touch move rule (hand-eye coordination!)

I was playing a club match game the other day and calculated a series of forced exchanges that led me to totally destroying the pawn structure around my opponent's king and (checked this out with fritz afterwards so no misevaluation) having a better position. The move I saw and intended to play involved taking off a white knight on h4 (protected only by a pawn on g3), with my dark squared bishop. I checked it out a final time, it all worked. Great, I thought, and reached out to deliver the stinger punch - only to realise with horror that I had picked up the c8 bishop instead of the one on e7. I put the piece back on its original square and, having sat there in shocked disgust for several moments, made the best move (but still not very good at all) I could find with the piece I had touched (after which i was clearly worse and soon lost).I did this because of the touch move rule and didn't want to be accused of cheating - but does anyone know if this applies to a player accidentally picking up a piece he didn't intend to move ? (as opposed to going to make a losing move and then retracting it). As there is no way of proving that he intended moving a different piece, I suppose it does. Was I indeed obliged to play this losing move? Or could I have retracted it as an honest mistake - a failure of hand-eye coordination (and perhaps concentration!) ?

Finally, does anyone know of any cases of this happening, or has it happened to anyone in one of their own games ?

 I guess it would make me feel better to know that I wasn't alone here; I think this is probably one of the worst (and most embarrasing)! ways to lose a game ...

cheers

Tim

Something very similar happened to me. I calcualted a series of forced moves, but played my calculated second move as my first.

Sorry if this is a little confusing.

I did this exact thing in an OTB tournament game a few weeks ago. I needed complications, saw that ed was far more complex than Nxe5, which allowed my opponent to simplify to a good game.

I reached down to move, and to my horror saw I held the knight in my hand instead of the pawn. J'adoube, anyone? I went on to lose very quickly.

Its the only time I have ever done this.

Correctamundo. Inadvertently brushing a piece is one thing, but deliberately picking up a piece, even if it's not the piece you intended to move, unfortunately commits you to moving that piece somewhere (if it can be legally moved).