Annoying blunder against Bradford B

Last game of the season for us today, vs Bradford B. They are propping up the league and fighting Harrogate C for the wooden spoon but have lost all their games quite narrowly (unlike Harrogate whose best result so far has been a 1-5 thrashing) so we expected a tough match but a probable win.

They only turned up with 4 which was disappointing especially for one of our players who didn't get the message and turned up to get no game. We kept our strongest 4. I had a significant rating advantage of more than 100 points on board 1, nabbed a pawn early and built up a strong advantage. Opposite bishops and a knight each which was hard work (didn't want to risk swapping knights) but I was making progress.

On move 45 I picked up my king to move out of check, and as I was putting it down I thought..."hang on this square's not right I'm going to get trapped" but I still put it down rather than waving it around like a patzer trying out different squares. I'd already ruled out the other square as dropping one of my two extra pawns (that I had laboriously won over the past hour), but that would still have been winning.

And, dear reader, I was correct. I didn't quite get mated but had to sac a piece and couldn't hold on to the draw. Next time I'll just suffer the embarrassment of waving the piece around and saying "I'll move it, I just haven't decided where yet."

As for the match, Mike had lost and Charlie won already while my game was ongoing, Martin was a pawn up in rook endgame which he didn't look like winning but wasn't going to lose. So in the end we scraped home 3 1/2-2 1/2 thanks to the two defaults. After the first two matches where we were short-handed (a draw and loss with 5 and 4 players respectively), we won 4 and drew 1. We'll be about 2nd or 3rd (some matches still to play later this month) and may have the possibility of promotion but the division above has teams of 8 and we don't really have the manpower currently.

Over the season I won 2, lost 2 and drew 2. Both losses and one of the draws were very clear misses for me, as I was well ahead for a large part of the games, but unable to finish them off. A lesson in stamina and concentration perhaps? Also, my middle game calculation is relatively weak compared to my opening and positional/strategic play. I already knew that. I need more focus, not just in chess but in life!