The Role of the Tournament Director
The Role of the Tournament Director
The unsung heroes of most bridge tournaments played in clubs up and down the country are the session directors. They have difficult role to perform, especially – as is the case in Armidale – where they simultaneously participate as player and director. Calls for the director to rule on infringements to the laws of the game have to be answered promptly to keep the game moving, and frequent calls interrupt concentration on both bidding and play. And the director’s role is also a fraught one because the laws are complex. They total 89 separate sections, run to over 50 pages, and periodically change to keep pace with (i) the rising quality of players, (ii) increasingly complex systems of bidding and play, (iii) hardware and software technologies, and (iv) the increasing diversity of tournament formats. Accredited directors, of which the Armidale club has many, have to keep abreast of these periodic changes, the last of which was in 2007. The laws are set globally, but national federations can put a local spin upon them.
This message informs ordinary club members of the role of the director and how they can assist directors in their task. To quote the introduction to the 2007 laws of duplicate bridge, they
“... define correct procedure and ... provide an adequate remedy when there is a departure from correct procedure. They are primarily designed not as punishment for irregularities but rather for the rectification of situations where non-offenders may otherwise be damaged. Players should be ready to accept gracefully any rectification or adjusted score awarded by the Director.”
In short, their main role is one of conflict resolution and/or rectification of mistakes on equitable lines. Under the 2007 revisions, the laws give directors considerably more discretionary powers and there are fewer automatic penalties. Nearly all calls for the director at club level involve rectification of mistakes in bidding or play or failure to disclose information about partnership agreements. In most cases, the director has to assess whether the non-offending side has been damaged by such errors. If the answer is yes, the second task is to determine whether any penalty should apply. The laws also venture into issues of etiquette as mentioned in some of my recent postings.
The remainder of this message is about how players can assist directors in the smooth running of club events. If any player feels that they have been disadvantaged during the bidding or play by their opponents’ actions, they should immediately call the director. During the bidding, this usually takes the form of (i) bidding out of turn, (ii) an insufficient bid, and (iii) failing to alert a conventional bid below the level of 3NT, but it could also be (iv) a wrong interpretation of a bid’s meaning by the partner of the player making the call. All these cases are relatively east to handle. The latter infraction could occur at any level of the bidding. Don’t forget that you have a right to know what your opponents’ bidding means as this can be crucial for doubling contracts and for defence in general. A player’s use of deception during the bidding is not illegal, provided that the deceiver’s partner is also deceived! This is why psychic bidding is allowed. However, if an opponent psychs – and their partner conveys the impression that they’ve read the bid as a psych, call the director immediately!
During the play phase of a deal, the most common appeals to a director are for:
1. failure to follow suit, when a player could and should have done so
2. leads from the wrong hand
3. inadvertent plays (a player intended to play ‘x’ but instead played ‘y’), and
4. misdescription of a signalling system being employed by the opposition.
The first three of these rarely present difficulties for the director, who might have been summoned by either declarer of the defenders. The last is a bed of nails because: (a) false-carding by both defenders and declarer is extremely frequent, and (b) use of odd-even discards is often violated by defenders having all odd cards or all even.
In all these cases, the director’s role is to adjudicate, and they actively wish to pursue that role. If any player at the table wishes to call the director, that is their right and their opponents should await and accept the ruling made. Please recognise that if an opponent calls the director, there is no stigma attached to the process. If the call is frivolous or malicious, directors have the capacity to penalise the pair making the call, but I have not had such a case in the last 10 years. So, all players at the table should be pleasant to each other and to the director. In major tournaments where a lot is at stake, directors’ rulings are sometimes challenged and taken to an appeals committee. This does not happen in Armidale, though technically it could if players referred the matter to me. However, the Armidale Bridge Club has a club recorder, a role played by Jim Stroud. If any player is concerned about a decision made, the circumstances should be reported in confidence to Jim. He will then consult with me on the matter without naming names.
Tony Sorensen
Chief Director