'smartrobot' vs. 'bigbadwolf' - the two mighty 9-dans battle it out!

   Since his return yesterday, Andy Liu (aka 'bigbadwolf') has won five games in a row against top KGS players.

   Today he faced Jack Jin (2p), better-known as 'smartrobot', and had the chance to make it six consecutive wins. The game promised to be exciting.

   In the end 'bigbadwolf' did manage to secure a win, although his winning-streak was later ended by 'smartrobot' in the rematch.

   I decided to show the first game because it was the more stimulating (it had more fighting) - as usual, I removed the kibitz but kept the players' lines.

   Even though the players did not review afterwards, I think there are a few things worth mentioning about the game (and I added a couple of variations in the game file). First of all, some players may wonder why Black played C9 (move 11) instead of following the normal joseki. The reason behind this move is to prevent a pincer by White (that is, if Black plays C4, White will play the pincer at D8, making it hard for Black to get a good result).

   F5 (move 13) was, however, a bit of a surprise. The usual way for Black is to answer White 12 (C7) with D7. The idea in the game was new to me.

   We know that O17 (move 78) should usually be played at Q17, simply defending the corner, but here White was trying to enter Black's big moyo... Anyway, as you can see, White lost this game because he had big problems in the upper right quadrant of the board (it is always hard to fight near thickness...), with two weak groups which were severely attacked (indeed, one of them was killed after the N9 ko). If we go back, we can question the G9 peep (move 42) given that it lost its meaning later on... 

   In any case, recall the Go Proverb that says: "You only have one weak group. Your other weak groups are dead."

    Enjoy the game!