New player - 'deeep' - beats 'kghin' twice in a row!

'kghin' (Chi Hin Chan) was Hong Kong's representative at the recent World Amateur Go Championship, and unfortunately he only placed 15th, which is not a good result for him. Compared to last year, Hong Kong dropped 11 places (in 2010 'chenns' took 4th place in the WAGC)... This must be really disappointing especially for 'kghin', but keep in mind that he is almost 5 years younger than 'chenns'. I am sure that he will be able to show much better results in the near future!

Maybe he is still feeling the pressure, so his results on KGS continue to be not so good (his winning percentage in the last couple of months is quite low). Today he played two games (his first games on KGS after the WAGC) against 'deeep' 8d, and he lost them both. It is possible that it will take some time now until 'kghin' puts himself back together again.

'deeep' is a new player on KGS, so I will introduce him. He registered on KGS less than a month ago, and he is already solid 8d (his rank must be almost 9d now, after beating 'kghin' twice in a row). He is an amateur from Korea.

By the way, he is clearly NOT 'Korondo'. While 'deeep' was playing 'kghin', 'Korondo' was also playing on KGS - against 'eku' [that's right, 'eku' 9-dan returned! He lost his game against 'Korondo', a bit surprisingly, so he became [7d?], but if he keeps playing he can become 9d again easily, as he is still one of the strongest players on KGS. We will keep following his progress attentively].

I just had a small chat with 'deeep' (he can speak English quite well), but he kindly refused to reveal his identity. I guess that all strong players like to have an aura of mystery surrounding them :-)...

The game that you can see here was his first encounter with 'kghin'. It was a very fun game to watch, with many furikawaris. Here are the highlights:

There was a nice trick in the opening - W16 (very unusual plan!) - which gave White a nice position in the opening.

Black fought back with B51, using the aji of the H13 stone, and got an acceptable result.

I am not sure if W80 was good because after Black 85 (H3 - very sharp!) White's group in the bottom left corner ended up being captured...

The White 130-132 combination ensures that his group is alive (connection with the outside and Q7 are miai).

B175 proved fatal for Black, because with W176 White can connect and save his bottom-left group... Anyway, even if Black had defended there, I think White would still be ahead by a few points.

B239 was the last furikawari (exchange) - Black captures seven White stones in the center, and loses nine of his stones at the top. Black did not have enough time to count accurately (they only had 20 seconds per move) and that exchange did not change the outcome of the game.

In the end 'deeep' won by 9,5 points.