leave (something) on the table
v. phr.— «He admitted he does have bad dreams occasionally about an estimator’s most dreaded mistake—“leaving something on the table”—in layman’s terms, forgetting to include a figure in a final estimate.» —“Construction-cost estimators can ruin builder with bad guess” Chicago Tribune June 24, 1973. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
One secret to writing well is … there is no secret! There’s no substitute for simply sitting down day after day to practice the craft and learn from your mistakes. Plus, childhood mixups around word definitions can lead to some funny stories...