[keithhus]

Out of interest, can you advise please when a pass is forcing. Saw it on BBO ACOL late last night. Thanks

[Cyberyeti]

This is a complex question and subject for partnership discussion/agreement.

Obvious situations are where it is clearly your hand and opps have come in like:

1♠-2N (GF raise/raise to 3 or better) and then opps bid at the 3 level, clearly you are not going to pass them out so P over their bid is forcing.

A less universal one that we play is that we have the agreement that where we have doubled 1N for penalties, we won't allow opps to play 2 of a minor undoubled so passes are forcing.

[The_Badger]

Hello Keith,

As Cyberyeti says it's a complex question, and there's a range of bids where forcing passes are used, some simple, some complex that even advanced/expert players get it wrong.

The complex ones usually appear in competitive auctions where both sides bid to game, and a decision has to be made whether to double for penalties or to sacrifice.

I was once booted ignominiously from a table by an 'expert' a few years ago for getting it wrong, but once in a lifetime it is also prudent to pass a forcing pass, as this case proved to be. Especially, vulnerable against non-vulnerable.

The gist of it was: My partner opened, I responded in a new suit, the opponents intervened and we bid up to 4♥, and the opponents bid up to 4♠, partner then passed. I reassessed the hand and passed too. I won't repeat what the player called me, but on examining the results, I was correct.

4♠ always made, and doubling it would have given the opponents a top, whereas 5♥ doubled and played by us would be 2 down vulnerable. If we had got away with 5♥ undoubled it would have been a good result, but every pair arriving in 5♥ was doubled.

The moral of the story is "passing a forcing pass is not always a crime" Enjoy your bridge.

[Zelandakh]

As has already been mentioned, this is a complex area where even advanced players sometime disagree. First of all, we should get out of the way the reason for having a forcing pass. Basically, a forcing pass gives us more ways of bidding constructively at the cost of not being able to play the current contract. So we want to use it in situations where we have the balance of power and the constructive value is higher than the danger that allowing them to play undoubled is correct.

The first case is when we have shown the values for game based on power. Here all passes should be forcing as we assume the opps are sacrificing and the forcing pass gives us not only additional space to decide between doubling them or bidding on but also for investigating slam.

Another case is when we have forced to a particular level, such as with a strong, artificial raise. In this case it is usual for pass to be forcing up to the level we have forced to.

The next set of hands is where we have announced in some way that we have the balance of power but without explicitly forcing to a level. The classic example of that is a power redouble of their takeout double. Many will play forcing passes up to a certain level here. CY's 1NTX is essentially a variety of this family of forcing pass. Although in that case the doubling side have not guaranteed the balance of power, it is often enough the case to make it worthwhile and in the meantime it helps you sort out quite a lot in an otherwise difficult auction.

The last situation I will mention in this post is difficult and one that can easily end in disaster - forcing passes are on when the opps are "obviously" sacrificing even if we have not yet created an explicit game force. The problem here is when this is obviously the case. I would actually suggest N/B players stay away from this one completely.

Finally, an example of how forcing passes can impact our bidding negatively as well as positively. Say we play a certain call to show a hand with the strength to play game but based to some extent on distribution. If we also specify that this hand creates a forcing pass we have to be much more careful about which hands make the call than if not forcing pass is in play. In practice, this often means that top pairs will play some bids to create a forcing pass at certain vulnerabilities (eg when vulnerable) but not at others.

Again, I would recommend N/B players to stay away from this and only use forcing passes in the clearest situations. The Badger's anecdote highlights the danger. More than likely, his side had game based partly on distribution rather than power and it might well be that forcing passes should not have been on at all. In general, better to have too few forcing pass situations than too many, particularly when starting out.

[Cyberyeti]

Another agreement that some pairs have is that if we make a call that is forcing to a particular level, then passes are forcing below that.

example - 1♠-P-3♣(mixed raise) this forces you to 3♠ unopposed so passes over 3red are forcing.

[keithhus]

Thank you everyone for your explanation; very interesting indeed.