CGC grades the book in hand, you are grading from a blown up image that is from a camera. The real takeaways here are that 1. You are grading a picture of the book, not in hand. Fortunately CGC doesn't grade enlarged images on a screen as defects always look worse. 2. bends that do not break color and are not really defects are negligible, 2-3 small spine ticks will still land you in 9.4 territory (small spine ticks). 9.6 is typically just 1 small spine tick. The book isn't misgraded, you just need to realize that grading a blown up image will backfire in these contests. Toro used to win grading from his phone