If you decide to play for "top or bottom" in duplicate, are you supposed to consult with partner?
It's neither - it's simply terrible bridge. Good bridge is to make those choices during the play instead of during the bidding, when one actually has enough information to make a sensible risk assessment.
Further, you are talking about a change in partnership bidding style - this is simply not allowed during a session, and the meaning of a call is not allowed to vary depending on which partner makes it:

from Law 40 A - Players' Systemic Agreements (my emphasis)
2 Information conveyed to partner through such understandings must arise from the calls, plays, and conditions of the current deal. Each player is entitled to take into account the legal auction and, subject to any exclusions in these Laws, the cards he has seen.
from Law 40 B - Special Partnership Understandings
1(b) Whether explicit or implicit, an agreement between partners is a partnership understanding. ....
2 (a)... the meaning of a call or play shall not alter by reference to the member of the partnership by whom it is made.

Remember, the opponents don't know whether you are having a good, bad, or indifferent game; but partner does. To make decisions based on that information, which partner is privy to but the opponents not, is blatantly violating the requirement that opponents have a right to full disclosure of your partnership agreements.
So, if one feels compelled to take a flyer late in a session, one should do it as Declarer when there is no issue of Partnership Agreement. Adopt a second best line of play and cross your fingers. Play for the finesse missing Qxxx, or the drop missing Qxxxx, and see if it works. If one wants to be an improving player, one has to play like one.