In all my years of breeding smokes I have never found a judge that would not put a good smoke up in the finals. It might not be my smoke, but judges do final good smokes. I have made many Best Cat and Best Kitten wins both with and without competition in my class. My first regional winner was a cameo tabby. I find that the smokes would love to be tabbies, and will show stripes and bars extremely easily.
Many tabby breeders use smokes in their tabby breeding programs to intensify the tabby patterns.
Two prime examples of this are Jean Bassett of PaJean, and Joanne and Lawrence Miksa of Kikicat. As much as the smokes help the tabbies, it is my opinion that this type of breeding does nothing to improve the smoke color. Smokes require more care than most Persians. Their coats are as fragile as cobwebs, and must be treated as such. To see a smoke in show condition presented to perfection is the result of year-round care.