[blml] "Carefully avoid." Was Zonal Delegation of L12c3

[Sven Pran]

> On Behalf Of Jerry Fusselman
............
> I will now give two examples of director behavior I take exception to
> from my last midwest ACBL regional---march of this year.  By the way,
> one of the directors at the regional was among the politest and best I
> have ever enjoyed playing under.  But two of those directors I wish
> would learn to follow the above quote of Robin's.
> 
> My partner at the regional was Teresa, a young beginner with 1
> masterpoint so far.  (We both met Eric Landau and became instant
> friends at an APL conference if Florida, and I am sure that Eric will
> agree that she is a totally charming person.)
> 
> In the first example, we sat EW, and there were four boards to play.
> After completing the first two boards, South noticed that the boards
> were incorrectly rotated 180 degrees.  Too late to fix those, but what
> should we do about the other two, she asked.
> 
> My partner, inexperienced though she is, called the director.
> (Directors were scarce, and she was, unfortunately for her, the first
> to spot one.)  She knows that "When attention is called to an
> irregularity -- please call the Director" is the sole boldfaced slogan
> on the back of ACBL convention cards.  (You would think the ACBL
> really means it.)  This was her first director call.  The director
> knew her, and knew her inexperience, but as is his frequent style, he
> snorted to her "So?"  Someone asked, "well what do we do with the
> other two boards?"  He snorted again, as if his dignity was offended
> to have to answer such a question, that we should, obviously, play the
> last two in the correct positions.  (Not so obvious to me, by the way,
> because two of us became dealers twice.)
> 
> This director made it clear that he thought the director call was
> idiotic and a waste of his time.  We should have just figured out by
> ourselves what to do, he implied.  As he was leaving, North and South
> assured my partner that they thought it was correct for her to call
> the director, and did not see why this director was gratuitously rude
> so frequently.  I agreed:  What purpose did that kind of nastiness
> serve?
> 
> In the second example, my partner accurately alerted that my opening
> bid of 1S was unlimited (but otherwise normal), because we have no
> strong artificial opening such as a strong artificial 2C.  This is
> totally clear on the typeset convention card, but the director ignored
> the card at first, preferring to grill my partner and roll his eyes
> and go on and on about how he could not fathom why we would agree to
> play such a thing.  He said it was an inferior agreement, and we
> should not be playing it, and I quote, "you will win more often when
> you learn to play bridge."    His hostility was impressive and
> memorable.  Personally, I don't think directors should spend any time
> denigrating a pair's legal and properly disclosed agreements.
> 
> If gratuitous, pointless director rudeness happens twenty times per
> regional, we just have to accept it or stop playing, I guess.  There
> is apparently nothing in the laws to prevent it, but I wish there was.
>  This was the reason for my original post on this subject.

Your examples are horrific. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the
tales but I am shocked if qualified directors behave in this manner. That
the object of their rudeness happened to be inexperienced is as such not
relevant but aggravates the seriousness of the behaviors by those directors.

A Director has no business in commenting a partnership agreement for other
purposes that its legality. 

If a Director feels that he has been called to a table for no real reason he
may inform the players of that fact, but if he does he must in the same
breath assure them that it is absolutely never incorrect to call a Director
when they are in any kind of doubt.

So what could (and maybe should) have been done?

I hope in a similar case that I would have approached the directors,
preferably immediately at the table or at least before leaving the room and
demanded an unconditional apology for such unthinkable behavior.

If there was a chief director in charge at the event I might have approached
him.

Allowing for the possibility that the directors involved might have had a
bad day I would still not let such incidents pass by in silence; they are
very efficient ways of scaring inexperienced players away from bridge.

And there is no real need for any clarification in the laws that also
Directors shall behave.

Regards Sven