[brown267]

Duplicate MPs, EW vulnerable:

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At the table I doubled and East passed for penalties (holding ♣KQJ10xx). This ended up down 4 (declarer scored ♣A and ♥AK), so 800 points to EW. I thought this was pretty good until I saw almost any other table had made a 6♦ or 6♠ slam.
So is there any way to force partner to bid after an opponent has opened showing a freak two-suiter of any kind? Michaels and Unusual NT would not work here because both would show length in hearts, and an overcall might be passed out.

[mike777]

brown267, on 2016-November-26, 21:55, said:

Duplicate MPs, EW vulnerable:

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At the table I doubled and East passed for penalties (holding ♣KQJ10xx). This ended up down 4 (declarer scored ♣A and ♥AK), so 800 points to EW. I thought this was pretty good until I saw almost any other table had made a 6♦ or 6♠ slam.
So is there any way to force partner to bid after an opponent has opened showing a freak two-suiter of any kind? Michaels and Unusual NT would not work here because both would show length in hearts, and an overcall might be passed out.

I would try a 1s overcall, we dont want to get too high in this game. This is a very common hand so expect to see this problem often, very often.


As to your main question is there anyway to force partner to bid....no, partner is allowed to not bid.

[wank]

the chance of 1Cx being passed out is slim and much less than the prospect of 1S being passed out. if you don't want to take the risk, just overcall 6D - you do have 12 tricks in your own hand. this risks missing 7 when p has the ace of hearts.

[pstansbu]

brown267, on 2016-November-26, 21:55, said:

Michaels and Unusual NT would not work here because both would show length in hearts, and an overcall might be passed out.

That's a reason for playing a more comprehensive variant such as Ghestem or Questem (assuming this isn't a strong 1♣ opener when you probably want a different convention so you could show a 2 suiter holding clubs). This will encourage your partner to bid as your bids tend to show suits other than the one you bid (you would bid either 2 ♣ or 3♣, depending on convention, in this case).

I tend to play these weak or strong (else overcall with higher ranking suit) so that would work nicely here.