[jillybean]

Does anyone play Smith Echo against both nt and suit contracts?

Partner opens
1x - 3nt - does any sensible player have this in their arsenal?

[P_Marlowe]

3NT as response to partners opening or as intervention / overcall after opponents opened?

In short: yes, we have play this, 3NT as overcall would be unusual, more distr. than 2NT, less than 4NT,
but we do allow 2NT on 5/4. Never comes up.

A response would be bal. 13-15., over a major suit opening denying 3 cards in p major, and it also will
deny 4 spades over 1H.

[jillybean]

As a response to partner's opening.

A response would be bal. 13-15.

Why do this , why not bid 1y?

[P_Marlowe]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-13, 11:04, said:

As a response to partner's opening.

A response would be bal. 13-15.

Why do this , why not bid 1y?

To be clear, 3NT denies a bypassed 4 card major that could be shown.
Keep the auction short, try to eliminate as many hands as possible out of a ambiqugious bid.
Reduce information leakage.

If you have a better / different meaning, and can remember it, why not.
Void showing splinter is an option, and so on.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-13, 09:45, said:

Partner opens
1x - 3nt - does any sensible player have this in their arsenal?

I would like to have an artificial meaning for 1M-3N in my arsenal, but even with the better partners available "splinter in the other major" caused disastrous forgets.
Natural is very poor IMO.

I'm less dogmatic about 1m-3N, but still deprecate it; we do have the luxury of playing 2♣ as GF "2/1" over either minor.

[mikeh]

1M 3N is often played as 4+ raise, usually a side stiff, and ‘too good for 4M and not good enough for a splinter’, so roughly 7-9 hcp and good playing strength.

1m 3N is usually an offer to play 3N. The range will depend on how strong 1m 2N is. It’s common in NA to play 2N as 11-12 hcp. My preference is 2N is 13-15, and 3N is 16-17 or so, but it’s extremely rare. No 5 cad suit and no 4 card major. I would expect some 4333, and not worried about wrong siding notrump. It’s so space consuming that, imo, it should narrowly defend to better enable opener to make an informed decision.

As for smith echo, I assume that someone,somewhere, plays it against suits but I have no idea why they would think it a good idea (if any reader thinks it’s a good idea, I invite you to explain).

Here’s a classic use of (reverse) smith:

you lead from Axxxx against 3N…say 1N 3N….dummy hits with J10x and puts up the Jack. If your partner has Qxx and covers, declarer wins his doubleton king and has a second stopper. But if partner ducks, the J holds….you get on lead next and do what? If declarer has KQx, he has two stoppers. But if he started with Kx, you can drop the King and then low to partner’s queen.* I’ve been looking for this scenario for many years…still waiting, lol. Note that against a suit contract, firstly partner shouldn’t be underleading his ace very often (never wouldn’t be a horrible approach) and secondly partner wnt duck his queen since that gives up an unnecessary trick when declarer has J10x in dummy and Ax in hand.

* the situation is often unclear. What if opening leader started with AKxx(x)? Now ducking the J is horrible. I don’t know of any solution other than beng at the table and hoping to read the situation accurately.

[paulg]

 mikeh, on 2026-October-13, 13:20, said:

As for smith echo, I assume that someone,somewhere, plays it against suits but I have no idea why they would think it a good idea (if any reader thinks it's a good idea, I invite you to explain).

I am forced to play it with one partner as he thinks it is a positive method with his regular partner. They played in the 2026 Europeans and he hasn't suggested changing it.

However I don't like it and have yet to see any advantage over more traditional methods.

[mike777]

Ya, smith echo/reverse smith echo, triple double reverse smith echo, yet another thing my partners want me to play, I don't get the fascination, but people love it.

1m=3nt definitely comes up...

[mikeh]

 mike777, on 2026-October-13, 15:02, said:

Ya, smith echo/reverse smith echo, triple double reverse smith echo, yet another thing my partners want me to play, I don't get the fascination, but people love it.

1m=3nt definitely comes up...

It’s like (almost) any mprovementbn one’s methods: it doesn’t arise often, it’s not 100% effective but it definitely and consistently improves one’s defence against notrump contracts. It’s to the point that I can’t imagine playing with a regular partner and not using it. Even the partner who plays virtually none of the ‘science’ I enjoy plays reverse smith.

My prediction is that if you try it for a handful of sessions you’ll see why it’s so popular: although both you and partner need to know when it doesn’t apply, such as when an entry less dummy has a long suit and your side needs to know when to take the ace, assuming your side has it and can hold off if need be…smith takes a back seat to count.

[mike777]

 mikeh, on 2026-October-13, 16:34, said:

It’s like (almost) any mprovementbn one’s methods: it doesn’t arise often, it’s not 100% effective but it definitely and consistently improves one’s defence against notrump contracts. It’s to the point that I can’t imagine playing with a regular partner and not using it. Even the partner who plays virtually none of the ‘science’ I enjoy plays reverse smith.

My prediction is that if you try it for a handful of sessions you’ll see why it’s so popular: although both you and partner need to know when it doesn’t apply, such as when an entry less dummy has a long suit and your side needs to know when to take the ace, assuming your side has it and can hold off if need be…smith takes a back seat to count.

Thanks

As most of the numerous stuff my new partner wants to add, I told him I am open to it.

Just show me one hand we play where it would have helped, we can talk about adding whatever..this included.
So far nothing..
Since I think we don't even know what we have agreed to already I would prefer to limit more stuff
Granted our defense stinks..


Funny enough a few of the better A level players,in town, in a nice way, say I have a reputation for not wanting to add conventions.

That surprised me
Since I am the only one who plays a simple version of transfers over one club and Unbalanced diamond that you and DavidK and Chip were tremendous in talking and sharing with me.

----

Speaking of conventions or lack of them.
One of the local DLMs asked me to play the first day of the upcoming Regional open pairs. His regular partner is flying in that night for the week. We have only played a couple of times. Virtually no system discussion.. smile
I just don't want to embarrass myself..

[jillybean]

I have played Smith/Reverse Smith on and off, but I have never been asked to play it against a suit contract. I will find out why in a few days.

1x–3NT is a common treatment but, like many approaches, it usually comes with no justification or clear definition.
Mike 16-18 takes away a lot of bidding space, but perhaps that is OK with a power hand. With anything less, you give up too much space for exploration.

[jillybean]

Here's a hand where I am told you need smith echo against a suit contract



You decide to lead x from Jxxx

Txx in dummy

x-x-Q-A

Who has the K?

[mike777]

jillybean, on 2026-October-13, 22:24, said:

Here's a hand where I am told you need smith echo against a suit contract



You decide to lead x from Jxxx

Txx in dummy

x-x-Q-A

Who has the K?

I probably don't make that lead...
So sounds very rare

Again I just wish partner would point out an actual hand..we played, for starters

[jillybean]

Agree

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2026-October-13, 18:38, said:

I have played Smith/Reverse Smith on and off, but I have never been asked to play it against a suit contract. I will find out why in a few days.

1x–3NT is a common treatment but, like many approaches, it usually comes with no justification or clear definition.
Mike 16-18 takes away a lot of bidding space, but perhaps that is OK with a power hand. With anything less, you give up too much space for exploration.

I actually don’t think that my main partnership even has a meaning for 1m 3N: my earlier post was in the context of other partnerships.

Over our 1C opening, we have 1N as 14+, balanced or semi-balanced gf relay, so we’d never bid 3N.

Our 1D opening shows an unbalanced hand, usually 5+ diamonds so bidding 3N seems precipitous

[akwoo]

mike777, on 2026-October-13, 16:53, said:

Just show me one hand we play where it would have helped, we can talk about adding whatever..this included.
So far nothing..
Since I think we don't even know what we have agreed to already I would prefer to limit more stuff
Granted our defense stinks..

I probably should play some form of Smith, as well as switch to 3/5 leads in suits. But I have to find a partner who wants to do this.

But I think I'm just barely at the point where these would help defense in a practiced partnership. If your defense stinks, I would say you shouldn't bother with Smith. Get better at counting and making inferences first. For one thing, for Smith to matter in mikeh's scenario, you have to be good enough at defense to actually duck with Qxx when partner leads low through JTx...

[mike777]

Ty

[awm]

I'd say the most critical case for Smith Echo is where we need to know the location of the queen -- for example I lead a spade against 3NT from ♠ATxxx and dummy has two small. Partner puts up the ♠J and declarer wins ♠K. Declarer switches to clubs and I get in at trick two. Do I continue a spade? Partner could have ♠QJx and we have five easy tricks (declarer starting with ♠Kxx). Or partner could have ♠Jxx (declarer starting with ♠KQx) and continuing spades just gives declarer a second trick in the suit.

In my main partnership we play (reverse) Smith vs. NT only; in my other partnership we play suit preference as the primary signal to declarer's leads against both suits and notrump (and no Smith); usually this is good enough. Never had any desire to play Smith vs. suits though.

[awm]

Elianna and I play 1m-3NT (and also 1M-3NT) as showing something like 16-17 points balanced and no fit. This comes up rarely, but it's actually a difficult hand type to show sometimes without this agreement. The expectation is that opener passes when minimum (including all weak notrumps) but bids on with mild extras and some shape.

In other partnerships I often use 1M-3NT as a splinter (either to free up 1♠-4♥ as natural, or as part of a two-tiered splinter system where the direct splinter is "I'm interested in slam if you have a minimum with points in the right places" whereas 1♠-3NT or 1♥-3♠ is "I'm only interested in slam if you have extras, with a minimum just bid four of our suit and hope to make").

[jillybean]

awm, on 2026-October-15, 02:30, said:

Elianna and I play 1m-3NT (and also 1M-3NT) as showing something like 16-17 points balanced and no fit. This comes up rarely, but it's actually a difficult hand type to show sometimes without this agreement. The expectation is that opener passes when minimum (including all weak notrumps) but bids on with mild extras and some shape.

In other partnerships I often use 1M-3NT as a splinter (either to free up 1♠-4♥ as natural, or as part of a two-tiered splinter system where the direct splinter is "I'm interested in slam if you have a minimum with points in the right places" whereas 1♠-3NT or 1♥-3♠ is "I'm only interested in slam if you have extras, with a minimum just bid four of our suit and hope to make").

I understand 1m-3NT 16-17. What is 2♣/1M for you?

Two-tiered splinter looks good, likely a touch esoteric for me and definitely so for my North American partners.