MK: I wonder what is your opinion: does the order in which handicap stones are placed matter much? Do pros usually care about it when someone plays with them?
WillerZ: See Handicap Placement for the traditional placings. Not sure if anyone is too dogmatic about it, however.
MK: Yeah, some strong players are dogmatic about it considering it to be clumsiness on part of a weaker player. I wonder if pros are usually like that too?
WillerZ: It depends on the ruleset in use -- I believe some rulesets require standard stone placement, and others are more flexible. Personally, I feel that it is up to the player receiving the stones to decide where to put them -- the standard positions are believed to be pretty close to ideal, so Black may be at a disadvantage if he doesn't go with the normal way, but I think it would be rude of White to object to that.
Hu: In Chinese rules, as implemented on KGS, there is free placement of handicap stones.