Daniel Negreanu on Seat Scripting

Daniel Negreanu has recently spoken out against players who use seat scripting software on PokerStars - something that he himself has been a “victim” of.

Imagine this: Daniel Negreanu, the player with the most live tournament earnings of all time to his name, sits down at an empty $50/$100 cash table on PokerStars and within a couple of seconds, the table fills up. Should KidPoker feel flattered that so many of his admirers are eager to play with him? Probably not - something more nefarious is going on there.

As Negreanu himself figured it out, those players almost certainly used a seat scripting software. Seat scripting softwares automatically reserve a seat to the left of certain “marked” players once they buy in at a table. These marked players are ones who the software user believes they have an advantage over, usually recreational players - and in this case, Daniel Negreanu who doesn’t play as much online as the biggest winning regs on Stars. 

Negreanu has criticized the use of such programs both on Twitter and on his recent Full Contact Podcast episode as well.

On Twitter, Joe Ingram, “ChicagoJoey” jumped in, defending seat scripting, getting into a lengthy conversation about the issue with Negreanu.

In his podcast, Negreanu talked about the $50/$100 cash game sessions he played on Stars - impressively, he won both them, being up $30,000 at the end of the first one, and up around $10,000 after the second one. As soon as he left, however, the table cleared - another indication that the “predatory” regs there regarded him as a fish who is profitable to play against.

It’s not the first time Negreanu’s pride took a blow like this from the younger generation of players. He often talks about the time when during the Poker Masters last year, the players decided to hold a fantasy team draft in which Negreanu was picked by no-one. He handled the situation in a commendable way, treating it as an inspiration to improve his game. 

But hurt feelings isn’t the reason KidPoker objects to using seat scripting software - he feels it discourages amateurs and losing regs from playing poker on the site, thus creating a tougher, less fun and less profitable player pool to play in. PokerStars has already experimented with ways to crack down on seat scripting with the release of the “Seat Me” feature on PokerStars.fr. “Seat Me” no longer allows the players to choose between tables and seats, the client seats them automatically. Negreanu praised the new feature, he thinks it’s a viable solution against seat scripters.

Negreanu touched on a variety of other subjects in the video as well, including his performance at the Caribbean Adventure, the 2019 PokerStars Players Championship, cryptocurrency and more.