No denying that, which brings up the question we have tossed around a billion times and if I bring it we'll probably get into one of those round-and-round-and-round debates again, but oh well. He was a genius, so why was he unable to detect the Noghri's betrayl? I mean, you could see he was picking up on it! Personnaly, I believe Zahn was originally going to have him be able to predict it (because it seemed like he already knew), but then knew that if Thrawn did predict it he would stop it and then what? After all: TGGMW.