What do you make of this?

[CarlJung]

One of the players is Harleqin.

[Magicwand]

probably 1d or lower
considering myself 4D they made moves that is straight wrong.

Interesting! Can you give some examples?

move #40 really bothered my eye. it must be an overplay. also 41 should have attacked that invasion (although he can solidify the corner..i would have attacked the invasion because it follows the rhythm of invasion) i will give you more later..i gotta go now.

edit:

move 49: i dont think any strong dan will play such weak move..

edit:

55 is wrong. E18 seems like better move than that.. too many moves that are kyuish....

[Harleqin]

One of the players is Harleqin.

Interesting! Which one do you think is?

[CarlJung]

One of the players is Harleqin.

Interesting! Which one do you think is?

No idea

[unkx80]

At least 3-dan, playing blitz and experimenting with new moves.

[Jonas]

Com' on Harlequin put us all out of our misery and give us the solution :3 *plspls*

[Harleqin]

I was hoping to get some estimates from stronger people like Araban or Bill Spight.

(Not for people who want to estimate without looking at other people's guesses first)

Most of the answers seem to guess their strength at "a few stones stronger than me", except for Magicwand (surprise...) and amnal. There are no guesses yet from really strong players, though.

[flOvermind]

I can't really judge what rank they are. But the game is full of (to me) really weird moves. I guess the players are definitely not my level, either way above me (because I don't understand the moves at all) or below me (because the moves are really that bad). It can't be a lot below my level though, there are just to many sensible moves in there. So if I had to guess, I'd take the "way above me" option.

Blitz might be a reason why the game is so weird. The result would support that, too

[Jonas]

I was hoping to get some estimates from stronger people like Araban or Bill Spight.

(Not for people who want to estimate without looking at other people's guesses first)

Most of the answers seem to guess their strength at "a few stones stronger than me", except for Magicwand (surprise...) and amnal. There are no guesses yet from really strong players, though.

Araban is absent for a while now, hope he gets back soon

[HermanHiddema]

What strength do you think the players are?

Mid dan level at least. The players play tenuki far more often than kyu players would, IMO. There are also no obvious blunders, nor are there any moves I would really feel comfortable in criticizing. There are several places where I would have played differently, but that would be a stylistic difference more than anything. It could be a pro game, or a game between players around my level. Maybe a little weaker, but not too much (at least 2 dan EGF, probably stronger).

The rules are Chinese, and the komi is 7.5, which makes a pro game more likely, as relatively few people play with those rules outside China. It could also be a top game from an EGC or Ing tournament. Ing rules and 8 komi could easily have been recorded as Chinese with 7.5, as Ing specifies that Black wins jigo.

[zinger]

Mid dan level at least. The players play tenuki far more often than kyu players would, IMO. There are also no obvious blunders, nor are there any moves I would really feel comfortable in criticizing.

I'll take a stab at it

How about black 35. With R6 and R15 there, the whole right side seems small. Or so they teach us westerners. C15 or R2 look bigger.

Also white's sequence 36-37-38 feels odd. If white wants to secure the corner in gote, why not just play 36 at R2 or Q2?

And why does black not attack white 40 directly?

[HermanHiddema]

Mid dan level at least. The players play tenuki far more often than kyu players would, IMO. There are also no obvious blunders, nor are there any moves I would really feel comfortable in criticizing.

I'll take a stab at it

How about black 35. With R6 and R15 there, the whole right side seems small. Or so they teach us westerners. C15 or R2 look bigger.

It's played in the largest open area along the edge, it is an attack on White's R4/5/6 stones, an indirect attack on White's upper group, and it threatens to make points.

Also white's sequence 36-37-38 feels odd. If white wants to secure the corner in gote, why not just play 36 at R2 or Q2?

White 36 is an inducing move. It spoils Black's shape and induces black to force white to defend his corner group. After W38, black is weak and definitely needs 39 to run away with his weakest group, so effectively white ends with sente.

And why does black not attack white 40 directly?

This is one thing I would probably have done, try to set up a splitting attack on this stone and the top group. But W40 can't really be killed, black is too thin (P8-R10), and white too strong, in the lower right. Playing a probe with M5 to help black's weakest group, then just taking the biggest point C15 seem a very reasonable option to me. Let white worry about his weak stones. If he takes gote to help them, you just get another big point somewhere. Easy option.

[amnal]

My own reasons for my guess:

None of the moves really stood out as extremely strong, though I could just be missing the subtlety.

Move 11 seems suboptimal, I can't see a reason for playing it, so I don't think it's a professional game. It just seems heavy.

The players either were reading far deeper than I did, or were missing moves for some other reason. Time trouble is a possibility, I could believe it was a 2d or 3d game if it were blitz or even just quite fast.

There were probably no moves that I would tell a 3k 'this is definitely wrong', so they are at least strong kyu.

Thinking about it more, they are very consistent, so maybe I guessed too low (especially if it was blitz or lightning).

[Joaz Banbeck]

Black's play includes joseki that I kave never seen before, so he is a bot or a pro. As the game gets past joseki, the play becomes iffy:

45: It is hard to see what this move accomplishes. If a pro were worried about the life of his group, I'd expect to see S7 or S8 or N3. If he is not, a tenuki to C10 or D11 is big.

63: Maybe I'm misreading, but G15 looks big here.

So, with dubious midgame flow but exotic joseki, I call black a bot.

White is much harder to read. He seems to be low/mid dan. Because Harlequin posted, I'll guess that white is Harlequin.

The rules are Chinese, and the komi is 7.5, which makes a pro game more likely...

I've never thought seriously about programming go, but my quickie guess is that it is easier to do Chinese counting than Japanese. So a bot is still a possibility.

[Toge]

Black has to be in kyu ranks (3k-4k). Move 87 is just weird and the whole yose goes with white leading black around the board. Automatic playing and "sente" moves which gain nothing. I think white is couple of stones stronger dan.