"Flash of Lightning"... Really???

Today's game between 번개소문(P)/kmomo(P) 9d and 930115 9d brought over 500 eager spectators to marvel at the clever plays made by each side.  

As usual, I was curious about the origins of the players, so I tried to investigate a bit.  The first, and perhaps obvious, thing to notice is the meaning behind 번개소문.  번개 means "a flash of lightning", whereas 소문 (所聞) means "rumor".  Perhaps together we can gather that 번개소문 is a "rumored flash of lightning".  

Further investigation brought me to the following fascinating article (which is written in Korean): http://jjtygem.joins.com/News/view.asp?gubun=&seq=9142&pagec=73&find=&findword=, which takes the time to introduce 번개소문 9d.  

An interesting thing to note from the article is the following:

번개소문은 20초 보다는 30초 초읽기를 할 때 더 안정적인 모습을 보인다. 다시 말해서 그는 joonki나 코브라더스처럼 초읽기에 강하지 못하다. 

which seems to suggest that, despite having a username that seems to imply speed ("flash of lightning"), 번개소문 9d may actually not be that great at fast reading.  In particular, when 번개소문 9d plays with 30 second byo-yomi, you can see a much more stable style of play than when he plays under 20 second byo-yomi.  This excerpt also seems to suggest that a couple of other famous players we've seen here on GoSensations, joonki 9d and 코브라더스 9d, are also not that great at fast reading.

The article then goes on to ask, "What exactly, then, is 번개소문 9d's area of strength?".  According to the author, 번개소문 9d's play moves like a fluent wave.  

From various advantageous positions, takes the board into serious consideration and without yielding, and allows for a hard fight, sometimes distressing his fans.

It also seems like 번개소문 9d sometimes loses on time, even when he is ahead on the board.  But perhaps we shouldn't blame him.  According to the author, 번개소문 9d always does his best such that he can make the best game records possible...  And perhaps this is something that I (Kirby) should learn from, myself!

The opponent, 930115 9d, seeming to be from China, is certainly a strong player.  I made some effort to investigate his name as well, but I've encountered some difficulties in getting good information.   I know that he's had several good results lately, and those are available on the Internet.

One page that seems to talk about 930115 9d can be found here: http://weiqi.sports.tom.com/news/26700.html.  Unfortunately, I do not know Chinese at all, so it is difficult for me to extract much information about 930115 9d.  Using Google Translate, it doesn't seem like much is said about 930115 9d in regard to personal details, but we can definitely say that 930115 9d has become a well-recognized player on the web!

In this sensational game, 번개소문 9d seems to follow his usual style in trying to make the best game record possible...  In other words, he loses the game on time (which seems to be fairly typical of the player).  But despite the frustration in the game being a time loss, the game is certainly a great one to watch, and kept me, along with the other 500+ observers on Tygem, on my toes.

A final interesting aspect of this game was that, though a lot seems to be known about 번개소문 9d, only 30% of the betting observers favored him to win.  Perhaps the betting public has adapted to his time losses. :-)

Note: For those of you using Tygem, it stands to note that 번개소문 and 번개소문(P) are separate accounts.  They are both 9d, however, and I suspect that they are the same player due to both their style and game records.

Last 20 Games

번개소문 9d: 7 - 13

930115 9d: 15 - 5

Ranking Points

번개소문 9d: 33075

930115 9d: 37038

Game Stats

번개소문 9d: 257 - 428 [9d] | 257 - 428

930115 9d: 399 - 194 [9d] | 436 - 198

Betting Stats

번개소문 9d: 30%

930115 9d: 70%