"Seat scripting" is the practice of using software in order to give yourself a huge edge in getting the optimal seat at poker games, making it literally impossible for non-seat-scripters to beat you to the best seat.

These programs do the following:

1) Scan all Pokerstars games the user is interested in playing

2) When a new player sits down, he doesn't immediately appear at the table. His new seat shows an "R" until he enters the amount he's buying in. Within a split second, the software automatically grabs the seat to the direct left of the new player, but not completely buying in, so that seat also shows "R".

3) When the new player buys in, his screen name is revealed. The program instantaneously searches its database of observed players. If it's a fish, the program completes the buyin process and the user is seated to the direct left of the fish. If it's a good player, the program aborts and does not complete the buyin process.

Due to the quickness of the program's actions, it is impossible for humans to compete for those seats. People using "seat scripting" programs will always get priority for the best seats at the best games.

This is cheating. It is FAR worse than data mining, as data mining simply automates a process a human could do by hand, while seat scripting actually provides its users an unbeatable advantage in game and seat selection.

Oddly, Pokerstars has been reluctant to clamp down on this.

Finally, they released this statement:

Based on input received here and elsewhere, we have set the number of ‘failed reservations’ at any given table at two every six hours. To avoid being considered a ‘failed reservation’, you must post at least one blind at the table.

The following exceptions apply:

– Reservations made by Easy Seat or Find Seat (Seat Manager) will not count towards the ‘failed reservation’ total
– Reservations that result from reaching the top of a waiting list will not count towards the ‘failed reservation’ total
– If no other player is in sit-in state at the table (all players are sitting out or there are no other players at the table) when you leave the table, it will not count towards the ‘failed reservation’ total

As we are implementing this change between software updates it will only be live on newly spawned tables. Old tables, until they die out, will not have this restriction. It is possible some tables may be unaffected until the next server restart.
But I don't understand this.

Why not just tell all users that seat scripting is prohibited, and that they will be aggressively investigating and terminating all accounts caught doing it? That would put a quick end to the problem.

It's odd that Pokerstars is looking to semi-thwart it from a technical standpoint instead of just outlawing it.