Catalin Taranu Defeated By Unknown New 9d!

cornell [9d] is a very new player on KGS, having registered on August 23. He is currently undefeated (as of this article) and have defeated some noteable names on KGS, including (in no particular order): Bangboss [7d], Hutoshi [7d], kghin [7d], jia117 [8d], and Thrall [8d]. His profile info includes the line: "try to sew together seemingly random and chaotic moves." His style certainly reflects this. So far in all of his games as Black, he has taken tengen and also played 3-5 or 4-5 corner moves instead of the more common 3-4 and 4-4. In addition he also tends to approach early and leave an empty corner.

Catalin Taranu, in a rare appearance on KGS, was defeated by cornell twice in a row (while he was 8d), both on time. It seems that in this particular game, Taranu has definitely lost and had no chance. Cornell opened with tengen and 2 3-5 points. He then tenukied Taranu's approach at C4 with O3. Taranu in return tenukied and took D5. I am not sure it was wise to let Black get the double approach with 7 (R6). White attached against the right side stone and Black took tenuki again with 15 (R14). I think that White 16 (Q9) was very hasty. It is probably better to avoid such fights when Black has tengen. In the ensuing fight White is split into 3 separate groups, all struggling to live. At this point it is already very hard for White to win. I cannot offer much commentary on the rest of the game, because it seems like just White struggling to get ahead everywhere, but Black playing solidly and simply to win the game. In the sequence of 56-70, White obtains a lot of outside thickness in return for Black obtaining the top right corner. Next with 73 and 75 Black launches an attack on the center white group. Black manages to capture the tail without White gaining any significant advantage. White runs out of time after Black 125.

It is really curious who this cornell [9d] is! I was not aware of any strong US youths attending Cornell and also the style of the player is unlike anyone who I have witnessed in the U.S.