Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a married couple, where both are secretly contract killers belonging to competing agencies. Assassins at their job, normal family life at home...

So, what does that have to do with Bridge?

John and Shelly are a married couple who play Bridge together at their local Bridge Club. They are also taking a defense course which has greatly improved their partnership.

Our story begins on the following deal, on which our heroes are defenders. They were the only pair to set the contract:

Dealer South, All Vulnerable

"Ms. Smith" sitting West lead the ♥7 (all the other players in her seat lead a heart). East played the ♥J, South won with the ♥K and tried the ♠Q for a finesse. West followed with the ♠4. East took the ♠K and switched to the ♦J. That way, the defense won 4 Diamond tricks and a Spade.

At all the other tables East continued with another Heart at trick 3 and declarer made 9 tricks: 3 Spades, 3 Hearts and 3 Clubs. After all, the ♥7 lead could have been 4th best, for example from ♥AQ976, and then a Heart back would indeed be the only return to set. At the end of each tourney, the Director liked to choose an interesting hand from the tournament and discuss it after the game. For this tournament he picked this hand for the postmortem.

So he prepared another hand, as below:

On this hand that he prepared, after the ♥7 lead – the only way to set is to play back a Heart, Partner's suit, at trick 3 – The "normal" defense.

Then he showed the hand played in the tournament and invited "Mr Smith" to explain how he found he killing Diamond switch instead of continuing Hearts, like everyone else did.

John explained:
"My wife and I are attending an excellent Bridge class that improved our defense enormously. In one of the lessons on defense we learned about Smith Echo, and that's what we used here, on this hand. Smith Echo means giving a signal to your partner to show them whether you like their lead or not. The signal is given at TRICK 2, after declarer is playing his suit, and only if it is not essential to give count. Defenders signal to each other information about the opening lead: a high card shows interest and encourages partner to keep returning that suit. A low card shows no high cards or a bad suit and suggests a switch. (Dear readers – you can agree with your partner to signal the other way around if you prefer: play a LOW card to encourage and a high card to suggest a change of suit.) So, as my wife played the ♠4 at trick 2, her lowest Spade, I knew she didn't like hearts much and wanted a switch. So I looked at dummy – playing on Diamonds was easy. If her Heart suit was ♥AQ976, she would follow with her ♠9 at trick 2 and I would return a Heart next", he completed his explanation.

One of the players, who had never heard of Smith Echo before, shouted with admiration: "Contract killers!!!", intending to compliment the couple for their nice defense.

However... from that moment on, the whole club started calling them "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", even though they really disliked their new nickname.