Originally Posted by skywardhunter

No, but two strategies:

Choose seats in the preferred section and if flight isn't full hopefully the seat won't be taken. As they're paid for most pax chances are this section isn't as full. Other option is select seats at the back as they'll be the last to fill if flight isn't full.

You can change seats and monitor seat map up until quite close to departure on the app usually, depends on the departure point. So monitor and adjust as the seat map fills.