[awm]

It seems like it'd be pretty useful to have an online class for online directors. In particular there should be a course for directors of the ACBL tournaments. My observation from playing both at clubs and in BBO's tourmanents is that there are a number of things ACBL club-certified directors do very well:

(1) Maintaining friendly terms with players.
(2) Keeping the game moving, speeding along slow pairs without upsetting them too much.
(3) Quickly entering scores into the archaic ACBL-score software, and catching scoring errors.
(4) Finding partners for players who show up to the club by themselves.
(5) Stratifying the field to maximize masterpoints awarded.
(6) Finding a way to accomodate pairs who have some seating preference.
(7) Making correct rulings on revokes, leads out of turn, insufficient bids, exposed cards.

In terms of running a club game face-to-face, these are all important things. In fact, when Elianna was learning to direct it was emphasized to her that keeping the players happy and coming back is really the main priority of a club director, and that making correct rulings isn't the first priority of a club director in some cases.

This is all fine, but looking at the seven things above, few if any of them have much relevence to online bridge where the software handles most of it. On the other hand, the following issues come up frequently in online bridge, and these are things ACBL club directors tend to be much worse at dealing with:

(1) Failure to alert, or misexplanation of agreements.
(2) Ruling on methods which may/may not be permitted by the general convention chart.
(3) Ruling on improper claims, or claims where no line of play is stated.
(4) Finding substitutes for players who disappear during a game.
(5) Dealing with players who simply refuse to respond to the director's questions.
(6) Pairs with no convention card, and virtually no formal agreements.

Anyways, a course for online directors in general and ACBL directors in particular that focuses on these sorts of issues would probably be quite useful. I don't think that just having ACBL club directors direct online really works well: it's not that the ACBL directors aren't qualified, it's that their qualifications tend to focus on the "wrong" things for the online game.

[barmar]

Are the TDs in BBO ACBL tournaments certified tournament directors or just certified club directors? Since the problems they encounter in online tournaments tend to be of the complexity found more in formal tournaments than club games, perhaps we should expect the higher level of certification.

[uday]

Some of each. The acbl in memphis treats all online "tournaments" as club games, and only club td certification is needed.

For that matter, i dont think even that being a club td is a requirement as much as it is a practice, since the acbl recognizes that foreign Tds with an awareness of acbl rules are good enough.

I am sure that if we found a smart online Td who was well versed in ACBL regulations the acbl in memphis would not have a problem w/him/her.

[pigpenz]

i thought to run an acbl club game you dont even need to be certified anymore, at least that is what happened about 1993. Look at this years superbowl. the refs that graded the highest for the year are picked to ref that game and look at all the flak they took for some of their calls...no one said it was easy

And Like I had posted earlier, its amazing how many of the people who are rated the highest on BBO in acbl games have never played in a live acbl game. So there is alot the TD's have to deal with when alot of the players dont know the procedures for the game.

[Elianna]

I thought that in order to run a sanctioned game, you must have a certified director (and this director can be a playing director). I know that any club that I'm hired for always asks for my director number. Of course, I lost the card with that number on the day it arrived, so they find me by ACBL number.

I've found that it's VERY common that people don't know correct procedure in a club game, even the advanced pairs.

[DrTodd13]

I don't believe anything is going to be _officially_ done about this problem. I think it is time we quit bitching and do something about it ourselves. We need to create some materials and exams that cater to issues found on online bridge, advertise the site and make our online directors certification an expectation of the people running tournaments on BBO. If people really care about this issue then we can apply pressure to not participate in tournaments run by non-certified directors. This would also include a feedback system so that people could lose their certification if they issue too many poor rulings (they could re-certify by taking the test again).

[jillybean]

same old story http://forums.bridge...opic=7477&st=30

Luckily for the TD's there are plenty of people around who are knowledgeable, willing and DO help.

This collection of wbf laws and the application of them online is very useful.
http://forums.homeba...php?showforum=6

[Rain]

Rui (lusobrasil) will be offering a session in mid-March to help provide pointers to our TDs. It won't address all the points awm raised, but its looking to be a great lecture.

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?act...vent&eventid=16

Quote

(1) Failure to alert, or misexplanation of agreements.
(2) Ruling on methods which may/may not be permitted by the general convention chart.
(3) Ruling on improper claims, or claims where no line of play is stated.
(4) Finding substitutes for players who disappear during a game.
(5) Dealing with players who simply refuse to respond to the director's questions.
(6) Pairs with no convention card, and virtually no formal agreements.

(4) is not difficult, but I personally don't think its solely a TD's task. All players have the ability to find their own subs. In fact, they may prefer to choose their favourite partner as sub. If what you meant to say is that there is no uniform standard, I agree that it could be a problem. But its not a TD problem per se.

[jillybean]

Fantastic Rain!

[inquiry]

Might I add that this session is very much needed. I hope all BBO tournaments are blocked during this time so everyone who even thinks they might want to direct or who are actually directing be forced to attend (yes, I know this isn't going to happen, but it should).

Let's see if we can't raise the standard of the online directing.

[uday]

Sorry, we're going to make attendance optional