[Rain]

I am looking through acbl bridge laws. It seems to contain many instances where directors will have to rule based on his judgement.

An example would be :

Law 13b:When the Director determines that one or more pockets of the board contained an incorrect number of cards and after restoration of the board to its original condition a player has seen one or more cards of another player's hand, if the Director deems:

1. The Information Gained Is Inconsequential
that such information will not interfere with normal bidding or play, the Director, with the concurrence of all four players, may allow the board to be played and scored normally.

2. The Information Will Interfere with Normal Play
that the information gained thereby is of sufficient importance to interfere with normal bidding or play, or if any player objects to playing the board, the Director shall award an artificial adjusted score and may penalize an offender.

---------
There are many other instances here, and I don't know other countries' laws or whatever, but probably similar meaning.

Does this imply that directors must be of a sufficient bridge playing level? How else can he make a fair ruling?


r

[Trpltrbl]

Yes, a director should have at least an advanced level of play. Directors from different countries and organisations have to do some sort of play test to see if they are.
I suggested that once here on BBO, to do so, and somehow I got shot down.
I wonder why, maybe because we would lose 60/70% of our directors ?
But then most directors here are actually more hosts then officiating people.
Most fun was long time ago, when there was like 2 minutes left in a hand, and I claimed on double squeeze, opps disagreed and director was called.
He asked me what a squeeze was And it wasn't a language barrier
But we should be grateful that they are willing to spend their time to run tournaments.

Mike

[Gerardo]

It certainly helps, but should not be necessary.
Check Cascade's story about the person who directed at national level (more than one time) before even playing a hand.

If you know the Laws, you can always rely on others for judgement (and you should, if possible, whatever your level, when the case is not clear cut).

[Trpltrbl]

Gerardo, on Jul 1 2004, 04:50 PM, said:

It certainly helps, but should not be necessary.
Check Cascade's story about the person who directed at national level (more than one time) before even playing a hand.

If you know the Laws, you can always rely on others for judgement (and you should, if possible, whatever your level, when the case is not clear cut).

With other words you do need a director there with advanced or better level skills you make to judgement calls.

Mike

[BillFinque]

At a regional a declarer made a claim that he had the rest of the tricks with no line of play, however, there was an outstanding trump. The TD played the rest of the hand such that we got all but one of the remaining tricks. We only saw our possible trump trick. Then I knew why the TD wa=ere all life masters or better.

On-line we would have conceded the claim on the assumption of declarer drawing the last trump. I believe that this can lead to sloppy claiming in tourneys.

Bill

[Trpltrbl]

BillFinque, on Jul 2 2004, 10:21 AM, said:

At a regional a declarer made a claim that he had the rest of the tricks with no line of play, however, there was an outstanding trump. The TD played the rest of the hand such that we got all but one of the remaining tricks. We only saw our possible trump trick. Then I knew why the TD wa=ere all life masters or better.

On-line we would have conceded the claim on the assumption of declarer drawing the last trump. I believe that this can lead to sloppy claiming in tourneys.

Bill

That's exactly why I think, and have been advertising, that the directors on BBO should adopt the same rules, where possible, as reallife directors.
The Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1997which is used by the 4 biggest Bridge Organizations in the world.
But I have feeling, a really good one, that most directors on here aren't even close to being a Lifemaster

Mike

[Rain]

Many have commented that being a LM no longer implies always an awesome bridge ability (Not an ACBL LM anyway).

So I don't know if I agree about the "not even close to being a LM" part. But definitely have some skill in bidding/playing, and knowledge about allowed systems...

I would love directors with at least an "advanced" level according to BBO guidelines, or those who can easily understand and solve level 4 BM2K deals.

This also give rises to another thought --would a director rule differently for different player standard? I mean this :"director determines when information gained is inconsequential". The same information may be inconsequential to a newbie and to a middling player and to an expert?



rain