I was playing a friendly OTB game with my dad. I pick up my rook and hold it over e8, thinking whether or not I should put it there. Then I decide not to because the square is defended by his bishop. Then I pick up my other rook and hold it over e8, thinking whether or not I should put it there. I decide not to because the square is defended by his bishop. Then I think for a really long time. Then I finally decided that the best move was Qe8. After that, my dad assumed that since I was experienced at playing chess, I wouldn't sacrifice my queen for no good reason. So he thinks for a really long time. Then he finally asks "Why can't I just take your queen?" Then I yell:

D'oh!

lots of them. a very recent one was (generally, since I didn't record the game) like this:

middlegame, I am a pawn up, better positioned, have the initiative, and I am in the middle of capitalizing on my advantage, get a rook or something similiar, and I've got my opponent trapped. now he thinks around ten minutes, and I already have the entire thing planned ahead, so when he moves, I immidiately continue spring my trap.

but even as I do this, I notice that he threatened my queen!!! damn him! and I ignored it! argggh (it didn't interruptea my trap but a queen for a rook isn't a very good trade...)

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I just made this blunder a few minutes ago! UGH.

How about this, fresh off the press!

I think me playing chess in general is a blunder....

http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=18602025

I've made far more blunders than I care to remember.  However, I have found a very good way of coping with them (apart from headbutting the fridge).

Blunders are basically just poor play. If I lose a game because of a blunder I just accept that I lost because I played poorly. This attitude makes me play better in my next game. I used to get upset by my blunders and see them as some sort of injustice.  This nearly always spoiled my play in my next game and made me more prone to further blunders.

This was a shocker.  I just didn't see it coming.  And so I lost to my arch rival 6-5.  That Dai Young he's proper shrewd.  Luckily he was hit by a bus the following year and I went on to gain my first national title.

Yes, after surviving an attack i thought i'd thought i was winning, convinced victory was mine, i stopped paying attention. I lost.

I think the reason blunders hurt me so much is because I don't think they are just poor play.  I extend them to being more.  It starts with disbelief and then I see the weaknesses of my personality; of my intelligence; of my short-sightedness...and that makes me want to bang my head into the fridge...or laugh hysterically like an insane person for 20 - 30 seconds.  

I have to say, all of your are making me feel better.  Lots of mistakes as bad as mine!

hi guys,

      one time i was playing outside at pioneer square and i was very hungry and wanted to go home so i just played reckless sacrifice and gave away almost all of my pieces but had mate in one in the middle of the board with just my queen and three pawns. but just then, some patzer yelled at me to "Take the bishop!" i told him i don't want the bishop i want the king and i made another move without checking his. guess what- queen takes bishop was mate and i would have found it if he hadn't blurted the move out! but i'm not much for noisy quick chess i guess.

rodger

Here is one that wasnt mine but happened in a tournament i played in!

and this guy is in the section above me! Gives me hope i suppose!

I was playing in a national tournament last year against someone rated 200 points lower. I had snatched a few pawns from him in the middlegame, and now in the endgame I had R+N vs. R+B and I was 3 pawns up.

Some good stories here. My all-time favourite happened in a tournament many years ago, when my opponent resigned in a totally winning position!!

I was attacking his king and had already sacrificed a knight to the cause. I then offered another rook, which looked terminal for him - he could take it with his queen, which lost his queen, or could take it with a pawn in which case it was mate in 1. Not taking it also led to mate next move, so he resigned.

However, what we had both overlooked is that if he plays QxR, I play NxQ, and he then plays PxN, and this would have left him with a rook and two knights in exchange for his queen (because of my earlier knight sac). And I would have had no attack!

Sometimes fortune favours the brave!!

Yes!

When I was a senior in high school (back in the mid 80s), me and a team mate went to the Virginia Open with our chess coach. My Saturday games were all tight games, and went past the end of the round (this was with open ended time controls). So it's eight in the evening, and I've been playing chess non-stop since ten in the morning. My only break was when I just got up, left the board, and let ten minutes run off my clock so I could get a soda and a candy bar.

Now, we hadn't told the TD we were team mates who played each other all the time, so that last Saturday game we got paired together. Ten minutes into the game I realized my team mate had walked into a variation of the Fool's Mate. I had mate in one and 110 minutes on my clock. So I'm thinking "Should I mate hime and then get dinner, or get dinner and then mate him?"

I decided the latter was too rude, so ten minutes into the round, in a completely silent room full of intent Chess players, I say "checkmate." I swear, half the room turned around in unison.

"But, Ichabod," you say, "this is supposed to be about your blunders, not blunders your opponents made." Well, that checkmate was almost a blunder. You see, we were sharing a room at the hotel. When I got back up there after eating dinner, he was polishing the edge of his straight razor on a leather strop...

No particular blunders come to mind, though I did resign after losing a knight while under heavy attack from my opponent- the fact that he'd sacrificed a rook to get the attack didn't really hit me until a fair time after the game.

I blunder every other game I'm winning..

I blunder every other game I'm winning..

I was evaluating the position after 25. Rxa6 Rxd3. Instead, White played 25. h3 and I, for some weird reason, thought that d3 was hanging. What a sad way to lose.