UK Edition • 24th August 2026
UK Edition • 24th August 2026
If you are directing a session in your club, then you must have some idea how to start. You cannot just take out your law book and wait for something to happen. You should arrive early in some clubs, opening the premises up.
After you arrive, your first job is to put stationery on the tables, including table numbers and scorecards, also travellers and name slips if you still use them. A very small number of clubs still use curtain cards as well, and they should be put out. You should also get boards out ready for distribution.
Assuming your club is not very small, you will be playing Mitchell movements most of the time, where N/S stay stationary and E/W move. Most people prefer to sit still, so the club will have a policy to deal with this. In many clubs, people just sit where they want, so early arrivals tend to get the N/S seats.
In some clubs you draw for positions, so you have to set up a draw. Be careful that anyone who draws an E/W seat plays E/W; penalise any pair that does not do so.
If you do not draw, then you may get too many N/S pairs and you will have to change some of them to E/W; you should watch who takes a N/S seat towards the end those are the pairs who need to be switched.
The best method for this I have seen is from a North Wales club: everyone who wants to sit N/S takes a cloakroom ticket on arrival; if there are too many N/S pairs, the director checks the cloakroom tickets and switches the highest numbers.
In any club, there are likely to be one or two pairs who need to sit N/S because they are too elderly or infirm to move; you must make sure they get to sit N/S. The director should also be stationary — best is to have the same seat reserved for him each session.
If there is a draw, you should get someone else to do it. Most clubs take money before the start, so you will have to arrange this, but do not do it yourself. Some clubs get players to leave money on the table during the first round; again it is usual to arrange for someone else to collect and check it.
Scoring is usually done by computer these days. If you use Bridgemates as well, scoring is far easier, but it has one disadvantage: the computer has to be fired up and the movement put in before the Bridgemates will work.
Starting the computer is also a job to be done early. If you use travellers but score at the end, then you have the whole session to get the computer ready but the earlier, the better and you can put movement and then names in while you are dummy.
Occasionally the scorer and director will not be the same; then your responsibility is to make sure the scorer is doing his job. Of course, if scoring is still done on travellers and then taken home to score, this is easier.
A timer is a good idea and there are various computer-based ones, best being Mike Rothwell’s (easy to find via Google). While a second screen is desirable, it can be run on the main computer screen. It will have to be set up and running, but often this is done after the start.
In some clubs there are refreshments available from the start, but they have to be set up — turning a kettle on, putting cups out and so forth. Again, while this may not be your job, you should make sure that it is done.
The last thing before the start is the movement, which cannot be decided until you know how many tables there are. Some clubs have a list of movements for various numbers of tables. The movement that is best for a particular number of tables can differ from club to club because it depends on a number of factors, such as:
1️⃣ Is a normal evening 24 boards or 26/27 boards?
2️⃣ If there is a choice between three-board rounds and two-board rounds, which is preferred?
If the club regularly has large numbers of tables, 14 or more, there are other possibilities. You can run it as two sections with duplicated boards. You can run sharing movements where you have two lines of tables, say 1–8 and 9–16, next to each other, and they share.
If you have three sets of duplicated boards, then a Web Mitchell is usually best; everyone plays the same 26 boards, and it works for any number of tables from 14 to 26.
Once you have decided on the movement, you have to put the boards out, start the timer and announce the movement (not that anyone listens).
If using Bridgemates, you should put the movement into the computer and put out the Bridgemates. If you have a small number of tables and are using a Howell movement, you must put out the correct Howell cards. Either the club will have them, or you can print them from the computer.
As you see, there are a variety of jobs to be done before the start of a duplicate session. The director does not have to do them all, but he is responsible for making sure that everything does happen.
In the better organised clubs, you will often find many of these jobs are allocated to a particular person, not the director, which makes it easier for the director.
But remember that it is still his responsibility to make sure everything happens.
He will not usually get thanked for being a director but he will certainly be blamed if something goes wrong!