Monarch Assurance - 1st round

Finally Monday arrived and I was able to start playing. Our days started to fall into a routine. John prepared a cooked breakfast whilst I wandered up to the Ocean Castle to check my pairing. After breakfast we would do an hour or so chess study, including checking for previous games against my next opponent on Chessbase and putting in the previous day's game. My first opponent was graded 43 ECF points higher than me, so although I wasn't expecting too much, I was confident after my Paignton result (5/7). For most of the game I felt equal, but then made a poor move in a pawns and minor pieces ending and lost the game. My opponent felt that the game should have been drawn and kindly pointed out my weak move - instead of forcing his pawns onto the same coloured square as my bishop, I had moved one of mine onto that colour and he had forced it to remain there. I'd like to say that I learnt from this and won't be repeating this, but unfortunately I made the same mistake again later in the tournament!