'kghin' 8d is on a losing streak

 

 It seems that one of the toughest opponents for Chan is 'Korondo' 9d, a strong amateur from Korea. They have played a total of 11 games so far, and 'kghin' only won three, having lost the other eight (so against Korondo his winning percentage is quite low, only 27%).

Unfortunately, as you can see,'kghin' is having a bad week:

 

* LEI0724 [9d?]         kghin [8d]          19x19      Km 0.5   W+Res.    5/22/11

* Korondo [9d]          kghin [8d]          19x19      Km 0.5   W+1.5      5/21/11

* roln111 [8d]            kghin [8d]          19x19      Km 6.5   W+9.5      5/21/11

* smartrobot [9d]     kghin [8d]          19x19       Km 0.5     W+Res.   5/20/11

* MilanMilan [9d]     kghin [8d]          19x19        Km 0.5    W+31.5   5/18/11

* Korondo [9d]          kghin [8d]          19x19      Km 0.5   W+Res.     5/17/11

* Korondo [9d]          kghin [8d]          19x19      Km 0.5    W+ Res.    5/15/11

 

I think that this is his longest losing streak (seven games!). Luckily he plays many rated games, so his rating does not change very fast (indeed, the losing streak almost did not affect his rank).

Attached is Chan's most recent game on KGS - against 'LEI0724', a Chinese amateur (he used to be 7-8 dan in 2008 on KGS). Some people were saying that he is Lee Sedol (because of the user's picture) but clearly that is not so (if anything, 'LEI0724' is the one at the left).

As usual I removed the kibitz, although it was quite funny this time - this game reached 500 observers, and they were talking about everything (from how bad Lee Sedol's hair cut was to when the End of the World is going to be!). However, there was one important dialogue about 'LEI0724' which I want to quote:

sarinja [2k]: yes thats chen lei

sasoso [1d]: Who is Chen lei

sarinja [2k]: chinese player...who is studiyng in germany

GoSensei [5d]: how strong is he ?

sarinja [2k]: ranked as egf 6dan

sarinja [2k]: but his rating is 5dan

Sandmann [-]: but chen lei plays very bad on tournaments

Sandmann [-]: he loses to random people

I could not confirm this information, but it sounds plausible.

It is very hard for me to comment this game because there were many fights (and I think Black overplayed quite a lot). I noticed that a few observers were asking some question on fuseki, so I decided to add some notes on the opening in the game file.

White played a very solid opening in this game. The first big fight begun with Black 55 (K16), followed by White's sharp attack with 86 (G14). If you take a look at the board position after White 156, it is clear that Black is in trouble - although 'kghin' always showed great fighting spirit - he even tried to kill White! - but the one who ended up killed was Black.

Black successfully got a ko in the bottom right corner, but it was already too late. When he finally resigned, White was ahead by about 20 points.

Enjoy the game!