No thoughts on this? Does anyone agree, or disagree? What I didn't realize when I first made this post is that the server doesn't even allow you to start a new game while you are involved in a tournament, so it's not like the opponent could go play a quick 1|0 game while he waits for the round to finish up. He has to wait either way. I see no reason to award a free win.
Automatic time loss in a live tournament is completely foolish
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I play mostly in bullet tournaments (2|1, primarily). Today, I was leading a 2|1 tournament with 4/4, waiting for the 5th round to start. Eventually, the game pops up, and I immediately lose on time with 0:51 remaining on my clock. Maybe there was a server issue, maybe there was a problem on my end (although I have a full green lag bar, as always). But regardless of what caused the game to show up late on my screen, the automatic time loss is a rule that I see absolutely no defense for.
Don't get me wrong, I understand what the intent must be with this rule. No one wants to sit around for the full length of a game when the opponent has no intent of playing the game. This makes perfect sense for a standard game. But in a live tournament, especially for fast time controls, it is makes no sense.
In every round of these fast tournaments, there are games that take very nearly the entire time on both players' clocks. So even if the game is ended early by the server for a time violation, the opponent still has to wait around for the next round; you're not helping him out at all! And you're potentially screwing a player out of points for some kind of server or connection troubles. Who knows? Maybe I would have been able to salvage at least a half point out of that game, even with only 0:51 left to play.
Bottom line, I think this rule should be removed for live tournaments. Does anyone have any thoughts?