functionality soon, on PokerStars.es, and will review the results of this trial before considering potential future use of Seat Me in other markets.
Seat Me will:
• Greatly reduce the ability to bumhunt
• Prevent seating scripts and level the playing field by undermining those few players using software that allows them to unfairly prey on less experienced players
• Mimic the live poker experience of random table and seat selection
• Introduce potential time penalties to reduce game disruption caused by players constantly switching tables, stealing blinds or refusing to play certain opponents
While this means live observation of ring game tables will no longer be possible, railbirds will still be able to observe ring game action through rolling highlights of key hands, with Team PokerStars Pros' play weighted to appear at the top of feeds to enable fans to locate and watch them more easily.