Korea vs China: a match to become 9-dan!

   "BIGPIcture" (8-dan) is a new face on KGS. He is from South Korea, and his name is Hong. I am not sure, but he is probably (amateur) 6-dan in Korea. He has beaten some KGS celebrities, including "kghin", "artem92" and "bigbadwolf".

   "JosephXue" (KGS 8-dan) has become famous recently for organizing the 2011 Shanghai Go Camp (details here:  http://www.weiqi-atoz.com/). He is a very strong (and kind) amateur from China.

   Both BIGPIcture and JosephXue had already been KGS 9-dan, but their rank dropped. Today they played each other and, as they were both very close to becoming 9-dan again, they knew that whoever was to win this game would get the so-desired solid [9d] rank.

   The game was very exciting, and you can see it here. I was very surprised to see Black allowing White 78 (L2), which killed Black's bottom group. From then on, the game became hard for JosephXue, who eventually resigned.

   After the game I asked JosephXue if he had misread and he said: "Yes, [it was a] huge mistake".

   As a result, BIGPIcture has now a solid 9-dan rank. I hope he keeps playing to prove he really deserves it.