[gwnn]

Of course I am talking about situations where at least one player's attitude is unknown via the opening lead.

[pclayton]

Smith can very helpful, but you need to learn to do it in tempo, and you need to know when it doesn't apply.

Marshall Miles' suggestion that you play reverse smith by opening leader, standard smith by 3rd hand helps in this regard.

[nige1]

We play Reverse Smith against both Suit and Notrump contracts and it would be a great help if we paid more attention

If you adopt Reverse Smith, when declarer leads his suit, you show attitude to the initial lead.

• You play upwards if you like partner's opening lead or if you want partner to return your opening lead.
  
• Both partner's peter for a switch.
  
• With 3 or more cards, you can sometimes also show suit preference.

[MFA]

Yes, Smith's (reverse actually, small cards encourage).

If opening leader won't stay on lead T1, we give count in 3rd hand and follow up with Smith's. This way we get both signals in.

The ethical issues with Smith's are no greater than those with other attitude signals, for instance when discarding.

[gwnn]

Do all of you then think Smith is equally effective vs NT as suits? I see nobody really touched the question in the poll. However, there seems to be a great majority of voters that think Smith should only apply at NT only (11) and few consider it to be a good idea vs suits (2).

[MFA]

Only at NT. Vs suits we give count T2 instead (if it's more usefull for partner than for declarer to know).

[FrancesHinden]

gwnn, on Sep 13 2008, 11:18 AM, said:

Do all of you then think Smith is equally effective vs NT as suits? I see nobody really touched the question in the poll. However, there seems to be a great majority of voters that think Smith should only apply at NT only (11) and few consider it to be a good idea vs suits (2).

The reason I don't play Smith against suit contracts is that
i) count in declarer's suit is often very useful in a suit contract
but more importantly
ii) the attitude in the suit led is much more often known in a suit contract, given the (aggressive) style of opening leads that I play and my leading agreements.

I don't think you can consider Smith in isolation, you have to consider what your leading style is and what your systemic leads are (some give more attitude information than others at trick one)

[dake50]

I like Smith iff declarer has shown two suits. Then we need (generally) only one count signal, so second is Smith. Count and count when only one suit has been revealed.

Essentially ask what does 2nd count add vs known 2-suiter. Rarely any new, so 2nd signal nearly always freed.

[skjaeran]

I've played reverse Smith vs NT for something like 20 years. And IMO it's a very good carding method. We play reverse Smith from both hands. I've never considered it as useful vs suit contracts, for the same reasons Frances give.