Enough time has past and I’ve played enough cash game hands to conclude that there are still problems with the changes Ignition made to handle scenarios when multiple players are sitting out in cash games or engaged in ‘sniping’ by immediately sitting out on new tables to observe the action before posting blinds.
I definitely agree that these issues needed to be addressed. It is very frustrating to have a session come to a screeching halt because all your tables have 3+ players sitting out and you’re forced to play short handed with no way of getting new players seated.
However, simply forcing newly seated players to post a blind before sitting out isn’t a solution, it actually forces players to play hands on tables that they would not do otherwise. Since Ignition doesn’t have a list of available tables, player counts at those tables, or any way at all to see what the state of the table is before your seated, you have no way of knowing if your going to be sat at a brand new table, a short handed table, or a full table. Now when I start a session I am never looking to sit at a new table, be forced to play at least 1 hand heads up, have to sit out after that hand, and wait for the table to fill up. I want to get started on as full of a table as possible!
So, how do you handle removing players who insist on sitting out, preventing new players from joining, and either ‘sniping’ or killing a table? Simple,
Add a feature, like a button, that once a player is sitting out, you click a button, and start a countdown timer until that player is removed from the table, and a new player can be seated. This is not a new idea and used by many of your competitors and it works! They are not forcing their players to spend real money on their platforms on things they don’t want to do, like playing heads up on a new table with no way of knowing a head of time that they are going to be sat at a newly created table.