"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched". The saying of Greek writer and a reformist is also so true while playing a game of bridge. Play taking the unfavourable line of cards into consideration to ensure success of a contract. It was also incidentally the advice of a veteran player Sherali Mundrawala of Karachi Gymkhana, a retired banker. He said that the declarer was supposed to keep an alternative in mind if one plan was not behaving.
Later he showed the correct line of play after the event.
A grand slam in spades was reached in a rubber bridge session some time back at Karachi Gymkhana, among the senior players with long bridge background. The contest was between a retired D.I.G and a retired senior customs officer sitting in East-West position and a retired banker and working media-man in North-South position.
The game was played for love, only the reputation of each one of them was at stake. However, it was a nice grand slam bid, which was reached by Sherali Mundrawala and his partner but his media man partner put all his eggs in one basket while executing the contract and later regretted for not being able to succeed in making a grand slam. And as usual, like most others, the media man blamed the unlucky distribution of cards.
The retired banker and the media man were partners. In vulnerable position their hand was as indicated below.
(1) Forcing Stayman.
(2) Roman Key Card Blackwood.
West led club 5:
The declarer appeared happy for having reached a grand slam and he counted 13 tricks assuming the favourable division of trump suit and favourable division of diamond suit. That was too much to ask for. Anyway he took quite sometime before starting to play.
He won king of club from East with the ace of clubs and played the ace of spades on the second trick followed by a small spade to the king and he felt upset when the trump was 1-4 division he did not know what to play next. However, he played the ace of diamonds from dummy and followed it with the king of diamonds from dummy, which was ruffed by East with a small trump, the contract was down by one trick. The media man felt sorry for going down.
But Sherali painfully pointed out that contract could have been made despite unfavourable distribution, had the declarer changed the game plan after knowing the bad break of trump suit. The declarer should have tackled the club suit and instead of rushing with playing diamond suit, he should have come back to hand with heart ace and moved the jack of clubs and allowed to run if the West did not cover discarding a small diamond from dummy.
Then the 10 of clubs was to be moved, if it was covered he should have ruffed with the queen of trumps. That play luckily dropped the nine of clubs with the East. At that point the declarer could have returned to hand playing small trump and drawing the last trump with the East. The ending was simple by discarding one more diamond from dummy on good 8 of clubs and parking the losing heart in the dummy on the last trump.
Thus the grand slam could have been a brilliant success. His media man partner sorely realised his mistake by jumping to conclusion without resorting to an alternative line of play, which proved a stroke of luck as the 9 of clubs was smothered to make his club 8 good.
The bidding:

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South     West     North     East
---------------------------------
1NT       Pass     2D(1)     Pass
2S        Pass     4NT       Pass
5C(2)     Pass     5NT       Pass
6D        Pass     7S        Pass
Pass      Pass
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North-South Vulnerable

North    West 
   East    South
S KQ84   S 5     S 10632 S AJ97
H J63    H 105   H Q8742 H AK9
D AKQ107 D J9632 D 8     D 54
C 4 C    Q7652   C K92   C AJ108

Wishful thinking is best avoided in playing a good game of bridge.