JeffChang Returns?

Yesterday a a couple of 9ds returned to playing on KGS, or so it seems. I will be posting the games I observed on GoSensations, I did not have the time yesterday.

Jeffchang is a well known player: Su Yang, a Chinese 5 dan. He has not played ranked games for a long time on KGS and it seems that he played his first one since February yesterday. His opponent is zchen, another well known player: Zhaonian "Michael" Chen, who recently went 5-1 in the U.S. Open, losing only to Kim MyungWan 8p.

The opening starts off fairly normally until White decides to ignore Black 9 to approach the top right corner. This leads eventually to his being pincered at Black 17. After the standard shape tesuji of White 18, the zchen does not attack much further, seeing no profit in attacking currently. White counterpincers Black with 26 after the lower left joseki and seeks to make a moyo with 28 and 30. Black invades very deeply at 31. I cannot help but feel that this is an overplay, though I am not sure where exactly to play instead. White caps and after a clever forcing move with 36, captures Black in the sequence up to 64. It seems more or less over at that point.

Black connects his cutting stones with 65 and seeks to attack White's outside group, but considering White's outside influence. The result of the fight to 78 is White getting outside influence while Black played dame. With 78 and 80, White makes another moyo in the center. Playing normally would lead to defeat, so Black attempts to split off some White stones on the top starting with 81. However, the attack fails when White counterattacks, leading to the severe cut at 98. Black does find a nice tesuji with 99 however, to at least save the life of his center dragon. Black again makes some noise in the center starting with 109, however White escapes and Black is left with a group with only one eye that isn't fully connected to his side. Though, White's lower left corner has its liberties reduced and it becomes a race to see who can play the winning move in the semeai. Black makes a big exchange in the center with 139. He could have made the center seki, but White would have gotten sente and take the big point in the lower left. In the game, Black got it with 143. However, White stirs up noise on top with 144 and 146, easily making life. White tries to take sente with 148, but this leads to Black forcing the ko at H18 with 149. However instead of fighting the ko, White plays E18 to split Black's corner, though this leads to White's group being unconditionally captured. Next White attacks Black's center dragon with 156 and 158, it only has one eye and zchen promptly gives it up after 160. White defends the capture and the game is over. Zchen resigns a few moves later. It seemed to be a complete victory for Jeff.