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Sounds fair enough, but you know the consequence of expecting, also in informal discussion, everybody everywhere to write "usually correct", "usually punishes" etc. E.g., you yourself would have to replace "makes almost sente" by something like "depending on the global positional context can make an immediate sente or prepares a severe follow-up", "threatens to separate" by "usually threatens to separate", "provides one such global position" by "it can be argued that it is such a global position" etc. Do you really want everybody to apply the same precision in informal texts I apply to formal definitions? Great!
No, Robert. This illustrates nicely the problem with monolithic thinking: picking up on one thing and ignoring whatever may suit everyone else. Uberdude mentioned TWO things: "Then don't use such strong words as "correct" and "punishes" without qualifiers." You picked up on "qualifiers" but ignored "strong." If your original statement (move A was "correct" and move B was a "refutation as it threatens the connection" had been expressed as move A was "more usual" and move B simply "threatens the connection", there would have been fewer words, not more, and the meaning would have actually been clearer, and I don't think anyone would have commented on it (to oneself at most, perhaps, with an internal shrug and a "well, ok for beginners, I suppose...").
Your comment that we can't know what the pros thought can also be challenged.
In the case of Shusai versus Segoe we have commentaries by both players and by an outsider. I think it is instructive to look at these. The full game is below.
SHUSAI
“Black 17 is a fine move appropriate to this juncture.
“(Supplement: Black 17 is the kind of good point known as “staring in eight directions.” It has the implication of a two-space pincer against White 12 next at A [H3] and also has a long-term aim at invasion on the right side at B [Q7], and also it copes in a far-off way with a White attachment at C [D15]. If Black omits this move, and White does attach at C in the upper left, he will have no way to push in severely with the hane at D [D16]. If he nevertheless does, what follows is White E [C16], Black F [E16], White connection at G [C17]. Then if Black tries the ladder at H [D14], White can run out at I [E15] and Black will have nowhere to play. But with Black 17 in place, the ladder works for him, so that when Black does hane at D it does not make sense for White to atari on the inside at E, so he has no option but to atari on the outside at F. Therefore White has to proceed on the basis of taking into account that he cannot play at C immediately, and so he first defends at 18. There is no move as powerful here as Black 17.)”
The "supplement" here is Kido's expansion of what the Master said.
SEGOE
“This was a game in which White was fertile with variations. I won this game to end up with four wins in a row, but there is no record of who I played in the fifth game.”
His first comment on the moves was: “The result of the sequence White 30 to 36 was to make the game full of possibilities.”
Segoe's only other comment was on the sequence 129 to 139, in the upper left, which he said was mochikomi and so a bit of a loss for Black.
However, Shusai commented that White 30 was not well timed. He said, “The timing dictated that I should first have played the knight’s move at R18 in the upper right, or the diagonal attachment at C16 in the upper left to see how Black will respond.” There is detailed explanation of this and quite of lot of other commentary, omitted here but none of it relates to the right side. However, at the end there is a summary of the flow of the game which says that Black was able to maintain the advantage of first move by proceeding nice and cautiously and he got his reward in the middle game with a superior position. Shusai played well to lose by only one point (Shusai criticised only two of his own moves, 88 (“unreasonable,” should be 89) and 218 (the losing move).
So what we see here is that there is no sense that Shusai regretted his wide move on the right. If anything it gave him richer possibilities and his only regret in that area was that he mistimed White 30. In the actual game the connection never came under direct threat or caused any commentable problems. Black 17 (which was also a common move even against the narrow extension, incidentally) caused Shusai regret, but the suggestion appears that this is first because of its effect on the lower side (which is where he chose to respond - the not the right side) and second on the upper left, which is where Shusai would have loved to have played (to justify his 3-to-1 stone investment), but he was inhibited from playing there for a long time because of the ladder). Further, the one comment that does relate to the right side simply says Black has a long-term aim (nerai) there. To me there is a big difference between a long-term aim and a threat.
We also see that Segoe chose not to comment on the right side at all.
On top of all that, although a statement that "White R9 [instead of White 14] is more usual and Black 15 threatens the connection" would not have been objectionable, it doesn't help us judge the
whole game in the way Shusai+Kido or Segoe's comments do.
If, however, we look at the position purely as a local joseki, it seems that there is a better way of phrasing the otherwise unobjectionable comment. Kitani, for example, says of this joseki that after R9 the point N6 (Black 17) is important for
both players. Then he adds that This applies even more so if the extension is wider, to R10. There is no hint of criticism in that - just an implicit reminder that timing of the knight's move will matter, which is precisely what we saw in the Segoe-Suzuki game, where it must be noted, Segoe did not respond to the wide move at once; he played in the upper left first, and it was that that apparently caused Shusai problems.
My argument is that by being less dogmatic and prescriptive than RJ, the Japanese commentaries have been much more informative about the whole game, yet have also aided study of the joseki qua joseki by illustrating its rich possibilities and hints for both sides, and they have done this with no significant extra wordage. I have added more than of few words, of course, but that should not be allowed to obscure the leanness of the Japanese commentaries.