4-4 fits are not da bomb

One of the bridge blogs I read is Korbel Bridge Adventures by Susie and Daniel Korbel, two of Canada's young stars. (Daniel is also a poker player and I've played at the same table online with him.) In a recent post they discussed how we, as bridge players, are obsessed with finding 4-4 fits and that reminded me of a deal I played in Charlottesville VA a long, long time ago.

I held: ♠A Q 8 6 5 ♥J ♦J 10 7 5 ♣A Q 4.

My partner was Bob L. and he opened 1♦, I responded 1♠ and he rebid 2NT. I made a check-back bid and partner showed me a three-card spade fit. I checked on aces (we were off one) and bid 6♦ to give partner a choice. My reasoning is that we had 32 or 33 high-card points, and so because the slam is skinny, we might need to make an extra trick by playing in diamonds. Partner passed and the opening lead was a low heart. Here are all four hands (low cards are approximate):

                ♠ A Q 8 6 5
                ♥ J
                ♦ J 10 7 5
                ♣ A Q 4
♠ J 7 3                         ♠ 10 4
♥ 7 6 5 2                       ♥ A 8 4 3
♦ Q 4 2                         ♦ 8 6
♣ J 7 5                         ♣ 9 8 6 3 2
                ♠ K 9 2
                ♥ K Q 10 9
                ♦ A K 9 3
                ♣ K 10

East won the ♥A and partner eventually took the diamond finesse for down one.

It was annoying to see that it made 6♠, and, in fact, makes 6NT. South's strong heart spots were tricks because of my jack.

Then, we looked again. We can make 6♥ in a 4-1 fit! Win any lead, drive out the ace of hearts, win the return and draw trumps. Because the East-West hearts split 4-4, you would take the rest of the tricks. So much for the magic 4-4 fit.