GNT district final -- slam hand

On Saturday our team (me/Jiang Gu, Josh Sher/Mike Prahin) lost the 56-board District 3 GNT final by about 20 imps.  Good luck to Bob Heitzman/Jeff Aker and Bruce Rogoff/Josh Parker at nationals.  We picked up some imps on the following hand:

 

I held Txx AK  AQx  Kxxxx, partner opened 1H, and the auction was uncontested:

 

1H-2C-2D-2H-3H-4C-4D-??

 

Fortunately we had agreed that 2H here only shows 2.  I think this is a useful bid to have for hands where other bids are misdirected, and I think jumping to 3H over 2D when you want to show 3 and set trumps is fine – still plenty of room to cuebid.  Anyway in our cuebidding style 4C should deny any (1^st or 2^nd-round) spade control, so I was sure partner had one to make another try with 4D.  I had terrific red-suit cards I hadn’t really promised, so I was sure we belonged in slam.  I decided to bid 6D; it seemed clear this would show 2-3 in the reds and let partner make an intelligent choice.  After some thought, he passed with:  A  J9xxxx KJTx Ax.  There is not much to choose between 6D and 6H, both good contracts; 6D might survive 4-1 hearts if they don’t lead trumps, so it looks a little better, but it could be in trouble if diamonds are 5-1 with hearts 3-2.  Of course at the 7-level, diamonds would be much better – 7D is about 60%, but on this kind of combination can you really be sure your counterparts will reach 6?  They didn’t in this case.  Also 60% is just barely high enough even if we are sure they bid 6; and it’s quite hard for either of us to know enough to give us that 60% -- the DT is crucial, for instance.  So in practice it's a bit academic that 7D is a "good" contract.

At the table, the hearts were Qx and diamonds broke normally, so you’re making 7 of anything – we picked up 12 imps.