Act Hastily, Repent at Leisure

perrypawnpusher - joseluizlopez, blitz, FICS, 2012

In a recent Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+) I was generally out-played by my opponent, and, for some reason, decided that I should take refuge in a pawn-down endgame – which you can see, from the above position from the game, turned out to be not a very successful strategy.

I played on because my opponent was short of time, and I foolishly hoped that his flag would fall before my King did.

To speed things up, I had been using the "pre-move" function at FICS, where you can chose your next move while your opponent is thinking, and the computer will immediately execute it as soon as it is your turn. Save seconds, put on the pressure...

In certain circumstances, that can be an effective tactic, but look what happened in this game: 

49...Qb5??

This has to be a mouse slip for 49...Qb4. 

Black throws his Queen away and – lucky for him – his King's good position allows him to sheepishly draw.

But, I looked on in horror, as I had never imagined that my opponent would have come up with this blunder, and I had already pre-moved something different...

50.Ka3????

And I was checkmated a few moves later.