How long a latecomer is waited for, what zero tolerance actually means, whether the arbiter may let a delay pass, and why a forfeit damages your final placing more than a game honestly lost. All of it against the current FIDE Laws, with the articles quoted, a ready line for your regulations, and the case where an overslept game cost a grandmaster a place in a world championship play-off.
This is the first thing to understand: the rules do not hand every event a single figure like «wait fifteen minutes». They require the organizer to name that time and announce it in advance. And then comes the trap that catches nearly every new organizer.
FIDE Laws of Chess, article 6.7.1
«The regulations of an event shall specify a default time in advance. If the default time is not specified, then it is zero. Any player who arrives at the chessboard after the default time shall lose the game unless the arbiter decides otherwise».
In other words, silence in the regulations does not mean «we will wait a while» - it means the strictest option available, zero. An organizer who simply never thought about that line is running a zero-tolerance event without knowing it, and finds out during the first argument.
These are not norms but settled practice. What binds you is always the regulations of the specific event.
Zero tolerance: the player must be at the board when the clocks start. The rule dates from the Dresden congress in 2008 and has been argued about after every high-profile forfeit since.
Mass events almost always soften the norm: people travel in from other cities, get lost in the building, sit in traffic. The exact figure goes in the regulations.
Often the wait runs until the flag falls: if a player has fifteen minutes for the game, that is how long they are waited for. Nobody comes to a club evening to be scored zero for being a minute late.
A sensible compromise: the schedule has to hold, but punishing a child for a late parent makes no sense. The arbiter almost always uses the discretion the rule allows.
The zero default time was adopted at the FIDE congress in Dresden in 2008. The reasoning was not cruelty but television and discipline: games at major events are broadcast, the hall has to be full at the start, and the habit of turning up «in ten minutes» wrecked both.
Even in its strictest form the rule keeps an important qualifier: the player loses the game unless the arbiter decides otherwise. That is not a loophole but an admission that life is more complicated than a stopwatch. A stuck lift, a building evacuation, a transport failure - all grounds on which an arbiter may decline to forfeit. The decision is theirs and it is taken on the spot.
Article 6.7.2, when neither player has arrived
Where the regulations set a non-zero default time and neither player is at the board, the clock runs anyway - and all of that time is lost by White until they appear, unless the regulations or the arbiter decide otherwise. The logic is straightforward: they have the first move, so they carry responsibility for starting the game.
A point for the opponent is only the first and most obvious consequence. After that comes arithmetic that players rarely think about until the prizegiving.
The game was never played at the board, so it is marked differently in the protocol: a loss without play for the absentee and a win without play for the opponent. On the forms that is usually a minus and a plus rather than a 0 and a 1.
The point goes into the standings in full, but the game does not affect anybody's rating: only games played at the board are rated. You can win a tournament on forfeits; you cannot gain rating from them.
An unplayed round counts as a game against a dummy opponent whose score is capped. That is exactly why a forfeit hurts your tie-break more than a loss at the board does: a played game contributes the real score of a real opponent.
Where the regulations use a cut Buchholz, the contribution of an unplayed round is removed first, even if it is not numerically the smallest. Taking a bye or a forfeit late in the event costs more than it looks.
Most regulations allow the organizer to withdraw a player who has failed to appear twice without warning. After that they are not paired, and their remaining opponents receive byes.
The arithmetic of how an unplayed round enters the calculation, and why the dummy opponent's cap changed in 2026, is worked through on the Buchholz page and in the walkthrough of the 2026 tie-break regulations.
World Blitz Championship 2024, New York. Ten players finished the Swiss stage on the same score, and the regulations sent the top eight on tie-break through to the knockout. Daniil Dubov overslept one of the games, took a forfeit loss, and finished tenth.
The sting is that had he sat down and lost that very same game, his tie-break would have been higher and he would have gone through. Zero points either way, a place in the play-off in only one of them. There is no clearer illustration that a forfeit and a loss at the board are different things to the arithmetic of a tournament.
Other cases where a tie-break decided the outcome are collected in the tie-break reference.
Lateness at least allows for the arbiter's discretion. With electronic devices the wording is harder: if it is evident that a player has such a device on their person in the playing venue, they lose the game and the opponent wins.
Note the detail that catches people out: the rule does not require the phone to ring or to be used. Its presence on the player is enough. That is why at official events phones are handed in at the entrance or left in a bag in an agreed place - and why an organizer should announce this rule out loud before round one, together with the default time.
Club and amateur events almost always soften this to «phone on silent and off the table». But the softening has to be announced too: by default the general, strict wording applies.
One sentence that removes most future arguments. It belongs in the section on how the event is run, next to the time control.
Sample wording
«The default time is 15 minutes from the announced start of the round. A player who has not arrived at the board by then loses the game without play, and the opponent is credited with a win without play. A player who fails to appear twice without notifying the organizer is withdrawn from the tournament and is not paired thereafter».
What to do when a player genuinely withdraws mid-event is covered separately in a player withdraws from the tournament. The general preparation walkthrough is in how to organize a chess tournament.
In the Vibe Chess app every pairing has a no-show button: the organizer taps it once and the event carries on. The point is credited to the opponent, the round closes, and the standings and tie-breaks are recalculated with the game counted as unplayed - so an event with forfeits does not turn into a manual reconciliation afterwards.
For exactly as long as the tournament regulations say. There is no universal figure: the rules require the default time to be stated in advance, and if it is not stated it is zero. In practice official FIDE events use zero, opens usually 15 to 30 minutes, and club events often wait until the time control runs out.
A default time of zero: the player must be at the board when the round starts, or the game is lost. The rule was adopted at the FIDE congress in Dresden in 2008 to keep large events on schedule and their broadcasts intact.
No. The rule ends with «unless the arbiter decides otherwise». That is a deliberate margin for exceptional circumstances - a stuck lift, an evacuation, an accident on the way. The decision belongs to the arbiter and can only be challenged through an appeal.
If the regulations set a non-zero default time and neither player is present, the clock still runs: White loses all the time that elapses until they arrive, unless the regulations or the arbiter decide otherwise. In effect White is penalised in time before Black even appears.
For the standings, not at all - a loss either way. The difference shows in the tie-breaks: a played game brings the opponent's real score into the calculation, while an unplayed one is computed under a special capped rule and is the first thing cut when the worst results are dropped. A forfeit also does not count for rating.
Yes, and famously so. At the 2024 World Blitz Championship in New York ten players finished the Swiss stage level, with the top eight on tie-break going through. Daniil Dubov overslept a game and took a forfeit loss - had he sat down and lost that same game, his tie-break would have been higher and he would have qualified.
Call or message the arbiter before the round starts. Many regulations accommodate a warned delay: the arbiter holds the game rather than forfeiting it by stopwatch. Silence is almost always treated as a no-show, because the arbiter has to keep the event moving rather than search for a player.
Yes, that is a voluntary unplayed round. In most opens a player may decline one or two rounds in advance and receive half a point or zero for them, depending on the regulations. Ask before the pairing is made: once the pairings exist, declining becomes an ordinary no-show and the opponent gets a win without play.
Formally yes: the rule speaks about arriving at the chessboard, not at the venue. That is why at zero-tolerance events players arrive early and sit down, rather than standing in the foyer.
Yes, and that rule is stricter than the one on lateness. Under the current Laws, having an electronic device on your person in the playing venue means losing the game, and the wording does not require the phone to ring or to be used - the mere fact is enough.
One line: «The default time is 15 minutes from the start of the round. A player who has not arrived at the board by then loses the game». Without such a line the default time is formally zero, and a dispute after the first forfeit is guaranteed.
No. A win without play gives you the point in the standings but is not submitted for rating: only games played at the board count. For rating purposes that round simply does not exist.