Tolani hands: #2 Sachin, an inspiration for bridge as well

Equal vul at IMPs you pick up this nice collection and are pleasantly surprised to hear your partner open 1H.
AKJx / Q8xx / Kx / Axx

You bid 2NT, Jacoby, and your LHO butts in with 3D. Partner passes and RHO ups the ante with a 5D bid. Now what? Double? 6H? 6NT?

At my table Tota chose 6H. At the other table Prajwal bid 6NT. Which do you think is better?

I would say 6NT. If partner has one small card in D, 6H may be better but mostly it won't make a difference. But if he has two small cards in D, 6NT will be the right spot.

Unfortunately, as the cards lie, 6H makes easily after the DQ lead, whereas 6NT is in a spot of bother (in both cases I am assuming the hearts come through without the loss of a trick). Prajwal went down, and as we were discussing the hand later while watching Sachin score up a century on the way to a win against England, inspiration struck him and he figured out the line to make it. Well, late is better than never I guess! Look at the NS cards and tell me, how will you make 6NT on a club lead, given the bidding and assuming you can cash five heart tricks.

Win the club ace and lead a low heart (not the queen!!) for a finesse. The king pops up so you happily take the ace and run your hearts, pitching a spade. Now cash a high spade and run the clubs, pitching a - diamond! Here is the end position:


I hope you have been counting west's diamond discards. If he comes down to the bare diamond ace, you can throw him in to lead into your spade tenace. If he comes down to three diamonds, you know to finesse the spade. If he comes down to a spade and two diamonds, the position is trickier. Do you try to fell the SQ, or do you take a spade finesse? Well. Look at west's face and decide :)

Cheers,
Prashanth.

EDIT: Anindya's comment made me realize that this hand came up at matchpoints and not IMPs. Not sure how that would affect the decision to bid 6H or 6NT.