1 Answers
In the card game bridge, a forcing pass is an agreement or understanding that a pass call obliges the partner to bid, double, or redouble over an intermediate opposing pass, i.e. partner must "keep the bidding open".
Here "..." represents any beginning to the auction. The forcing pass necessarily occurs directly over an opposing bid, double, or redouble. After a pass over a pass, the auction might end before partner's turn.
In other words, the partnership is committed to act somehow rather than to end the auction now; that is a precondition. The first, direct, "forcing pass" refers to partner the choice how to act. There is no commitment to accept partner's choice. Indeed, a forcing pass ensures that the auction will return to the one who issues it, so it may be interpreted as the first half of a two-step action by that player.
Normally double is natural where pass is forcing. That is, double suggests the current denomination and strain, doubled, as a final contract.