Cross Section consideration:
If higher section player winds up naturally chosen for a full point bye in a future round – let’s say edge case where they are the only one in lowest score group – do you force the Bye or another cross section or …??
Also, I have seen a cross section done in round 1 w/o much thought – the lower section person was at least 200 points stronger than their published rating and it did not turn out well for the higher section person. Tip: If you use published ratings and your pairing program allows for a second rating to be displayed grab the latest rating, too.
Gary. . .Knowing now that cross section pairings have no requirement, they can easily be made unfair by any but not all of the higher rated players opting out. Therefore, it is better to use extra rated games.
All you have to do is create an extra games section and enter the players into that, leaving untouched their initial entries in their initial sections with their original byes.
There’s a verifying dialog since the players could be in other sections, and you have the choice of assigning byes so the round number lines up with the current round but that’s not necessary or worth the work.