Light up the seat that's holding the game up

Asked what actually slows a home game down and the answer from people who deal
them is consistent: not how fast the cards come out, but players not noticing the
action is on them. "Waiting for shuffling and players not realizing it's their
action is going to cost much more time than how quickly you spread the flop."

So I measured how obvious the acting seat is, and it was distinguished by a rim
colour and nothing else -- a gold border and a 2px ring where a live seat has a
green border and a 1px one. Same fill, same size, nothing moving. That is a subtle
thing to ask a dealer to spot across a table on a phone, for the one state the
whole pace of the game hangs on.

It reads as lit now rather than merely outlined: a solid gold ring at full
strength, a warm glow separating it from the felt, a warmer fill, and it sits
above its neighbours so the ring is never clipped by the seat next to it.

There's also a slow two-and-a-half second breath, which stops entirely under
prefers-reduced-motion -- the ring carries the whole job on its own for anyone who
would rather nothing moved, and that was checked rather than assumed.

The lift is box-shadow, not transform. A seat's transform is what positions it
around the felt, so setting one here would throw it off its spot -- the same trap
that nearly shipped a 38px seat displacement a few rounds ago.

One measurement I'm not claiming: the acting and live fills differ by only 1.1:1,
because the change is a hue shift rather than a lightness one. The ring and the
glow do the work; the fill just stops it looking like the same chip.

Checked at eight viewports: layout and contrast audits clean, exactly one acting
seat everywhere, and the lit seat is the same size as its neighbours at every
size -- the ring adds no layout. renderAll is 1.8ms with the pulse running, so it
costs nothing. Text on the warmer fill still passes contrast at every size.
137 tests passing.

Sources: pokerchipforum.com/threads/as-a-dealer-how-do-increase-more-hands-per-hour.114914/,
forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27/casino-amp-cardroom-poker/tips-advice-faster-better-dealer-241644/

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015bnp7xKUPFFSpwkYNFaPgb

JoshHeaps.Net/wwwroot/css/casino/holdem.css

@@ -2029,12 +2029,50 @@ body.hasActionBar #holdemSidebar {
     color: #f0d9a8;
 }
 
-/* Whose turn it is, shown on the table itself as well as in the bar. */
+/* Whose turn it is, shown on the table itself as well as in the bar.
+   
+   Dealers say the biggest single time sink at a home table isn't how fast the cards
+   come out — it's players not noticing the action is on them. So this is the one
+   state that has to be unmistakable from across a table at a glance, and it was
+   distinguished only by a rim colour: a gold border and a 2px ring where a live seat
+   has a green border and a 1px one. Same fill, same size, nothing moving.
+
+   It now reads as lit rather than merely outlined: a solid ring at full strength, a
+   warm glow that separates it from the felt, and a lift of its own. The seat's
+   `transform` positions it around the table, so the lift is box-shadow rather than
+   translate — setting transform here would throw the seat off its spot. */
 .seat.seatActing {
-    border-color: #d8b46a;
+    border-color: #f0cd85;
+    background: linear-gradient(160deg, #3a3222, #241f16);
     box-shadow:
-        0 0 0 2px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.45),
-        0 4px 16px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.55);
+        0 0 0 3px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.9),
+        0 0 18px 2px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.35),
+        0 6px 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);
+    z-index: 4;
+}
+
+/* A slow breath, so a dealer glancing up finds it without hunting. Deliberately
+   gentle and deliberately optional — the ring above carries the whole job on its own
+   for anyone who'd rather nothing moved. */
+@media (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
+    .seat.seatActing {
+        animation: seatActingPulse 2.4s ease-in-out infinite;
+    }
+
+    @keyframes seatActingPulse {
+        0%, 100% {
+            box-shadow:
+                0 0 0 3px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.9),
+                0 0 18px 2px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.35),
+                0 6px 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);
+        }
+        50% {
+            box-shadow:
+                0 0 0 3px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.65),
+                0 0 26px 5px rgba(216, 180, 106, 0.5),
+                0 6px 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);
+        }
+    }
 }
 
 .seatPuckStack {