What's the worst way you've lost a chess game?

Mine is probably when I lost in a few seconds.

When I was winning against a stronger opponent in a tournament (in real life) and my friend thought I was going to lose to her and didn't see my winning position. I was a queen up, and I sacrificed it, whoops, and lost.

ohhhh

If u have 92384918349 queens

sacrifice all until you have 1

but

nvm

on9 lag, fingers slipped

off

Got hired to a new job. Had to move to a different city and get a new place to stay. It took a while to get Internet hooked up. Lost all my online daily games on time.

It was a really cool job, though.

cool!

Yeah, I got hired as a Mentor at the Canadian Army's Combined Arms Tactics School.

… that's military tactics, not chess tactics.

Oh cool!

The worst I can remember was in a rated OTB tournament.  I was playing against a child, and I knew the kid.  He was probably 10 years old.  I had beaten him easily a couple of times when we played at a club.

So, I wasn't paying close attention.  It was my turn to move and I decided to move my knight to threaten the king, so I grabbed the knight....now I don't remember the state of the board.  It was still fairly early in the game and the board was a bit cluttered.  I was up by a pawn, but what I remember for sure was that I didn't realize that the knight had been guarding a square that could have caused the queen to move in, protected by the bishop, for checkmate.  It wasn't a scholar's mate exactly, because there were a lot more pieces that had moved, but basically, it was.  Moreover, the only places I could move the knight that wouldn't result in the checkmate, were places that the knight could be captured.  But wait, it gets better.  It would be captured with a discovered check.

I realized all this as I started to make my move, but the knight was in my hand.  So there I was, holding the knight, realizing that the best move I had would result in losing a knight and a rook, while this kid sat across from me saying, "You know you have to move your knight now."  Yeah, kid.  I know.

Yeah that looks freakin awesome. Didn't they have an internet connection at the academy, though? I guess that wouldn't be a good idea.

Being the new guy, I didn't want to log onto a games forum from work. Naturally a Department of Defense installation logs and monitors all the computer work that you do...

It was indeed awesome. Despite being a civilian, they let me "play with the toys"!

If there's ever a Zombie Apocalypse, I'll be ready for it... skilled (or at least, briefly familiarized) with the use of military pistols, assault rifles, TOW missile launchers, 120mm Leopard II main armament...

 You said it -- if there's ever a zombie apocalypse in the future and I'm in Canada, the mission is to find Blueemu. I even have a picture to help localize the search.

Still, I have to say that I've given the zombie thing quite some thought (who hasn't, really), and I think swords might be the better option in the long run.

Mouse or finger slip      definitely       Agony

I was unit IT rep (ie: computer support) for the Army Learning Support Center, operating out of the Tactics School. Along with a few other IT reps, I kept over 500 computers running smoothly, including the simulators.

The place was amazing... hologram rooms, mo-cap (computerized motion-capture) rooms, full surround simulators, six 3D printers...

Our unit was awarded a commendation from the Minister of Defense during my second year on the job.

sacrificing my queen

1: Got scholar's mated by my little cousin a few years ago

2: Played a game irl today vs a guy a few years older than me. Messed up my pawn structure almost immediately. I was, to be completely honest, quite distracted. Guess I have focus problems, which is pretty bad if I want to do any good at chess.

ohhh 

I have lost two painful tournament games.

The first one was at the U.S. Air Force closed tournament. No one was watching, and on move 40, my opponent screwed with the clock in front of my face, and flagged me. I screamed bloody murder, but with no witnesses, he won the game. It cost me my spot on the USAF team in the NATO tournament.

The other was that I was playing maybe the most famous prodigy in U.S. history (other than Fischer), when he was 2100, but only 11 years old (I think). I will not name him. My positional style was strangling him, and he literally started to cry at the board. His father had to console him, but I started to make weak move after weak move, and I lost. It still kills me to this day.