888poker on Crusade to end "Table Camping"

The world's biggest online poker sites are currently on crusades to end some of the negative practices that scare off recreational players. Last month it was PokerStars announcing measures to eliminate bumhunting in heads-up cash games. Now, this month, it's 888poker launching a mission to discourage 'table camping.'

If you're unfamiliar with table camping, this practice sees certain players abuse the 'sit out' option in cash games to avoid paying blinds. The way it works is that a player will sit out when the blinds come around to them and then wait for a break in action. An example of this break could happen if somebody goes to make something to eat and everybody sits out for a short while. Once the game is about to start again, the table camper jumps back into a 'new game' and thus plays more hands without paying as many blinds.

In an effort to try and eliminate table camping, 888poker have pledged to devote more time to catching perpetrators. They explained their position with the following TwoPlusTwo forum post:

"Continuing with our efforts to make 888poker the best poker room, we have taken steps to address table camping. Effective immediately, we will actively seek out table campers who abuse the sit out feature and address them on site. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to take action against players "sitting out" for excessive periods of time. Repeated abusers of the "Sit out" feature may be restricted from participating in our poker games either temporarily or indefinitely."

It's worth noting that table camping isn't quite the same as bumhunting, where players sit at a table forever and wait to play against fish. That said, 888poker must feel that table camping is a much bigger problem at their site than bumhunting.

888poker have made tremendous strides in terms of player traffic over the past year. Starting 2013 as the world's fifth biggest online poker room, they now rank as the third largest site. According to PokerScout.com, their average of 2,200 cash game players per hour ranks just behind the iPoker network (2,300) and PokerStars (21,200).