Directors
Although there is no requirement for regular club sessions to be run under the supervision of a qualified director, anyone who directs regularly should be encouraged to sit a club level directors' course and gain the first level of qualification offered by the Directors' accreditation scheme.
In the end the most useful thing for a director is experience; it is always easier to deal with a situation if you have seen a similar one before. The most useful attribute for a director apart from experience is remaining calm when things go wrong, the best directors are the ones who find a solution to allow the session of bridge to continue with a minimum of fuss. A director should always have a copy of the law book available during a session as players will have more confidence in a ruling if the director is able to quote the relevant law(s).
At the club level it may be necessary to have a playing director. It is up to individual clubs to set their own guidelines for such situations. The following are worth considering;
- The playing director's focus should be on the movement and the room, not the hand they are playing or the results of the partnership, in particular when the director is dummy is a good time to encourage slow tables to keep to time.
- If the playing director becomes aware (due to a ruling at another table) of the layout of a hand, their partner should be encouraged to play the hand if they becomes declarer.
- The playing director should never hold up nor forget to call the move because their table is slow.
For certain qualifying heats and congresses there are requirements for the director to have a level of qualification under the scheme.