[jillybean]

awm, on 2026-October-15, 02:26, said:

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.

I very much like suit pref - it a no brain/memory stress version of obvious shift

[awm]

jillybean, on 2026-October-15, 07:05, said:

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.

We play a very natural system -- 2♣ is 10+ points and 4+♣ (can be 3♣ over 1♠ if precisely 3433). We do play a lot of methods starting from opener's rebid though. The problem (for us) is that there are some sequences like 1♠-2♣-2♥ or 1♠-2♦-2♠ where 2NT is not forcing, so we are basically required to bid 3NT on non-fitting hands. This mostly works okay (especially since in our style opener will not normally have six spades and be forced to guess whether to correct) but the 16-17 hand is awkward because it's not clear that opener should bid on over 3NT with 15-16 (as 3NT can easily be a minimum game force). Playing 2/1 GF you can perhaps reserve the second round 3NT jump for 16-17 (since 2NT would be forcing) though.