Swiss system: pair only players who are online at the time of the pairing

[cecile-rose]

With Swiss system tournaments, there's always the problem of players who enter the tournament and don't explicitly pause with the appropriate button when withdrawing, which leads to numerous forfeits and frustration among of their opponents.

Idea: Why not check when calculating the pairing of a new round that the players are online on the site (green indicator lit)? Players who aren't on the site at the time of pairing would be automatically paused, and the new round would only be paired with players who were on the site at the time the new pairing was calculated.

[ornicar]

Players have the right to be absent during pairing, and to arrive late at their game. They play with the clock time the have left.

When a player completely misses a game, they are automatically paused.

[cecile-rose]

Yes, that's the problem: when the time control for the games is quite long (like 30' or more), the opponent has to wait for the (unlikely) arrival of the opponent during all that time. This is frustrating for him and is negative for the general atmosphere of the tournament.

By forcing the fact that if the opponent is not present at the very moment of the pairing, then he is not paired, this solves this problem and would make Swiss tournaments more dynamic.

In IRL chess, many tournaments have a zero minutes tolerance for showing up in front of the board: if a player is not present when the game starts, he has immediately lost.