Well, I did a search on gobase for the full game position. There were 21 hits with white approaching from the top at "a" in the original diagram, whereas there were 55 hits with white approaching along the right side with "b"...

I wonder if the influence obtained by white after the black 3-3 invasion is less than my intuition tells me.

It sounds like the rationale for preferring "b" to "a" is that the wall from the 3-3 is not that strong, and white has only a 3rd line stone extending from the wall...

It's still hard for me to "feel it", though.

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be immersed

Older heads are not necessarily wiser. At the back of my mind was a section in the latest book I have just sent off to Slate & Shell (The Insha Game) which recounts the turbulence just before the formation of the Nihon Ki-in. The older players were in serious danger of losing control of their pupils because of the mess created by the older players' petty factionalism. It was even more serious after the second world war with the Igo Shinsha rebellion, when young people in Japan generally wouldn't listen to their elders because of the mess of the war they had got them into.

But I still cringe with embarrassment at episodes when I was young and thought I was giving weight to objectivity and logic over age and experience. I was not only convinced I was right, but I often couldn't even see a way I could possibly be wrong. Now older, and I hope wiser (certainly wider as I Freudianly just mistyped), I have acquired consequently a particular distrust of logic, and I don't rate objectivity much higher. One trap I often fell into when young was winning the battle and forgetting about the war. In that context, note that I would rank experience rather higher than age. However, one other thing I learned quite late in life was that age is not merely a repository for experience. In particular, I wish when young that I'd had the patience aging teaches. I still haven't got it, but at least I can see it beckoning.

I would like to comment on the magnitude of the differences between choices in these examples. I think that they are less than 1/2 point.

I do not mean to disparage that magnitude. If you play 120 moves and lose, on average, 1/2 point per move, that comes to 60 points. If you lose that much by comparison with your opponent's play in the opening, you give up one stone or more in strength.

However, this kind of directional choice occurs only a few times in a game. And often the difference comes to only a small fraction of a point. That means that for one player to learn what is right by experience is almost impossible, because its effect on the probability of winning a game is slight. (I expect that learning half point differences by experience alone is possible over time for a community of players, but perhaps not for smaller differences.)

Also, this level of difference may be overcome by style. A play that theoretically loses 1/2 point may be better for a particular player than the theoretically best play, given that player's style. (I cringe as I write this, because I have heard bad players excuse bad play because "It fits my style." Better to make the best play you can and change your style, IMO.)

I think that amnal's database approach is a good one. Not that you should simply choose the most popular option in pro play, but if it differs from your intuition, try to understand why.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

That may be enough examples to say where pro opinion leans, but that still does not say what is right.



This pattern has been accepted as an even game joseki only within the last 50 years. Before that, the Suzuki-Kitani Small Joseki Dictionary considers it inferior for White. Pro opinion has obviously changed. And, who knows, maybe it will change back.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

During school time one year I had a bad math teacher, trying to teach us geometry. I felt his weakness, his lack of grasp on the material he was teaching. I spent my time proving him wrong, asking questions, spotting mistakes etc. I was pretty full of myself, I even passed one of the preliminaries of the math olympiad that year, proving to me how great I was. I later recognized that my effort was ill-invested, I didn't really understand what we were doing there. (Ending in the worst math grades I ever had, before or after.)

To conclude: A student who is talking too much, stops listening. However, this is an insight no teacher can force upon you, you have to recognize that for yourself.

Though I wonder: Would it be better if western teachers, who tend to teach more bad habits than eastern ones, would teach them more forcefully? My personal impression is that western players acquire most bad habits during teaching games, from the different attitude they are played with, i.e. whether the stronger player wants to see you improve or wants to defend the handicap most of all.

I think the problem is my strategic thinking. That is a part that contains many aspects which i cant evaluate profoundly. And thats the seed for doubts.
The examples stated above were prototypes for situations where i have seen conflicts between two proverbs. I posted these questions to find out if i have made a FUNDAMENTAL error. In contrast to Life & Death is the acquisition of strategic knowledge a little bit harder, because an error isn't always so obvious like an emty triangle.
According to the answers given so far i realize that sometimes i am thinking too much in proverb categories. I often encounter situations where i feel uneasy when i have to make a strategic decision justified only on my own positional judgement. Because i am not always very confident I try to compensate this with proverbs. Although i am not always able to judge how important a proverb-move is in comparison to other moves.
At the moment i ask myself if i want too much explanations and analysis. Perhaps this is indeed a weastern symptom that i want to have a shortcut instead of making slowly progress via experience and just trying out.

I think I agree with this... Although, as a "student", I am reluctant with who I choose as a teacher

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be immersed