Table Manners

This post has been inspired by another post on the same topic, published by our fellow blogger V N Ramamoorthy in various WhatsApp fora.

Having been both a player, as well as a director in several events now, I am making bold to pen a few lines on the topic.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject (all my own work).

 

Irritation

It often happens that the opponents of the person calling the director treat such call as a slur on their ethics, or an attempt to affect their concentration. It is neither. It is the right of every player to call the director and exercise of such right should not be regarded as a personal insult.

Volume

The first call for the director, almost naturally, has to be loud and clear. Unless the director is near you, you are unlikely to get attended on.  Somehow, this requirement to shout for the director seems to carry on to the knock out stages of the competition as well. There is some sort of guideline in place that, as far as possible, the other side of the screen should not know.

However, once the director is called to the table, it should be perfectly possible to have a normal conversation about the incident without raising anybody's voice. The first issue to be debated, of course, is the information that is to be shared. While everybody acknowledges that the right belongs to the person who has called the director, there is oftentimes a tendency to correct the information being conveyed. And it is at this point that volumes start rising. Whenever a complaint is made, the other party will always be given an opportunity to explain their side of the story. Being patient works wonders.

Belligerence

This is something we get to see both from players as well as directors. The moment a player gets belligerent, the director tends to react in the same manner. I have seen it happen to me (almost against my will as it were).

A director need not get belligerent. All he has to do is to show the players the law he is applying. If he is not sure of the best way to proceed, he can always consult senior directors. Most rulings don't require an 'on the spot' judgement.

Common refrains I have heard from players is 'Show me the law'. While it is certainly their right to be shown the law, if they have been cautioned against proceeding in a certain manner, they do not have the right to go on doing so until they see the law book. I have had some upsetting conversations with good players who will refuse to follow the directions of the director until they see the rule book.

I will draw their attention to Law 90 B 8 which allow the director to levy a procedural penalty for failure to comply promptly with tournament regulations or with instructions of the Director

Another situation I have seen happening more than once in large events is a player demanding that the CTD be called. The only person who has the discretion of calling the CTD is the director at the table. ("Show me the law that says I cannot call for the CTD" is a comment that has been hurled at me). I once told a top player that I will call the CTD but, if he rules the way I did, I will levy a penalty on him. He agreed to this. The CTD ruled the way I did and I levied the penalty. But, I was very junior those days and lacked the confidence to say that he cannot ask for any other director (let alone the CTD) to adjudicate at the table once I have attended it.

Smoking

This is something over which the debate never ends.

But let us look at it from the point of views of the laws.  The first extract I will present to you is the WBF General Conditions of Contest.

Section 10.1.1 of the general conditions of contest state clearly.

Smoking in the venue other than in a designated smoking area (if any) is prohibited. No participant may leave the playing area in order to smoke before completion of play in a session. Spectators may leave the playing area but may not subsequently return.

The SCoC of all major tournaments in India mention the same.

As a player I personally find it extremely disturbing to be subject to the breath of somebody who has just smoked in the middle of an event.

As a director, I enforce this almost routinely. At one event, players grumbled as to why this was not made clear to them. I keep wondering about the necessity to do so at every event.

Smoker players think that it is their right to smoke in the middle of an event, particularly pairs events. One top player once told me, "I don't find it necessary to smoke during an event. I find it necessary to have a cup of tea. But with a cup of tea, a cigarette is mandatory!!!". He used to accept all penalties levied on him without turning a hair.

In my personal opinion, the penalty is not the point. The deterrence is. WBF conditions of contest mandate the levying of a predetermined monetary fine for smoking under the same section above. I wish we could enforce something of a similar nature in India.

Directorial Behavior

The above few paragraphs are arguably too critical of player behavior. This is not to say that directors are infallible. They are human and they are not without faults either.

Directors need to learn how to keep their volume down. This is something we all need to do. The tendency for our volumes and belligerence to rise to match the appellants is too horribly natural and needs to be curbed. The way the directors conducted the Transnationals in Chennai was a revelation to me in many ways about how to keep one's cool.

In my personal opinion, directors tend to shy away from applying automatic penalties. While some of them arguably do it to avoid unpopularity, others feel that people should be allowed to play with minimum extraneous scores (read penalties). It is essentially application of the law.

Another issue I have seen as a player is directors being dogmatic about their belief. I once had to educate a reasonably senior director about what a minor penalty card is. More than once I have consulted about some rulings by directors at my table when playing; only to have them returned as 'director errors'. We do need to consult other directors while ruling with communications being so easy without being solely reliant on our own knowledge and beliefs.

One good thing about our senior directorial panel is their willingness to  guide juniors (like yours truly) as to how to arrive at a ruling rather than just give a ruling themselves. I have been seriously lucky to have had great insights into the laws from directors like MBV Subramanian (Subbu), Sanjay Chakraborty and Sudhir Agarwal. I have not had the good fortune of interacting enough with either Ranju da or V K Sharma to have truly learnt enough from them.

Tail piece

At the end of a rather long article, we need to remember that directors are working their guts out to ensure the best result legally possibly.

It is physically tiring being a director! One of the reasons why people are reluctant to take up the job.

It is also thankless being a director. I can't think of a single director at any level of seniority who isn't roundly abused by some section of players as being incompetent, lacking knowledge and playing favorites.

The remuneration paid to a director is terribly low. There was once a time when the head of BBO operations was being paid more than the CTD. Are the skills even comparable?

These days, under economical pressure, most directors are expected to double up as scorers as well. The stories there are also quite funny. One team captain was insisting that there was something wrong with the scoring software because, according to him, his team won the previous round by a much larger margin than the computer was showing. When people sat to investigate, it turned out that he had scored a board wrong.

I received a call once from a major regional tournament. What had transpired was that the result of a previous round was apparently being displayed wrong. The affected team said that the opposing team agreed to their version of the result and hence the score should be corrected. The director in charge asked me to see if the score could be changed on the software.

Now, there are all kinds of things wrong about acquiescing to such a change without confirming that such is indeed the case. Both sides had thrown away their scoresheets! Unless you can confirm that there is something genuinely wrong, you could be aiding in a collusion. It fortunately struck me to see the deal record for the game. I was able to identify the deal where the score was entered wrong and effect the necessary correction.

But what should the director do in the absence of a deal record?

Every year the prize money for the top level events goes on increasing, but the directorial compensation hardly changes. So, we are asking the directors to make decisions whose impact in financial terms is significantly higher, for virtually the same costs as they were receiving so many years earlier!

And this final thought. Directors are doing the game a huge service merely by being there to direct. Please try and be kind to them.

Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.