Both ELO remains unchanged.
What do your think?
What you're doing here isnt actually fixing the math problem. You're simply reducing the ranks it affects. You would still have the same problem within that restricted range and you'd also introduce a new problem. Pointless games. In such a case, NEITHER player would want to play the game because there is nothing to gain from doing so. This problem exists in Rung based as well btw. However, it's easily fixed via time limits. Z player has X amount of time to play the #2 player, etc. This forces the better player to challenge the lower ranked player or they face being timed out. But even this can be abused, the #2 player could simply refuse to play #1. This is why in most ladders, the timeout is range based UNLESS the #2 player can prove without a doubt, they tried to play the #1 player.
So these are the most difficult problems any competitive system will face. You can see this in action if you look at any professional sports tournament. For example, the NFL purposely forces the best teams to play the worst ranked teams. Neither team has an option to avoid the game, all the way up to the SB. If you can somehow force players to play each other, you'll have one very healthy competitive system. So how does one do that? Disable the ability of both players to enter or start games until their accounts have either played or the higher ranked player has timed out. It's not great, but it works. If they both want to play, they'd be penalized by forcing them to play on another account (unless you find a way to block even that which most players would probably complain about lol). Other players would notice this and call it out as "dodging". Maybe make a new rule that if someone is caught dodging to many times or chronically, they lose their ranks or something. Either way, the possibility is there but with the current course you're taking, it's doomed to fail or be riddled with abuses like all others have in the past. Automating this is easier said than done but you could get away with doing it all manually if you really had no life