jillybean, on 2014-December-23, 14:19, said:
Double does not set up a forcing pass for me, we use Neil Kimelman's FP definition.
It's likely not perfect and there are other approaches but having an agreement is a lot better than not having one.
Forcing pass (Neil Kimelman)
When your partnership has made a bid that has created a game forcing auction, the opponents cannot play a contract undoubled.
1S (P) 2H (5D)
i) Besides hands where the partnership is in a game forcing auction, forcing pass also applies when one hand opens and the other hand shows at least invitational values.
1S (P) 3D* (5D)
ii) When your partnership bids game, and you are vulnerable versus nonvulnerable opponents.
V vs. NV (P) 1S (2H) 2S (4H) 4S (5H) ?
My partners and I play this is a forcing pass situation. At any other vulnerability it is not. This to me is a reasonable treatment, but may not be universal. The logic behind this agreement is that we should have extra values to bid game with a risk of being doubled for -200, -500 or more, versus 420 for the opponents.
iii) When the opponents preempt and your partnership bids game.
1H (3S) 4H (4S)
I am not arguing with Neil's views, tho I don't mean that I agree 100%. However, his rules aren't designed for this kind of situation. IOW, he doesn't discuss this aspect of bidding at all, at least not in the rules you quote.
You need therefore to have a specific discussion about this double of Michaels and the analogous double of an unusual 2N, or for that matter of other situations in which the opps have intervened, and your side's next call is a double that is at least penalty-oriented. For example, your rules will be unrelated to the rules you may have if your side's double is takeout, or support or shows some other specific holding or hand-type. What, for example, would apply if partner opened 1N, and you made a penalty double of an overcall by RHO and LHO ran, and opener passed? Ok, maybe with the prevalence of artificial overcalls and negative doubles this won't often arise, but if it does, what agreements do you have? The NK FP rules you quoted have no application.
If, as I like, the double of the cuebid (in the OP problem) says not only that I have defence but also that I have sufficient values that the hand belongs to us, then subsequent direct passes become forcing. Timo has a different take and I am not saying he is wrong.
However, even agreements like this can become problematic. What if partner opens 1
♠, rho bids 2N, minors, we double, and LHO jumps to 4
♥! Weird, but if we are looking at 2=2=4=5 minors with nothing in hearts, are we sure we can beat this? Is partner's pass forcing when we hold, say, a 10 count with strength in the minors?
When I took some training from Kokish, many years ago, he gave each member of our 3 partnerships scores, and maybe 100 or more, of auctions, and each partner was to indicate, without consultation with partner, whether a pass in the given situation was forcing or not. We thought we had pretty good working rules, but there were a lot of his sequences where either both of us said 'I dunno' or we went different ways. The devil is very much in the details.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari