Club TD Course Tutors

I'm looking to expand the Club TD Course Tutors database, particularly in the Northern/Eastern side of the country. Applications are invited from suitably qualified County TDs who have a sound knowledge of the laws and who are good communicators. Successful candidates will normally be asked to run one series of courses over the course of a 4-month period during a calendar year.

Anyone interested should email John Pain at the Aylesbury Office putting TD Course Tutor in the subject line. Please include a CV showing your suitability together with details of one referee who has knowledge of your TDing experience.

John Pain

June 2010

General Information

Tournament Directors are needed at every level of the organised bridge game. Highly expert directors are needed to run international and national events, but at the other end of the spectrum even the smallest club game needs a director to be in control and sort out any problems that may arise.

The English Bridge Union has a panel of directors for national events.

This is headed by Chief TD, Max Bavin, and consists of a hierarchy of lesser directors - the familiar maroon-jacketed figures you see when attending any national event - from National Director down to Trainee.

Selection to the panel is by invitation only, but is made from the body of trained and qualified directors at County level, who in turn are drawn from the large number of qualified Club Directors. Training and an assessment process for both club and county directors is provided through the EBU Education Department.

Club Director Courses

Four one-day courses are available for those who wish to become qualified Club Directors. These are scheduled to take place across the country in different locations each year, as far as possible in line with demand. The courses have been revised to take account of the law changes in the 2007 law book. The courses are:

Club Directing - Essentials. This covers the role of the Club Director, the basics of movements and scoring and an introduction to the Law Book. There is now a greater emphasis on people-handling issues and the skills needed to ensure a harmonious and happy atmosphere is maintained within the Club duplicate. Correspondingly, there is less emphasis on scoring, as even the smallest club usually now uses computer scoring. Players new to directing are now strongly recommended to attend this course as the first in the series.

Club Directing - Book Rulings. This workshop explains how to deal with all the everyday problems which arise at the table - revokes, leads out of turn, insufficient bids and so on, using lots of simulations and role-playing to give valuable practice in handling rulings.

Club Directing - Judgement Rulings. This course deals with the trickier rulings, where you can't usually make an automatic decision but need to exercise judgement. Though arising less frequently in most clubs, judgement rulings can cause much bigger problems than book rulings and the club director must know how to handle them correctly.

Club Directing - Assessment. Though also giving lots of useful practice in rulings, this day is primarily to assess performance, successful participants being awarded a Club Director's Certificate of Competence. A 'Pass with Distinction' is available for those who do particularly well on the Assessment course, to recognise high levels of performance. To achieve a Distinction, participants will need to show a good attitude towards players and the right way of approaching the table, as well as a good knowledge of the Law book.

Click on each course name for further details. Go to Course Schedules to see when courses are running and to book places.

Concessions for affiliated clubs

Under the Universal Membership scheme affiliated clubs are invited to send a second club member to a TD course FREE OF CHARGE where the club sends a full paying member to any of the club TD courses. The offer is on a 'like-for-like' basis - so when a club books a place (from 1 to 4 courses) it receives the equivalent free for another member of the same club. To take advantage of the scheme both the paying member and the free member must be booked at the same time and the booking must be made by the registered secretary of the club (who will vouch for both participants as club members). Affiliated clubs taking advantage of this scheme must agree to remain affiliated for at least 3 years from the date of the courses (or else the EBU retains the right to seek payment for any free courses taken).

(This scheme does not apply to the annual County TD Course nor the the County Preparation day course).

Click here for some flow charts on the most commonly infringed laws.

On-Line Refresher Course

This course is offered as a way of practising rulings without the need for a day course. There are 40 TD situations to consider. Click here to go to the online Course.

One Day County Course Preparation Day and

County Course and County Refresher Course

This is the next stage on from Club courses. Click here to find out more


If no courses are available to suit you, or you believe there is demand in your area which has not been met, we would be happy to set up additional courses as needed.

Please call Peter Jordan,Tel: 01296 317203· fax: 01296 317220; or email: peter@ebu.co.uk to pursue this