Went from winning, to drawing, to losing in 3 moves!

Here is a tourney game where i went from winning, to drawing, to losing in just 3 moves!

I hated it cause it jeopardized my chances of becoming first, and i threw away the game, so stupidely as well..

I was black

Edit: I said the best move was Qd6.. i ment Qf6 sorry.

Why you didn't go ahead with f5 on move 19 instead of K retreat ? Afterall, your mysterious K moves foretell that you were paving the way for f5.

Your right, f5 was the first candidate move to come to mind, I was calculating f5 and i found that it may have been a risky move and i was already in a good position so i didnt want to risk it, Rybka found Kg8 to be the best move, but f5 wasnt bad as well.

Out of curiosity what was the time control?

Anyway I know what you mean, it's like we wouldn't play that stuff in blitz but in a tournament we fool ourselves sometimes.  I lost a similar USCF tourney game last month to an unsound sac on my king -- hallucinating a mate that wasn't there, I walked into a real mate in 3-4.

It was 90 minutes + 30 second incraments.

I was first for the first 5 rounds then went on to lose my last 2 games! This was my 6th round and 7th round i lost a drawn endgame.. life sucks! oh well..

I ended up 8th out of 21 but i had the highest tournament performance rating.. beat #1 and #2, as well as playing #3, #5, #6.. I had the hardest pairings (it was because i was 1st) while everyone else had easy pairings.. 1st place guy ended up having a tournament performance rating 100 points lower then mine!

Go figures >.>

That sucks, the loss I mentioned in my post #4 was the last game of 10 rounds, maybe our brains wear out or something... I wasn't even close to first though, in the middle of the pack.  (Although if I had won, I would have won my class and some money).  I wonder if being 1st adds pressure.

It does add a bit of pressure, but i dont think of it when im playing.. usually i get really tired after a couple days in a tourney but i still played sharp (like this game) but last round i kindav burned out and had to play for a draw in a really complicated losing position, and ended up blundering in a drawn endgame on my last move!

Talk about losing stupidely.

I used to go to 1-2 tournaments a year (not many compared to regulars) but I've been to a few more this year.  I discovered while at the tourney, I have very little appetite (force myself to eat half a meal), and don't sleep well (wake up a lot) although I don't feel anxious or nervous at all I'm thinking now there must be some level of excitement/anxiety/adrenaline always there... at least for me.  Maybe all I need is more experience.

I connected the dots when I'd get home, and suddenly feel hungrier and more tired than I had the last few days.