The Smith Peters — Attitude to Partner’s Suit
🎯 Learning Objective: To learn the single most useful modern no-trump defensive signal — a message about the suit partner led, sent while you follow to declarer’s suit — and to use it to solve the problem of whether to persist or shift.
💡 Key Idea: Against no-trumps, your first card in declarer’s suit is not wasted — it carries a verdict on the opening lead. A high card says “I liked your lead — continue that suit when you get in.” A low card says “your lead is going nowhere — look elsewhere.” This is the Smith Peters, and it answers the question that decides more no-trump defences than any other: do we keep going, or do we switch?
The problem it solves
You lead a long suit against 3NT. Declarer wins and starts knocking out a stopper somewhere else. When you next get the lead, you face a guess: cash out the suit you led, or abandon it and switch? Guess wrong and declarer makes the contract. Attitude at trick one often cannot help — the suit may not have been played again — and you are left reading declarer’s mind. The Smith Peters removes the guess by giving partner a second, deliberate chance to tell you.
The mechanism
While you follow to the suit declarer is developing, the size of your first card there reports back on partner’s original lead. Playing an unnecessarily high card endorses that lead; playing low discourages it. Both defenders can use it — the third hand tells the opening leader whether the suit is worth continuing, and the opening leader can use his own first card in declarer’s suit to tell partner whether to persevere. It is, in effect, attitude towards partner’s suit, sent one trick late, through a different suit.
Example Hand (3NT by South)
♠ 9 7 3
♥ Q 10 2
♦ 7 6 5 4
♣ A K Q
♠ A 10 5 2
♥ 9 8 7
♦ K 3
♣ 7 6 5 3
♠ Q J 6
♥ K J 6 4
♦ 10 9 8
♣ 10 8 2
♠ K 8 4
♥ A 5 3
♦ A Q J 2
♣ J 9 4
West leads the ♠2 (fourth highest). Declarer wins the ♠K and, needing tricks, runs the diamond finesse — leading a low diamond towards the ♦A-Q-J. This is declarer’s suit, so East’s first diamond is a Smith Peters about spades.
East holds ♠Q-J-6 — sitting over dummy, those spade honours mean West’s suit will not run: if West cashes the ♠A and plays on, East’s queen wins the third round. So East plays a low diamond (the 8): “spades are dead — don’t persist.” West wins the ♦K, reads the discouragement, and instead of cashing spades switches to a heart. Now East’s ♥K-J-6-4 sits over declarer’s ♥A-5-3, the defence establishes its heart tricks, and with the ♠A and ♦K already in hand, 3NT is beaten. Without the signal, West cashes the ♠A, continues spades into East’s queen, and hands declarer the contract.
Reverse the East–West spade honours so that West’s suit would run, and East plays a high diamond instead — “cash your spades” — and West persists to beat it. Same shape, opposite signal, opposite winning defence.
This is the answer to “count or attitude?”
The count lesson admitted that a lone small card at trick one is genuinely ambiguous between count and attitude. The Smith Peters is the systemic fix: a partnership agrees in advance that the first card in declarer’s suit carries attitude towards the led suit. That single agreement removes a whole layer of guesswork — which is exactly why strong pairs adopt it.
The methods you may meet
The version taught here — high card encourages the led suit — is the most widely played and the easiest to remember. You may run into two relatives, and only need to recognise them: the original Smith scheme (the leader’s partner plays a peter to encourage, but the leader himself uses a peter only to deter continuation — note the asymmetry), and Busso, an Italian “attitude lead” idea where the lower the card originally led, the stronger the suit. Agree which you play; do not assume.
⚠️ Common Mistakes:
Playing it without agreeing it. The Smith Peters is a partnership agreement, not a law of the game. Used unilaterally it just costs you a spot card and confuses partner. Agree it first, and alert opponents when asked.
Spending a card you need. If following high to declarer’s suit would cost a trick, count comes first — you cannot afford a message that gives away a trick.
Confusing it with count. The Smith Peters overrides plain count on that first card. A pair must decide which they are giving there — you cannot signal both with one card, and this is precisely the thing to settle in advance.
🧠 Memory Tip: Smith speaks of the suit you left behind. Your first card in declarer’s suit looks back at partner’s lead — high says “I still love it, come back,” low says “let it go.”
Summary
The Smith Peters is the modern no-trump signal that answers persist-or-shift. Your first card in declarer’s suit reports on partner’s opening lead — high to encourage continuation, low to discourage it. It solves the count-versus-attitude ambiguity by systemic agreement, it works for both defenders, and it turns a blind guess into a read. Play the standard high-encourage version, recognise the Smith and Busso relatives, and — above all — agree it with partner before you use it.