Life In 19x19

Just saw an interesting life and death problem in this pro game:

39th Japanese Meijin, preliminary
[2013-10-03] Yuki Satoshi 9p (Black) vs. Yamada Kimio 9p (White)
http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/37073

Can black kill white's top group?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . . X . O O . O O X . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . O X . O X . . . X , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . X . O X . O . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . X O . X . X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . X X . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . X . O O X . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . O . . O X . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . X . X X O O . . O . , O X . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X . . . . . O X . . |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . X O O O . O . X X . |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . O X X . . O X X O X |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . . O . X X X O O O . |
$$ | . . O . X . . . . . . . . X O . . O . |
$$ | . . . X X O . . X , . . . X O X X O . |
$$ | . . O O O X X X . . . . . X O O O . . |
$$ | . . O X X O O . . . . . . . X X X O . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

This requires a quite some reading, probably suitable for single-digit kyu and above players.

The real game ended abruptly in a dramatic fashion - white apparently missed a basic tesuji.

Did White really miss the tesuji? Looks to me more likely that he was setting up a resignation scene.

I've never entirely understood the thinking behind an RS, and it seems mostly limited to Japanese go (or Japanese-trained players), where it is common though of course not universal. One guess is that it's often done to please the sponsors, hence the fans. While that may seem like overegging the pudding, I have to admit that (as a fan) I find the very abrupt resignations in Chinese and (especially) Korean go unsatisfying (because I usually can't see why they resigned ), and the practice of resigning with a tiny handful of (non-dame) plays to go, which seems common in Chinese go, grates even more.

Obviously all these RS instances could just be a con, covering up a blunder. But they do seem to happen far more often to players who are behind and at a stage where there is no chance of a comeback. If it was a pure blunder you'd expect a 50-50 split. And of course Japanese go still mostly allows players enough time to read things through.