[kgr]

Obvious Shift and Smith call:
Is there any advantage in playing them both?

[mike777]

I think the Granovetters have added smith or reverse smith....not sure. I never played smith and find obvious shift fine for 98%+ of the hands. Add tending to make attacking leads from something rather than nothing more often than most....and that helps pard out alot also..

You might check out the bridge today web site and see what they say..heck you can even email them. Pam will chat with you ...just be polite.

[awm]

I think there are three different things here:

(1) Obvious Shift. This is the idea that a discouraging signal at trick one in fact suggests a switch to a particular side suit if/when partner is next on lead. Playing this method, one will often encourage the opening lead without particular values in that suit when there is no interest in a switch to the particular side suit. This method is implicitly quite common at the expert level, but a few partnerships have made it more explicit by creating a set of rules to identify the particular side suit in question unambiguously.

(2) Granovetter Carding. This is detailed in the book "A Switch in Time" by the Granovetters. A big part of this is the aforementioned obvious shift at trick one, combined with a primary signal of suit preference rather than count when following to declarer's leads.

(3) Smith Echo. This is a signal subsequent to trick one indicating attitude about the opening lead. This generally applies when third hand's play to trick one was forced (i.e. he had to cover an honor) and therefore no attitude signal was given, or for opening leader when the lead could've been from a weak suit.

In general you can play both obvious shift and smith echo as these apply to different situations. Obvious shift is third hand's play to trick one when he's not going to beat one of the first two hands' cards. Smith is a play subsequent to trick one, either by opening leader or by third hand when he did have to beat one of the other cards at trick one.

On the other hand, playing both granovetter carding and smith echo is a bit weird, because they apply in the same situations, and a suit preference signal can effectively give information about attitude to the lead in any case.

There is some case for Granovetter Carding being better against suits (where the suit preference signal is less ambiguous since a signal "for the trump suit" is usually not used, and where it's more often useful to switch from one suit to another rather than continuing the initially lead suit) whereas Smith Echo is perhaps more useful against notrumps (where the opening leader really needs to know whether it's safe to continue his suit from trick one if he gets in again, and where suit preference carding can be ambiguous because there are three suits outstanding rather than two (no trump suit to exclude)).

[inquiry]

I am surprised that Glenn Ashton didn't post his idea on this concept, he termed "ETM Switch signal", see his post at http://www.bridgemat....com/switch.htm. This is akin to smith echo and includes info on what to switch too as well. I think there is a merit is the idea he expresses...