You can set the range of opponents that you want to be matched with. Change it if you aren't happy with it instead of aborting. Of course you get punished for keep aborting. It tells you so every time you do it.
Aborting Games
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I set the rating range to mine +/- 100 but got my challenge accepted by a player with a rating 900 below mine! Why? I played anyway with no prospect of improving my rating and the risk that I screwed up and took a massive hit. Would it have been against the fair-play policy to abort? Would I have been penalised?
I've intentionally aborted games before the first move because my opponent that I was matched with was much lower rated so I had much to lose if I lost but little to gain if I won in terms of rating points. I think it ok to do this but I did notice that after doing this a few times it took much longer for chess.com to match me with an opponent for a 5/5 game which is a popular seek. It seems like I am getting "punished" for the aborts by restricting my match options...or is this just my imagination. Has anyone else experienced this??